This would rather be a result of the whole mass of the powers of the government, and from the nature of political society, than a consequence of either of the powers specially enumerated.

This is an extensive case in which the power of erecting corporations is either implied in, or would result from some or all of the powers vested in the national government.
Since it must be conceded that implied powers are as completely delegated as those which are expressed, it follows that, as a power of erecting a corporation may as well be implied as any other thing, it may as well be employed as an _instrument_ or _mean_ of carrying into execution any of the specified powers as any other _instrument_ or _mean_ whatever.

The question in this as in every other case must be, whether the mean to be employed has a natural relation to any of the acknowledged objects or lawful ends of the government.

Thus a corporation may not be created by congress for superintending the police of the city of Philadelphia, because they are not authorized to regulate the police of that city; but one may be created in relation to the collection of the taxes, or to the trade with foreign countries, or between the states, or with the Indian tribes, because it is in the province of the federal government to regulate those objects; and because it is incident to a general sovereign or legislative power to regulate a thing, to employ all the means which relate to its regulation, to the best and greatest advantage.
A strange fallacy seems to have crept into the manner of thinking and reasoning upon this subject.

The imagination has presented an incorporation as some great, _independent, substantive_ thing--as a political end of peculiar magnitude and moment; whereas it is truly to be considered as a quality, capacity, or mean to an end.