James Madison to M. L. Hurlbert (May 1830)

Montpellier, May, 1830.

And if I am to answer your appeal to me as a witness, I must say that the real measure of the powers meant to be granted to Congress by the Convention, as I understood and believe, is to be sought in the specifications, to be expounded, indeed, not with the strictness applied to an ordinary statute by a court of law, nor, on the other hand, with a latitude that, under the name of means for carrying into execution a limited Government, would transform it into a Government without limits.