Answer:
The U.S. Constitution is at once, elastic.
The ‘elastic clause’ a.k.a. ‘necessary & proper’ power to enforce/exercise the enumerated powers of Article I might be likened to adding jet fuel to the Model T engine of the Constitution when we consider congressional reach into state territory with the application of federal regulations to activities in the ‘flow of commerce’, beginning with maritime jurisdiction of the seas in foreign trade, to the merchant ships at the docks, to the flow of distribution in the trucks on the highway between the states, to the break up of meat packer monopolies at Swift in Chicago, to the enforcement of the New Deal and Civil Rights, the commerce clause was stretched from 1862 until 1992 (US v. Lopez) when a kid took a gun to a high school and the court found no subject in the flow of commerce superseding state powers (10th Amend) to regulate.
Be that as it may, the enumerated powers of the Articles; expressed, implied, inherent, resultant and concurrent are by definition, elastic; a fact that makes the ‘necessary & proper clause’ somewhat redundant. The founders wanted a durable government - they created it with an elastic Constitution.
