b. His various duties. c. His chief assistants. d. The administration of the treasury department since 1789. 20. The duties of the remaining cabinet officers :— a. Of the secretary of war. b. Of the secretary of the navy. c. Of the secretary of the interior. e. Of the attorney-general. § 4. The Nation and the States. We have left our Federal Convention sitting a good while at Philadelphia, while we have thus undertaken to give a coherent account of our national executive organization, which has in great part grown up since 1789 with the growth of the nation. Observe how wisely the Constitution confines itself to a clear sketch of fundamentals, and leaves as much as possible to be developed by circumstances. In this feature lies partly the flexible strength, the adaptableness, of our Federal Constitution. That strength lies partly also in the excellent partition of powers between the federal government and the several states. Difference between con federation We have already remarked upon the vastness of the functions retained by the states. At the same time the powers granted to Congress have proved sufficient to bind the states together into a union that is more than a mere confederation. From 1776 to 1789 the United States were a confederation; after 1789 it was a federal nation. The passage from plural to singular was accomplished, although it took some people a good while to realize the fact. The German language has a neat way of distinguishing between a loose confederation and a federal union. It calls the former a Staatenbund and the latter a Bundesstaat. and federal union. English, if we liked, we might call the confederation a Band-of-States and the federal union a Banded State. There are two points especially in our Constitution which transformed our country from a Bandof-States into a Banded-State. Powers granted to Congress. The first was the creation of a federal House of Representatives, thus securing for Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common welfare of the United States." Other powers are naturally attached to this, such as the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States; to regulate foreign and domestic commerce; to coin money and fix the standard of weights and measures; to provide for the punishment of counterfeiters; to establish post-offices and post-roads ; to issue copyrights and patents; to "define and punish felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;" to raise and support an army and navy, and to make rules for the regulation of the land and naval forces; to provide for calling out the militia to suppress insurrections and repel invasions, and to govern this militia while actually employed in the service of the United States. The several states, however, train their own militia and appoint the officers. Congress may also establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies. It also exercises exclusive control over the District of Columbia,1 as the seat of the national government, and over forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, which it erects within the several states upon 1 Ceded to the United States by Maryland and Virginia. land purchased for such purposes with the consent of the state legislature. Clause." Congress is also empowered "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 govern- The "Elastic ment of the United States, or in any department or office thereof." This may be called the Elastic Clause of the Constitution; it has undergone a good deal of stretching for one purpose and another, and, as we shall presently see, it was a profound disagreement in the interpretation of this clause that after 1789 divided the American people into two great political parties. states. The national authority of Congress is further sharply defined by the express denial of sundry powers to the several states. These we have al- Powers deready enumerated. There was an especial nied to the reason for prohibiting the states from issuing bills of credit, or making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. During the years 1785 and 1786 a paper money craze ran through the country; most of the states issued paper notes, and passed laws obliging their citizens to receive them in payment of debts. Now a paper dollar is not money, it is only the government's promise to pay a dollar. As long as you can send it to the treasury and get a gold dollar in exchange, it is worth a dollar. It is this exchangeableness that makes it Paper cur. worth a dollar. When government makes rency. the paper dollar note a "legal tender," i. e., when it refuses to give you the gold dollar and makes you take its note instead, the note soon ceases to be worth a dollar. You would rather have the gold than the 1 See above, p. 175. note, for the mere fact that government refuses to give the gold shows that it is in financial difficulties. So the note's value is sure to fall, and if the government is in serious difficulty, it falls very far, and as it falls it takes more of it to buy things. Prices go up. There was a time (1864) during our Civil War when a paper dollar was worth only forty cents and a barrel of flour cost $23. But that was nothing to the year 1780, when the paper dollar issued by the Continental Congress was worth only a mill, and flour was sold in Boston for $1,575 a barrel! When the different states tried to make paper money, it made confusion worse confounded, for the states refused to take each other's money, and this helped to lower its value. In some states the value of the paper dollar fell in less than a year to twelve or fifteen cents. At such times there is always great demoralization and suffering, especially among the poorer people; and with all the experience of the past to teach us, it may now be held to be little less than a criminal act for a government, under any circumstances, to make its paper notes a legal tender. The excuse for the Continental Congress was that it was not completely a government and seemed to have no alternative, but there is no doubt that the paper currency damaged the country much more than the arms of the enemy by land or sea. The feeling was so strong about it in the Federal Convention that the prohibition came near being extended to the national government, but the question was unfortunately left undecided.1 Some express prohibitions were laid upon the national government. Duties may be laid upon imports but not upon exports; this wise restriction was 1 See my Critical Period of American History, pp. 168–186, 273-276. gress. a special concession to South Carolina, which feared the effect of an export duty upon rice and Powers deindigo. Duties and excises must be uni- nied to Conform throughout the country, and no commercial preference can be shown to one state over another; absolute free trade is the rule between the states. A census must be taken every ten years in order to adjust the representation, and no direct tax can be imposed except according to the census. No money can be drawn from the treasury except "in consequence of appropriations made by law," and accounts must be regularly kept and published. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus cannot be suspended except "when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it; " and "no bill of attainder, or ex post facto law," can be passed. A bill of attainder is a special legislative act by Bills of atwhich a person may be condemned to death, or to outlawry and banishment, without the opportu nity of defending himself which he would have in a court of law. "No evidence is necessarily adduced to support it," and in former times, especially in the reign of Henry VIII., it was a formidable engine for perpetrating judicial murders. Bills of attainder long ago ceased to be employed in England, and the process was abolished by statute in 1870. tainder. No title of nobility can be granted by the United States, and no federal officer can accept a present, office, or title from a foreign state without the consent of Congress. "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Full faith and credit must be given in each state to the public acts and records, and to the judicial proceedings of every other 1 Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, p. 385. |