The Convention that framed the Constitution was well aware that the portion of its labors which related to the extent of the powers to be given to the new government was that upon which the public mind was most sensitive. It was not ignorant how far the apprehensions of the people upon that point had, through the entire period of our colonial history, prevented the establishment of any general government, and even the institution of one since the Declaration of Independence that was adequate to the necessities of the country. It knew that the powers given to Congress, particularly, would be the part of the Constitution to which the attention of the friends of the State governments would be directed, and upon which their opposition would be most likely to arise. Understanding these things, the Convention, with that good sense and prudence by which its entire course was so greatly distinguished, bestowed upon that branch of its business the utmost care and circumspection. Instead of describing the power given to Congress in general terms, as was done by Hamilton, in the plan submitted by him for its adoption,--viz.: "To pass all laws which they shall judge necessary to the common defense and general welfare of the Union,"--by which much would of necessity be left to the discretion of those who were to execute the power, the Convention specified the powers it intended to grant under seventeen heads, and described them in the simplest and plainest language, so that none should be at a loss to understand their import. So well was this design executed that no room for doubt or cavil remained to those who had no other desire than to arrive at the meaning of the framers of the Constitution. Here the Convention might have stopped, for no implication could have been more unavoidable than that Congress should have the right to promulgate the rules they adopted by the enactment of laws. But as if aware of the uses which the able men from whom it apprehended opposition might make of the fact that a necessity of a resort to implication had been left by the instrument, it granted that power also in express terms. The principal part of that clause was moreover designed to constitute Congress the law-maker for the other great departments of the government, and to exclude the idea that they should also have the power of legislation. Having thus, as it thought, guarded the work of its hands from misrepresentation or misinterpretation upon what it justly considered the most delicate and, if disregarded, the most vulnerable point, and having framed a Constitution with which all friends to republican principles ought to be satisfied, the Convention appealed with confidence to the ratifying conventions, and in doing so it did no more than justice to those bodies,--the instrument, thus guarded, was ultimately ratified by the votes of all the States.