Necessary and Proper Clause

The 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.

Article One of the United States Constitution, section 8, clause 18

Madison then argues at length for the Necessary and Proper Clause, noting that no part of the constitution had come under more attack. He states flatly that the clause is "invulnerable" and that without it the constitution would be a "dead letter." He says that the Constitution might have listed either enumerated those necessary and proper powers or attempted to list those that were expressly not necessary and proper, but argues that either exercise would have been futile in that no list could ever fully take into account all of the nation's present and future concerns.

He responds to critics who feared that the clause would allow the government to overstep its powers that the people would have the same redress to this as to any occasion on which the legislature abused its powers: the balance of the executive and legislative branches, and the potential to remove the offending legislators via the ballot box.