Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/125

 CH. XXIV.]. In truth, no particular regulation of commerce can ever be shown to be exclusively and indispensably necessary; and thus we should be driven to admit, that all regulations are within the scope of the power, or that none are. If there be any general principle, which is inherent in the very definition of government, and essential to every step of the progress to be made by that of the United States, it is, that every power, vested in a government, is in its nature sovereign, and includes, by force of the term, a right to employ all the means requisite, and fairly applicable to the attainment of the end of such power; unless they are excepted in the constitution, or are immoral, or are contrary to the essential objects of political society.

§ 1241. There is another difficulty in the strict construction above alluded to, that it makes the constitutional authority depend upon casual and temporary circumstances, which may produce a necessity to-day, and change it to-morrow. This alone shows the fallacy of the reasoning. The expediency of exercising a particular power at a particular time must, indeed, depend on circumstances; but the constitutional right of exercising it must be uniform and invariable; the same to-day as to-morrow.

§ 1242. Neither can the degree, in which a measure is necessary, ever be a test of the legal right to adopt it. That must be a matter of opinion, (upon which different men, and different bodies may form opposite judgments,) and can only be a test of expediency.