Justice Sutherland suggests, directly affect "the internal affairs" of
the nation; they touch principally its peripheral relations, as it
were. The most serious inroads on the doctrine of enumerated powers are,
in fact, those which have taken place under cover of the doctrine--the
vast expansion in recent years of national legislative power in the
regulation of commerce among the States and in the expenditure of the
national revenues; and verbally at least Marshall laid the ground for
these developments in some of the phraseology above quoted from his
opinion in McCulloch _v._ Maryland.


Nondelegability of Legislative Power


ORIGIN OF DOCTRINE

At least three distinct ideas have contributed to the development of the
principle that legislative power cannot be delegated. One is the
doctrine of separation of powers: Why go to the trouble of separating
the three powers of government if they can straightway remerge on their
own motion? The second is the concept of due process of law, which
precludes the transfer of regulatory functions to private persons.
Lastly, there is the maxim of agency "_Delegata potestas non potest
delegari_," which John Locke borrowed and formulated as a dogma of
political science.[19] In Hampton Jr. & Co. _v._ United States,[20]
Chief Justice Taft offered the following explanation of the origin and
limitations of this idea as a postulate of constitutional law: "The
well-known maxim '_Delegata potestas non potest delegari_,' applicable
to the law of agency in the general and common law, is well understood
and has had wider application in the construction of our Federal and