Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/397

 CH. XIV.] to do whatever evil they pleased. It is an established rule of construction, where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give that, which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that, which will render all the others useless. Certainly, no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up strictly within the enumerated powers, and those, without which, as means, those powers could not be carried into effect.

§ 924. The same opinion has been maintained at different and distant times by many eminent statesmen. It was avowed, and apparently acquiesced in, in the state conventions, called to ratify the constitution; and it has been, on various occasions, adopted