The Crisis of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-One in the Government of the United States. / Its Cause, and How It Should Be Met

by Abel D. Streight

Among other things, this preamble declares that the present constitution was “ordained and established” “in order to form a union more perfect” than existed under the provisions of the old confederation—a union that could not be dissolved at the pleasure or choice of any State or any number of States without the consent of three-fourths of the sovereign people. It conceded to a general government certain powers and rights, which were, of course, subtracted from the powers and rights of the separate State sovereignties, and these powers and rights were vested solely in the hands of a President, “a Congress of the United States,” and a Supreme Court created and elected according to the provisions of that constitution. And now, to understand this matter, what were those particular powers and rights which were thus abstracted from the separate State sovereignties and vested in a general government? They are very emphatically, clearly and forcibly declared in article I, section 8, of the constitution of the United States. They are thus expressed:

“The Congress shall have power—

“1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, excises; to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence 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 an 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;