What would James Madison have thought of the current bailouts?
James Madison was the fourth president of the United States. He was one of the primary authors of both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution.”
In 1817, Congress sent the Internal Improvements Bill to President Madison. It called for spending money on roads, canals and making other infrastructure-type improvements. Madison felt that the bill was unconstitutional, and so he vetoed it. His explanation for the veto can be found here, but the meat of his opinion is this paragraph:
To refer the power in question to the clause “to provide for common defense and general welfare” would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms “common defense and general welfare” embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared “that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.
Just like the enumerated powers of the Constitution didn’t give authority to Congress to spend money on roads then, there is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress any authority to bailout the financial industry, the American auto industry, or any other industry.
I think it’s safe to say that Madison would have been opposed to these bailouts. Boy could we use someone like him today.