The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, May, 1862 / Devoted To Literature And National Policy

by Various

'Article I.—Section 8.

'The Congress shall have power—

'1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

'2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States.

'3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.

'4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States.

'5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

'6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

'7. To establish post-offices and post-roads.

'8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

'9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.

'10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

'11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

'12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.

'13. To provide and maintain a navy.

'14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

'15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

'16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline proscribed by Congress.

'18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.'

The first two words in this section—'the Congress'—completely annul the separate integrity of States. The Congress of what, and for what? The Congress of the UNITED STATES, acting for the UNITED States, as a UNIT, a WHOLE, a UNION. The only allusion in this section to any thing like a right existing in any State after the adoption of the Constitution, is the right to officer the militia, and these officers are to 'train' the militia, under the direction of Congress, and not under State laws—a clause which of itself strikes a decisive blow at the theory of independent State rights. In no one of these specifications is there a single allusion to any 'State.' Every power enumerated is given to the 'United States,' to the 'Union' formed by virtue of the Constitution. Never was there a more perfect absorption of atoms into one mass, than in these specifications; but to make the principle still stronger, and as if to remove any doubt as to 'State rights,' the first clause of the Ninth Section of the same Article expressly prohibits any State from importing certain persons after a given date, which, when it arrived, (in 1808,) Congress passed a national law stopping the slave-trade—a trade that some of the States would have been glad to encourage, or at least, allow, if they had had authority to do so. This right was taken from them by the Constitution, in the year 1808; up to that time they had that right; but after that date the right no longer existed, and Congress passed the law referred to, in accordance with the power given them by this clause of the Constitution.

But this First Article of Section Nine is not all in that section that smothers State rights; for Article Five declares that vessels bound to or from one State need not enter, clear, or pay duties in another. Why this specification, if the States were to be supreme in their own limits? (and this doctrine of State rights is, in its essence, supremacy.) Independent states exact clearances and entrances, and demand duties from foreign vessels, but never from their own. State rights are ignored in this Article. But to prevent any possibility of any State ever exercising the rights of sovereignty now claimed by the advocates of this most pernicious doctrine, from which has grown the present gigantic rebellion, Section Ten, of the same Article, goes on to declare that—

'1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.

'2. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war.'

Language can not be stronger; intentions were never more clearly expressed; thoughts were never more explicitly set forth in words. Nothing is left for doubt; all is concise, positive, and binding. Nothing is left to be guessed at; nothing left that could be construed to mean that States 'may' or 'may not.' 'SHALL' and 'SHALL NOT,' are the words used to define what the States are to do or not to do. The very slight 'right' given to the States to lay duties for executing their inspection laws, carries with it a proviso, or command, that the proceeds of such duties must be paid into the National Treasury, and the very laws that the States might pass for this purpose must be approved by 'THE CONGRESS.' What Congress? The Congress of the UNITED STATES—of the UNION. Every vestige of State sovereignty, of 'State rights,' is utterly annihilated in these clauses.

Independent, sovereign states may and do make treaties, alliances, grant letters of marque, or coin money; in fact, no 'State' or sovereignty can exist without these powers; and the fact that these powers are all taken from and denied to the States of the American Union, is conclusive proof that the framers of the Constitution did not intend to allow the States the sovereignty now claimed for them, and which the rebellious States are endeavoring to maintain. This heresy must be exorcised now and forever.

Is there any thing more in the Constitution (and bear in mind that no right is claimed for any State except in accordance with this instrument, which is still in full force except in those rebellious States where this disorganizing doctrine of 'State rights' has uncontrolled sway) making the Union supreme and the States subordinate? What says the following section?

'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.'

A State, therefore, may so legislate, that is, it may have acts and records, but each other State SHALL give to the records and proceedings of all the rest 'full faith and credit.' Does not this enactment thoroughly negative all theories of the exclusive supremacy of State rights? Independent sovereign States do not, in the absence of treaties, give any faith or credit to the records or proceedings of other independent states. Our States are not only compelled to do this, by this section, but must do so in accordance with the manner prescribed by 'the Congress' of the UNITED STATES, of the UNION, and of the NATION. No other congress is mentioned.