Article Image

IPFS News Link • Government

Revisiting Governmental Powers

• https://www.fff.org, by Jacob G. Hornberger

We sometimes hear about a concept called "the inherent powers of government." These refer to what are commonly called "police powers." Such inherent police powers refer to the power of a government to enact laws that protect the "health, safety, morals, and welfare" of the citizenry.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this concept does not apply to the federal government. The Framers did not want to call into existence a national government that wielded inherent powers. Moreover, they knew that if they proposed that type of government to the American people, there was no reasonable possibility Americans would have approved the Constitution. In that case, the United States would have simply continued operating under the Article of Confederation, which was a type of governmental structure under which the federal government's powers were so weak that it hadn't even been given the power to tax.

Thus, to sell a new type of governmental system to the American people, the Framers knew that they had to guarantee people that this would not be the old type of European government that wielded "inherent powers" or the traditional "police powers" to take actions and enact laws to protect the "health, safety, morals, and welfare" of the citizenry.

The enumerated powers doctrine

So, how did the Framers handle this problem? The document that would call the federal government into existence — the Constitution — made it clear that the federal government's powers would be limited to those enumerated in the document itself. If a power wasn't enumerated, then it could not be wielded or exercised.


ppmsilvercosmetics.com/ERNEST/