Is government an "impetuous vortex" or a "hideous monster [with] devouring jaws"?

Reading the Obamacare case in class preparation today, I notice those 2 metaphors, both taken from the Federalist Papers, both used in the process of saying that the Commerce Power doesn't support the requirement that everyone buy health insurance. "Impetuous vortex" — from The Federalist No. 48, written by James Madison — is quoted in  Chief Justice Roberts's opinion:

The Government’s theory [of the scope of the commerce power] would erode those limits, permitting Congress to reach beyond the natural extent of its authority, “everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.”

The "hideous monster [with] devouring jaws" — written by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 33 — appears in Justice Scalia's opinion:

If Congress can reach out and command even those furthest removed from an interstate market to participate in the market, then the Commerce Clause becomes a font of unlimited power, or in Hamilton’s words, “the hideous monster whose devouring jaws... spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor sacred nor profane.” The Federalist No. 33, p. 202 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).

Many have noted that Scalia (joined by Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito) did not join the Roberts opinion on the Commerce Clause, even though they said basically the same thing about it. Their spirit of resistance shows even through their choice of a different Federalist Paper with a different author and a different metaphor for government's voracious maw.

"Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own."

I didn't write this on my own. In fact, I didn't write it at all. Meade wrote this:

Lord North: Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by colonists and yeomen who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.

George Washington: Without our consent, we reject your taxes.

Lord North: There are a lot of smart people out there in the New World. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking British subjects of the Crown out there.

Thomas Jefferson: Stop coercing us, Lord North. Your Acts are intolerable.

Lord North: If you yankees were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great King somewhere in your life. Some members of Parliament helped to create this unbelievable Royal Navy system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in French and Indian Wars and the East India Company.



Alexander Hamilton: The King is your king. He is only our king by our agreement.

Lord North: If you've got a medical practice or silver smithery or a cabinetmaking business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The printing press didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the printing press so that all the pamphleteers could make money off the printing press.

Sam Adams: Hey, Lord North, shove your Stamp Act where the sun don't set.

Lord North: All right, all right - everybody just calm down. In politics, we all tolerate a certain amount of spin. I understand these are the games that get played in political campaigns. Although when folks just, like, omit entire sentences of what you said, they start kind of splicing and dicing, you may have gone a little over the edge there, you pesky Americans.

U.S. Treasury unfair to Thomas Jefferson.

ADDED: I finally got an in-sync video to embed. Watching it, I see I called Andrew Jackson "Alexander Hamilton." I do know the difference!

AND: I said "Pocahontas" for Sacajawea. This post, originally intended as an amusing trifle, turned into a big snafu.

"The crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made" — a lofty quote from Alexander Hamilton...

... quoted by William Kristol, who intones:

We are not now quite at a founding moment, or even a re-founding moment. But we have arrived at a genuine crisis, or a set of crises, and we may well be at a decisive moment for the country.

A picture of Hamilton is included, and I can't help thinking Kristol's into Hamilton in part because there's a resemblance between the 2 men:



Add a thought bubble to the Kristol pic: Can I get a tie like that?