The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 31, July 1927 - April, 1928 Page: 211
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Framing the Constitution of the Republic of Texas 211
poses of paying the debts and providing for the common defense
and general welfare of the Republic. No doubt they were acquainted
with Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the
United States, and he had given that interpretation to the "general
welfare clause" in the older constitution.5" That is, he said it
should be interpreted to read: "The congress shall have power
to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, in order to pay
the debts, and to provide for the common defense and general wel-
fare of the United States." However, Story says that "some
minds of great ingenuity and liberality of view" have taken the
position that it gave to congress broad powers to legislate for the
general welfare of the nation. It appears that the Texans were
inserting a questionable expression in their constitution, and it
might be urged that they showed a lack of constructive ability in
their failure to find a different expression the meaning of which
could never be brought into question. But this would have been
hard to do.
In the rest of the section on the powers of congress the Texans
followed the Constitution of the United States in delegating to
that body the power to regulate commerce, coin money, fix stand-
ards of weights and measures, establish post offices and post roads,
grant patents and copyrights, declare war, grant letters of marque
and reprisal, regulate captures, provide an army and navy, call
out the militia to suppress insurrection and repel invasions. To
these powers they added the right to grant charters of incorpora-
tion, and to pass laws necessary to carry out the foregoing "express
grants of power" and "all other power granted the government or
any officer."
In this matter the framers appear to have been inconsistent in
following the Constitution of the United States, which provides
for a lawmaking body with delegated powers and none other,
leaving many powers to the states or to the people. The Texans
were creating a central or unitary government that would have to
exercise all the powers of sovereignty except that retained by the
people. It is true that there are some delegations of power besides
those noted above, but the sum total of these delegated powers
represents but a part of the many things the legislature of such a
"Story, Joseph, Commentary on the Constitution, Boston, 1833, sec-
tions 907 and 908.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 31, July 1927 - April, 1928, periodical, 1928; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101088/m1/229/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.