[joshua]

Is Article 1 Section 1 of the Constitution the main source of our problems?
What were the Founders thinking when they gave a congress the right to create law? I see the obvious things, like creating laws about interaction with foreign countries and the states and such, but didn’t they know that men having the supposed right to create law out of thin air against another man, that could be changed at any time, isn’t logical or Just? I don’t understand why they gave that power, or if they even had the right to give men such a power. Why did congress need the power to create law, didn’t the Founders believe in Common Law or Natural Law?
Isn’t this what Jefferson meant when he wrote, “Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
So why did they give the tyrants the right to make law?

[derosa8]

Great question. It seems the logical conclusion is they ONLY intended to give Congress the power to make law necessary AND proper to carry into execution their powers which were “FEW and DEFINED.” It is quite obvious that many states would not have ratified if they thought they were giving Congress power to make whatever law they wanted.

[gutzmank]

Congress doesn’t have a general power to make law. Rather, it has the enumerated powers in the Constitution. In order to exercise most of those powers, it must make law. There would be no way to exercise most of them without making law. Article I, Section 1 doesn’t say Congress “shall have the power to make law”; rather, it says Congress will have the legislative powers granted by the Constitution.

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