[4] Congress has specified courts for the trial of such crimes. Those committed on the high seas are tried in the state where the vessel arrives. (See pages 230-4.)
SECTION III.—TREASON.
Clause 1.—Definition and Trial.
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.[1] 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.[2]
[1] Treason is, in essence, a deliberate and violent breach of the allegiance due from a citizen or subject to his government. Being directed against the powers that be, the government in self defense is tempted to punish it severely. The more tyrannical a government is the more likely it is to be plotted against, and the more suspicious it becomes. If treason were undefined, the government might declare acts to be treasonable which the people never suspected to be so. This had occurred so many times, and good men had so often been sent on this charge to an ignominious death, that the framers of the constitution deemed it prudent to define treason carefully in the fundamental law itself.
These provisions are taken from the famous statute of Edward III which first defined treason in England. This statute declared five things to be treasonable, only the third and fourth of which are held by our constitution to be so.
[2] An overt act is an open act, not one that is simply meditated or talked about, but one actually performed.
The Supreme Court has decided that there must be an actual levying of war; that plotting to overthrow the government is not treason. But if hostilities have actually begun, if war has commenced, "all those who perform any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered traitors."
Two witnesses, at least, "to the same overt act," are required, because thus only can a "preponderance of testimony" be secured.
Clause 2.—Punishment.