At the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Patrick Henry took the opposing view by saying that the clause would lead to limitless federal power, which would inevitably menace individual liberty.
To embarrass Madison, his contrary claims from the Federalist Papers were read aloud in Congress:[4] No axiom is more clearly established in law or in reason than wherever the end is required, the means are authorized; wherever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power for doing it is included.Eventually, Southern opposition to the bank and to Hamilton's plan to have the federal government assume the war debts of the states was mollified by the transfer of the nation's capital from its temporary seat in Philadelphia to Washington, DC, a more southerly permanent seat on the Potomac, and the bill, along with the establishment of a national mint, was passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington.
In the case, the Court ruled against Maryland in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall, Hamilton's longtime Federalist ally.
But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the people.
[8] In a related case after the American Civil War, the clause was employed, in combination with other enumerated powers, to give the federal government virtually complete control over currency.
[citation needed] In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cannot be upheld under the Necessary and Proper Clause.
Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the mandate cannot "be sustained under the Necessary and Proper Clause as an integral part of the Affordable Care Act's other reforms.
The individual mandate, by contrast, vests Congress with the extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of an enumerated power and draw within its regulatory scope those who would otherwise lie outside it.
It was universally adopted by the courts and received Congress's imprimatur in Title 50 of the United States Code, Section 1541(b) (1994), in the purpose and policy of the War Powers Resolution.