It is not pretended that the Constitution has given any express authority, which they claim, for passing this law, and it is claimed only as implied in that clause of the Constitution which says: "Congress shall have power 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." It is clear that this clause was intended to be merely an auxiliary to the powers specially enumerated in the Constitution; and it must, therefore, be so construed as to aid them, and at the same time to leave the boundaries between the General Government and the State governments untouched. The argument by which the Select Committee have endeavored to establish the authority of Congress over the press is the following: "Congress has power to punish seditious combinations to resist the laws, and therefore Congress must have the power to punish false, scandalous, and malicious writings; because such writings render the Administration odious and contemptible among the people, and by doing so have a tendency to produce opposition to the laws." To make it support the construction of the committee, it should say that "Congress shall have power over all acts which are likely to produce acts which hinder the execution of," etc. Our construction confines the power of Congress to such acts as immediately interfere with the execution of the enumerated powers of Congress, because the power can only be necessary as well as proper when the acts would really hinder the execution. The construction of the committee extends the power of Congress to all acts which have a relation, ever so many degrees removed, to the enumerated powers, or rather to the acts which would hinder their execution. By our construction, the Constitution remains defined and limited, according to the plain intent and meaning of its framers; by the construction of the committee, all limitation is lost, and it may be extended over the different actions of life as speculative politicians may think fit. What has a greater tendency to fit men for insurrection and resistance to government than dissolute, immoral habits, at once destroying love of order, and dissipating the fortune which gives an interest in society? The doctrine that Congress can punish any act which has a tendency to hinder the execution of the laws, as well as acts which do hinder it, will, therefore, clearly entitle them to assume a general guardianship over the morals of the people of the United States. Again, nothing can have a greater tendency to ensure obedience to law, and nothing can be more likely to check every propensity to resistance to government, than virtuous and wise education; therefore Congress must have power to subject all the youth of the United States to a certain system of education. It would be very easy to connect every sort of authority used