On Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:40:49 -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Madison commented on this clause specifically, knowing that people
would try to read it as you have: A Get Out Of Jail Free card for
all manner of Federal government action. He specifically said it
was *not* that - that reading it this way would undermine the doctrine
of enumerated powers that animates the entire Constitution.

Could be. OTOH, it could be only Madison's personal view of the matter.
There were a lot of differing opinions at that convention and a lot of
language was purposely left vague to achieve a consensus. Not that I know
this clause is one of those, just that it could be.

BTW, I accidentally deleted Doug Miller's post, so I'll comment on it
here. He stated something along the lines of "The Constitution is what it
says it is" and goes on to say that the Supreme Court is often wrong in
its interpretation.

Well, I'd sure rather trust some experienced judicial minds to tell me
what the Constitution means than to trust Doug's interpretation. Or my
own for that matter.

If I misquoted you DOug, I apologize.