In many important particulars the Federal Constitution protects personal liberty against arbitrary interference on the part of the National government. Congress may pass no law establishing or prohibiting any religion, or abridging either freedom of speech or freedom of the press. The right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances shall not be denied. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended. Congress may not define treason. Neither bills of attainder, nor ex-post facto legislation may be passed by Congress. Jury trial, fair bail, and freedom from both excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments are guaranteed by the Constitution. Neither life, liberty nor property may be taken without due process of law.
The Federal Constitution likewise protects the property rights of the individual against Federal aggression. The state governments alone may define property. Congress may not tax articles which are exported from any state. All direct taxes must be apportioned according to population. [Footnote: The Sixteenth Amendment exempts the income tax from this rule.] All duties, imposts, and excises must be uniform, that is, they must fall upon the same article with the same weight wherever found. Under the right of eminent domain, the Federal government may take private property for public use, but in such a case the owner must be fairly compensated.
500. THREEFOLD DIVISION OF POWERS IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.—A second distinctive feature of our system of government is that Federal authority is distributed among three distinct branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. This is part of the general system of "checks and balances" by means of which the framers of the Constitution sought to prevent any branch or division of government from securing undue control of the governmental machinery.
The basic merit of this threefold division of powers is that it safeguards each branch of government against aggression from the other two branches. And yet this division of powers is by no means so complete that the three branches do not work together. For example, both the appointive and the treaty-making powers of the President are shared by the Senate. The President shares in legislation through his veto power, as well as through his right to send messages to Congress. The Senate has the right to impeach all civil officers of the United States, and may even exert some control over the Supreme Court through its right to prescribe the number of its judges and the amount of their salaries. The judiciary, on the other hand, enjoys the unique power of passing upon the constitutionality of the acts of the other two branches of government.
501. DIVISION OF POWERS BETWEEN FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS.— Another feature of the check and balance system is that authority is divided between Federal and state governments. The Tenth Amendment declares that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states." Thus we speak of the National government as enjoying delegated or enumerated powers, while the state governments have residual or unenumerated powers. The Federal government must show some specific or implied grant of power for everything that it does, but state governments need only show that the Federal Constitution does not prohibit them from doing whatever they see fit.
This division of powers between Federal and state governments has several distinct advantages. For example, it allows Federal and state governments to act as a check upon one another. Furthermore, the device admirably divides governmental labor: the Federal government is given control of matters essentially national, while the states are left in charge of affairs distinctly state or local in character.
502. INTERSTATE RELATIONS.—Further to guarantee the integrity of the Federal system, the Constitution specifies the fundamental nature of interstate relations. The states are independent of one another, and are equal in Federal law. The laws of a state have no force, and their public officials have no authority, beyond the state limits.
The Constitution specifically provides that "full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state." This does not mean that the laws of a particular state are binding upon persons in other states. It does mean, however, that the courts of each state shall endeavor to give the same force to the laws of a neighboring state as those laws would have in the courts of the legislating state.
To prevent discriminations against citizens of other states, the Federal Constitution provides that the citizens of each state are "entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." This means that a citizen of one state may remove to a neighboring state, and there enjoy the same civil rights that the citizens of the latter state enjoy.
In order that fugitive criminals may be tried and punished, the Constitution further provides that "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 the 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."