The necessary and proper clause (also known as the elastic clause) grants congress a set of so-called implied powers, which are powers not named in the constitution but assumed to exist due to their being necessary to implement the expressed powers that are named in Article 1.
The expressed powers of Congress include:
The expressed powers of Congress include:
- Power to tax
- Power to borrow money
- Power to regulate commerce and currency
- Power to declare war
- Power to raise armies and maintain the navy
- Power to establish rules to allow foreign-born immigrants to become citizens of the United States
- Power to make rules for bankruptcies
- Power to punish counterfeiters
- Power to set up a national post office
- Power to provide for copyrights and patents to protect the work of inventors and artists
- Power to organize all federal courts below the Supreme Court
- Power to punish pirates
- Power to hire pirates to attack foreign enemies
- Power to make rules to regulate the conduct of the armed forces
- Power to call out the militia to defend the country from invasions or insurrections
- Power to organize and discipline the militia
- Power to govern the federal capital (Washington, DC)
- Power to acquire lands from the states for use by the federal government
- Power to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers...."