But if the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever over the district of Columbia; if the 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;
if the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the
several States and with the Indian tribes, to fix the standard of
weights and measures, to establish post-offices and post-roads, to
declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a
navy, to dispose of and make all heedful rules and regulations
respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United
States, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying these powers into execution--if these powers and others
enumerated in the Constitution may be effectually brought into action by
laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce, and
manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of
the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the
sciences, ornamental and profound, to refrain from exercising them for
the benefit of the people themselves would be to hide in the earth the
talent committed to our charge--would be treachery to the most sacred of
trusts.
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