A Brief History of the United States

by Joel Dorman Steele

SECTION III.

CLAUSE 1. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

[Footnote: Section 3. In what does treason consist? What proof is required? Who fixes the punishment? What limit is assigned?]

CLAUSE 2. 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.

CLAUSE 3. 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.

ARTICLE IV.—General Provisions.

SECTION 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.

[Footnote: ARTICLE IV.—Section 1. What is the law with regard to state records, judicial proceedings, etc.?]

SECTION II.

CLAUSE 1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

CLAUSE 2. 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.

CLAUSE 3. No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

[Footnote: Section 2. What privileges has the citizen of one state in all the others? Can a criminal or an apprentice escape by fleeing into another state? (Note.-Clause 3 originally included fugitive slaves, but that application was annulled by the XIIIth Amendment.)]