From General Welfare to the Great Society traces a two-century argument over the meaning of a single constitutional phrase — and how that argument transformed an agrarian republic of enumerated powers into a modern administrative state.

The series follows the General Welfare Clause from the founding debates between Madison and Hamilton through the constitutional inflection points that expanded its reach: the New Deal's reinterpretation of federal authority, the Great Society's extension of that authority into health, education, and welfare, and the regulatory architecture that grew up around it. The argument is that what the founders intended as a strict limitation became, through accumulated reinterpretation, an open-ended grant of power.

Each chapter examines the specific moment, the personalities who shaped it, the alternatives rejected, and the consequences that followed. Articles are listed below, followed by the podcast archive. This series is complete; the newest content appears first.