The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, _to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States_; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. The juxtaposition of the words "common defense" and "general welfare" in this admirably written paragraph could hardly have been accidental, or have been due to any other cause than a juxtaposition of those ideas in the minds of the Constitution's framers. And what more natural connection can there be between any two ideas than between those of common defense and general welfare, since the general welfare of no country has ever continued long unless it was defended. Now the general welfare of every maritime power has always been intimately concerned with its sea-borne commerce. It is only by means of sea-borne commerce, for instance, that Americans can live in the way Americans wish to live. "General welfare" means more than mere existence. A mere existence is the life a savage lives. Furthermore, the general welfare of a country requires the safety of its exported and imported goods while on the sea, and includes the right of its citizens to travel with safety in every land, to buy and sell in foreign ports, to feel a proper measure of self-respect and national respect wherever they may go, and to command from the people of the lands they visit a proper recognition of their claims to justice. Naval defense may, therefore, be said to consist of three parts: 1st--Defense of the coast against bombardment and invasion. 2d--Defense of the trade routes traversed by ships carrying the exports and imports of the country. 3d--Defense of the national policy, including defense of the nation's reputation, honor, and prestige. Of these, defense of the coast against bombardment and invasion is the easiest, and defense of the national policy the most difficult; because in preventing bombardment and invasion the defender has the strategical advantage of being nearer home than the adversary; while in the defense of a country's policy, a naval force may have to "assume the offensive," and go even to the far distant coasts of the enemy--as the Russian fleet went to Tsushima, where it met its death. In that part of naval defense which is concerned with trade routes, the strategical advantage must go, in general, to that side which is the nearer to the locality where the decisive battle may occur.