Talk:Necessary and Proper Clause

Definition of Proper
The definition of necessary seems clear enough. If one must do something in order for another thing to happen, then the former is necessary to the latter.

However, the definition of "proper" seems vague. Can anyone clarify this?

Was Wickard really about forbidding him to EAT his own wheat? I thought it was merely to grow in excess of the quota. The opinion in fact seems to say that the lower court failed to find out what the disposition of the grown corn was in fact, fact that he exceeded his quota. (I also thought it was wheat, not corn.) Biogon (talk) 04:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I think you're right, but since you have to grow it before you can eat it, I'd say the result is the same.  It's been a while since I read the opinion, but I believe Wickard's use for the grain was to feed his hogs. 24.6.66.193 (talk) 10:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * One possibility is to relate it to Aristotle's proper function argument, which says: something is proper of another thing if it precisely fulfills the definition of that thing. For example, I speak properly of a doctor when I say he cures the bodies of patients.  I speak loosely of a doctor when I say he must eat food to survive.  His eating food to survive might be proper of him qua human being, but not of him qua doctor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.171.155.138 (talk) 08:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Const. Text
Noticed that the text of the clause was not complete. Added the complete text as showing at constitution.net. 4.156.27.97 (talk) 22:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

hyphenation
why is this entry hyphenated? It is two words - "Necessary", and "proper". Not one hyphenated idiom. 86.147.25.183 (talk) 18:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course, "necessary-and-proper" is hyphenated when it is an adjective. In the English language, we have lots of hyphenated adjectival or adverbial phrases, such as "dawn-to-dusk", "analog-to-digital", "digital-to-analog", "reasonable-and-proper", "quasi-governmental", "anti-missile missile", "four-year term", "civil-law", and "criminal-law", such as in the sentence "The attorney specialized in criminal-law cases". I get irritated by writers who do not realize this. Are they British? Anyway, if this is an American way of doing thing, this is an Internet encyclopedia maintained on servers in the United States of America, and besides that point, this is an article about an issue about the Constitution of the United States.72.146.43.188 (talk) 01:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Article unfinished
This article is in really bad shape. It needs to explain why the founding fathers decided that this clause was necessary among other things.-- penubag  (talk) 06:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that this is a very important point: something about the history of this clause and the rationale behind it is reasonable-and-proper.72.146.43.188 (talk) 01:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Desegregation
I removed the reference to desegregation, as I feel this is only tangentially related to the necessary-and-proper clause.Nwlaw63 (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Requested move
Move Parsecboy (talk) 05:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

This ties into the hyphenation dicussion above... The name of the article ought to be "Necessary and Proper Clause" as it is a proper name, not an adjective. See most of the links in the U.S. Const. link farm at the bottom of the article page for more examples. Foofighter20x (talk) 08:39, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Have a reference to back my move request: Foofighter20x (talk) 15:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support This is an anglicism, inappropriate for the subject matter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:39, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Lambert v. Yellowley. Also thought and question about dual citations.
I'm not sure the way I created a valid link for this was the best or preferred way. I felt the case name should remain the link rather than a footnote # next to it being the link because the latter changes it's appearance in a way that could suggest lesser importance of case and decrease reader motivation to read the case. I tested some changes until I found one that did this. It does appear to me that this may be a deviation from article style as other cases where names are the links all seem to be internal links but that may be because other cases have Wickipedia articles and this doesn't (I haven't looked to see if it does or doesn't).

IMO as a general matter I think citations to law, case law, regulations and such matters that have Wickipedia articles should have nearly equally prominent links to both the articles and the external sources for ease of comparison. I'm not certain how this could best be accomplished, let alone made easy for editors to do. However, I've spotted a number of references in the Wickipedia which are supposed to actually state/quote part or all of a court opinion, law or regulation but deviate from the actual text found in the USC online or other most official source available online. Is this thought about "dual citations" a subject that has been considered and some decision made about desirability, practicallity and other relevant factors?Moss&amp;Fern (talk) 04:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Modern Controversy
It seems to me a Modern Controversy section would be a good addition to this article. There's certainly no lack of it regarding many significant matters.Moss&amp;Fern (talk) 09:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I know your comment was from a long time ago, but I agree that such a section would make a valuable addition to the article, if someone would care to undertake it. Nwlaw63 (talk) 02:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * After giving the article a recent look, it seems to me that the last sentence of the article is unsourced editorializing. While it may be true, it should either be sourced, removed, or expanded upon in a "Modern Controversy section". If no one objects, I will modify or removed this in the near future. Nwlaw63 (talk) 02:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I added the following but it was deleted by a wiki editor - can anyone tell me what is wrong with it?

