any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the congress may by law have directed. SECT. III. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted. ART. IV. SECT. I. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. SECT. II. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due. SECT. III. New states may be admitted by the congress into this union; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the congress. The congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state. SECT. IV. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against do mestic violence. ART. V. The congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the congress: Provided, that no amendment made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the senate. ART. VI. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this constitution, as under the confederation. This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby; any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding. The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. ART. VII. The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between the states so ratifying the same. AMENDMENTS. ART. I. CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. ART. H. A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. ART. III. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. ART. IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. ART. V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land and naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall he be compelled, in any crimi nal case, to be witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without a just compensation. ART. VI. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. ART. VII. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact, tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. ART. VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. ART. IX. The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. ART. X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. ART. XI. The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of a foreign state. (For an amendment to designate the persons voted for as president and as vice-president of the United States, &c. see laws of congress.) NOTE. The descriptive title of this inestimable instrument, is, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AND COMMONWEALTH OF NORTH AMERICA; for it must be obvious that it is for a commonwealth, and that its tried merits will finally excite the whole of this conveniently formed country to unite, either by purchase, (as in the instance of Louisiana) or by amicable convention. That thus the sage and prophetic wishes of all our principal patriots may be happily realized, in due time, is the prayer of the author. A perfect picture of the great distress of the times immediately preceding the adoption of OUR PRESENT CONSTITUTION, would even now, by some, be deemed a departure from veracity. It would be equally difficult to do justice, by our limited powers for description, to the universal agitations that prevailed, while this invaluable boon was pending. But infinitely more arduous to deli neate the happy scenes that followed immediately: the congratulations, splendid processions, songs of joy, and hymns to high heaven, elevated the soul of every patriot to a pitch of enthusiasm not to be conceived by any who were not alive in those happy days, that will always afford to us the most pleasing subjects for future reflection. As it is not within our view minutely to define the respective merits and moral fitness of all the parts in union with the whole of our invaluable constitution, we, therefore, refer to the works of John Adams, late president of the United States; to the joint work of Messrs. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, in the Federalist; to Mr. Lo G ton Smith's ingenious comparative views of the constitutions of the states, with that of the United States; to St. George Tucker's appendix to his notes on Blackstone; and to the other critical views since written. We shall merely observe, that it seems to us, to be no fault of the framers of the magna charta of American freedom and independence, if the essence of every thing valuable of former days, be not therein entailed on our posterity; and nothing but the ignorance or negligence of our future legislatures to embrace the fair construction and the meaning of, to provide for the common defence and general welfare, can occasion our general government to hang like a millstone, on the necks of the people, as did the old charter congress, when it was once arrested for a supposed neglect of duty, by an ignorant, but suffering mob, at Philadelphia. "The duty of every government, or of the fathers of a free people, is always provident." Such was the opinion of Aristotle, and of every subsequent sage. Whenever the healthy father of a great or a small family may conof descend to draw all his support from his children, he risks a part that conditional affection, to which he can only be entitled when he does his part to provide for the family entrusted to his care. OUR GENERAL GOVERNMENT IS IN ITS NATURE HIGHLY PROVISIONAL, and will, therefore, be respected no longer than while it provides, at least, for every deficiency in the national stimulus, which alone can support a desirable animation and happiness, by exciting to all laudable and profitable industry for the general weal Life itself being a forced state, and animation and happiness only to be found in proportion to the exciting and exhilirating powers, however organized or modified in action, the exciting power must This is an universal ever be in proportion to the animation desired. axiom in social economy, viz. Labour is a latent power, and never found till it is either excited or impelled from its place of rest. The EXCITING POWER, even for the most essential LABOUR, is a detached principle from the PRODUCTIVE POWER. MONEY, and the whole of the arts and sciences that follow in the busy train of commerce, are the most congenial social STIMULI, and the grand palladium for agricultural industry. In every eligible and durable social compact, government has an artificial exciting power, to counteract in the savage or natural animal, or to bend his unsocial, or merely sensual and selfish propensities, that are often injurious to the social system. In arbitrary governments, the impetus to action for state purposes are compellant; in a republic they are commonly only excitant, or inticent, and yet the latter, to its honor in comparison, are often to more effect. Hence it may be obvious, that STIMULI, or the exciting power, may be either universal as the sun, or local as fire; general as the government of the United States, or local as the govern ment of a single state. |