Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/207

 CH. XXXI.] provisions of the constitution. But they will most properly come under consideration in a future part of these Commentaries. At present, it may suffice to say, that with reference to due energy in the government, due protection of the national interests, and due security to the Union, fewer powers could scarcely have been granted, without jeoparding the whole system. Without the power of the purse, the power to declare war, or to promote the common defence, or general welfare, would have been wholly vain and illusory. Without the power exclusively to regulate commerce, the intercourse between the states would have been constantly liable to domestic dissensions, jealousies, and rivalries, and to foreign hostilities, and retaliatory restrictions. The other powers are principally auxiliary to these; and are dictated at once by an enlightened policy, a devotion to justice, and a regard to the permanence (may it ripen into a perpetuity!) of the Union.