Originally Posted by Greger
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...the term general welfare in the preamble meant the general welfare of the nation.
No argument from me on that.

Now...in a nation of, by, and for the people...

When we discus "the general welfare of the nation", just who exactly are we talking about?

Billionaires? The Trump Family? Republicans only? Corporate interests only? Or perhaps all of the people who make up the nation?
That symposium was a long time ago. It was my understanding that the general welfare meant the nation as a whole. What makes up the nation, first it was a union of the several states which each have people in them. The gist was keeping the nation on sound financial grounds, securing and defending the nation, pretty much anything you can think of dealing with the nation as a whole. Not just parts of it.

Those were different days, the framers certainly looked at things different than we do today. The nation was for the most part an agrarian society, not highly industrialized, outside of a few cities, not urban. If one couldn't make it in the east, all he had to do is move west to where there was plenty of land available. This is no longer the case. Our society today is urban and suburban. Even the family farm is a thing of the past replaced by corporate farming.

So we have to look at things different. The framers knew things would change and they provided a means to change the constitution, via the amendment which we have had 26 of them.

I do think when the Constitution was written, when the preamble provided the introduction to it, the phrase general welfare applied to the nation as a whole. It was expected back then the states would take care of their own people. Back then when as were one came from, the reply was the state, New York, Virginia, Georgia, etc. I guess I'm off on a tangent, but in today's day and age, the federal government has taken over the responsibility for the people from the states, so whether the framers mean the nation or the people, that seems irrelevant.

Back then, it was just the nation as a whole. Today, it's everyone and everybody.

It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.