The obvious tendency

James Madison

That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret, that a spirit has in sundry instances, been manifested by the federal government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound certain general phrases ... so as to destroy the meaning and effect, of the particular enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases; and so as to consolidate the States by degrees, into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable consequences of which would be, to transform the present republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy.

James Madison
The Virginia Resolutions of 1798
[emphasis added]

More to this post to come....