With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always
regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with
them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a
metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a
host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words
obtained so readily a place in the 'Articles of Confederation,' and
received so little notice in their admission into the present
Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both,
the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of
meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken
for granted.

James Madison
in a letter to James Robertson(1751-1836)
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