In construing the Constitution the very proper and indeed absolutely necessary principle has been followed that that instrument was intended to endure for all time and that its grants of power are, therefore, to be interpreted as applicable to new conditions as they arise. By this is not meant, however, that these new conditions shall in any case justify the exercise of a power not granted, or create a limitation not imposed by the Constitution, but that the powers which are granted shall, if possible, be made applicable to these new conditions.

Justice Iredell though agreeing in the decision of the court dissented from Chase's reasoning, saying: "If, then, a government composed of legislative, executive and judicial departments were established by a Constitution which imposed no limits on the legislative power, the consequence would immediately be that whatever the legislative should choose to enact would be lawfully enacted, and the judicial power could never interfere to pronounce it void. It is true that some speculative jurists have held, that a legislative act against natural justice must in itself be void; but I cannot think that under such a government, any court of justice would possess a power to pronounce it so. ... If any act of Congress, or of the legislature of a State, violates those constitutional provisions [of the United States Constitution], it is unquestionably void; though, I admit, as the authority to declare it void is of a delicate and awful nature, the court will never resort to that authority but in a clear and urgent case. If, on the other hand, the legislature of the Union, or the legislature of any member of the Union, shall pass a law within the general scope of their constitutional power, the court cannot pronounce it void, merely because it is, in their judgment, contrary to the principles of natural justice. The ideas of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard; the ablest and purest men have differed upon the subject; and all that the court could properly say in such an event, would be, that the legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice."

Thus the grant to the Federal Government of the control over interstate and foreign commerce is held to be one the extent of which, though not its importance, is not varied by the fact that the instrumentalities by which it is carried on are widely different from those employed in 1789. On the other hand, if the writing of insurance policies, or the dealing in banking instruments of exchange- were not, in 1789, considered interstate commercial transactions, and by reason of their very nature could not properly have been, no augmentation in their amount and no increase in the practical need for their federal regulation will justify a construction that will attach an interstate commercial character to them, and thus bring them within the power of the Federal Government to control.

The principle, as it has been stated, does not prevent a construction by which the powers and limitations enumerated in the Constitution are made applicable to new conditions of fact which were not and could not have been foreseen by those who adopted the Constitution. In the Dartmouth case48 Marshall says: "It is more than possible that the preservation of the rights of this description was not particularly in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when the clause under consideration, impairment of contracts, was introduced into that instrument. . . . It is not enough to say that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention when the article was framed, nor of the American people when it was adopted. It is necessary to" go further and to say that had this particular case been suggested the language would have been so varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case being within the words of the rule, must be within its operations likewise, unless there is something within its literal construction so obviously absurd or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument, as to justify those who expounded the Constitution in making it an exception." Again, in Be Debs49 the court say: "Constitutional provisions do not change, but their operation extends to new matters as the modes of life and habits of the people vary with each succeeding generation. The law of the common carrier is the same to-day as when transportation by land was by coach and wagon and on water by canal-boat and sailing vessel, yet in its actual operation it touches and regulates transportation by modes then unknown. Just so is it with the grant to the National Government of power over interstate commerce. The Constitution has not changed. The power is the same. But it operates to-day upon modes of interstate commerce then unknown to the fathers, and it will operate with equal force upon any new modes of such commerce which the future may develop." 50

48 Wh. 518; 4 L. ed. 629.

49 158 U. S. 564; 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 900; 39 L. ed. 1092.

50 To the same effect, as the foregoing, is the declaration of the court in South Carolina v. United States (199 U. S. 437; 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 110; 50 L. ed. 261), in which they say: "The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now. Being a grant of powers to a government, its language is general; and, as changes come in social and political life, it embraces within its grasp all new conditions which are within the scope of the powers in terms conferred. In other words, while the powers granted do not change, they apply from generation to generation to all things to which they are in their nature applicable. This in no manner abridges the fact of its changeless nature and meaning. Those things which are within its grants of power, as those grants were understood when made, are still within them; and those things not within them remain still excluded. As said by Mr. Chief Justice Taney in Scott v. Sandford (19 How. 393; 15 L. ed. 691), 'It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same power to the government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and in its present form it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day.'"

Justice Story, in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1 Wh. 304; 4 L. ed. 97), discussing the principle of construction to be applied to the Constitution, declares: "The instrument was not intended to provide merely for the which is not expressly delegated by the Confederation, it does not then follow that the United States in Congress have no other powers, jurisdiction, or rights, than those delegated by the particular States. The United States have general rights, general powers, and general obligations, not derived from any particular States, nor from all the particular States taken separately; but resulting from the union of the whole. ... To many purposes the United States are to be considered as one undivided, independent nation; and as possessed of all the rights, powers and properties by the law of nations incident to such. "Whenever an object occurs, to the direction of which no particular State is competent, the management of it must, of necessity, belong to the United States in Congress assembled. There are many objects of this extended nature."