Critics of modern case law who favor an "Original Intent" method of interpretation of the Constiution, point out that the necessary and proper clause gives Congress the power to create for itself "lesser powers" that are Necessary and Proper "for the Execution" of those Constitutional level powers granted Congress and cannot be used to nullify Constitutional limits on federal powers or to give Congress powers, either stripped from the Constitution during the Constitutional Convention debates, or expressly denied to Congress by the finalized wording of that document and later Amendments. 71.174.142.108 (talk) 03:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * As the edit summary says, it was unsourced. Given your history of edit warring on this topic, for which your other IP was just recently blocked for a brief period, you may want to consider gaining WP:CONSENSUS for your changes. They seem to all have the single purpose of pushing your non-mainstream point of view that this is a current controversy with due weight to be added to a number of articles. Remember, getting a reliable source (which you did not do in this case) is, in itself, not enough. --4wajzkd02 (talk) 03:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Last I checked wiki articles evolve. Before you can get intelligent life, you need to get past the stage of a one cell organism. Before my entry here, wiki was a lifeless wasteland on that issue, in this article, - notice the "I can't be bothered" comments above, and I only have one single solitary post "on this topic", so how can I be edit warring? and why are you following me around and deleting everything I add? Did my mention of your admission that "I know nothing about this subject" get you steamed up, or do you get your jollies from harassing people? and out of curiosity "do you know as much about the Necessary and Proper clause as you do the history of legal tender paper money?


 * as for getting CONSENSUS how do you expect me to get CONSENSUS from non-existent editors. Have you checked the edit history for this subject yet?71.174.142.108 (talk) 03:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Given the past few days, when you're going from article to article making different changes in each, but all along the same core concepts and with the same problems, you should expect that editors, having seen what you're doing, will track other changes you've made. And when a change has been reverted in previous articles, you don't automatically have consensus in a new article to add it.  Ravensfire (talk) 03:59, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * What I've been doing as looking around wiki to find what it said on subjects relating to what I was trying to add and finding that it is sadly "lacking" and I was trying to correct that "lack". Now why don't you go do something constructive with your life.71.174.142.108 (talk) 04:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't know if it deserves a big mention, but there is something called the 10th Amendment Movement which may merit a line or two - the label covers attempts by a number of states to declare themselves not bound by Federal laws not needed for the execution of those power specifically granted the Federal Government - The Obama heath care mandate is a hot issue for this movement http://www.statehousecall.org/?s=tenth+amendment

As reported in a front page story in the New York Times last week, there is a growing movement of state legislators who are taking action to protect individual health care and health insurance choices. There are now three more states, Alaska, Mississippi, and Missouri, where legislators have taken up the cause if defending individual free choice when it comes to health insurance. They join legislators in the 10 states that have already filed or pre-filed legislation (AZ, FL, IN, MN, ND, NM, MI, OH, WV, WY) and the four states (GA, KS, LA, and UT) that have already publicly announced their intention to file the legislation. 71.174.142.108 (talk) 03:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Issue with title
the title text at the begining of the article has been changed to "The Necessary and Proper pink pony Clause" I just thought that you should know. 207.87.171.130 (talk) 17:43, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Misleading
The presentation on Wikipedia seems fraudulent. It suggest that the powers are not enumerated, when they are specifically spelled out.

The "text" is incomplete, to the point that is misleading.

First it says, located at section eight, clause eighteen. That's not true. Section eight is only one sentence, spaced out in eighteen clauses. It's quoting the first part of the sentence, in clause one, and the last part of the sentence in clause eighteen, but excludes the explicitly enumerated powers.

The sample of text that is included, references the "foregoing Powers," while suggesting that there are no aforementioned expressly enumerated powers. Guess most people don't know what foregoing means? All laws that Congress has the authority to pass, must be related to the powers that are expressly listed before clause eighteen of section eight. This is conveniently missing from this "article."

Currently, the last part of the one and only sentence in section eight is treated as a catch all phrase. That should be mentioned. That should even be the point of the article, because it's notable. But, it's not notable without context. It should be mentioned as a legal contrivance, and not as the actuality of the document.

But, when you start with a misquote, and bogus details as to where the quote came from, then I guess anything goes.

Should you have the complete text, or perhaps some indication that you are only displaying 5% of the text of the clause? That may help. The parts in bold are included in this article. The rest is missing.

It should be noted in the article that all of section eight is just one sentence. It is not intended to be read in part. And, publishing it in part here is a mistake.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Perceptions change, when context is viewed. So, why is there no context in this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.67.117.86 (talk) 05:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Implied Powers
Implied powers do not play a big enough role in this article. Often enough, Necessary and Proper Cause/Elastic Cause and implied powers are used interchangeably, so why isn't implied powers listed up there at the top with the different clauses? -- A Normal Username 04:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)