Chapter XX: Section VIII

CLAUSE 1. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and 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;

CLAUSE 2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

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

CLAUSE 4. To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

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

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

CLAUSE 7. To establish post-offices and post-roads;

CLAUSE 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;

CLAUSE 9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

CLAUSE 10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations;

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

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

CLAUSE 13. To provide and maintain a navy;

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

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

CLAUSE 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 prescribed by Congress;

CLAUSE 17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection efforts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

CLAUSE 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.

[Footnote: _Section 9_. Eight clauses now follow, enumerating the _powers denied to Congress._ What prohibition was made concerning the slave trade? Writ of habeas corpus? Bill of attainder? Ex-post-facto law? Direct tax? Exports from any state? Trade between the United States? Payments from the Treasury? Titles of nobility? United States office-holder receiving presents from a foreign power? (_Notes._--The object of the first clause was to destroy the foreign slave trade or the importation of negroes from Africa for the purpose of enslaving them. In 1808, a law was passed prohibiting the trade, and in 1820 it was declared to be piracy. A writ of habeas corpus is a written order from a magistrate directing that a certain person shall be brought before him; its object is to guard against false imprisonment or trial in a prejudiced court. A bill of attainder is an English term, meaning an act which without trial inflicts death for treason: attainder of treason cannot in the United States work "corruption of blood" so as to prevent a person from transmitting lands to his descendants. An ex-post-facto law makes an act criminal or penal which was not so at the time it was committed. A United States office-holder, wishing to accept a present or distinction offered him by any foreign power, must ask permission of Congress before he can receive it.)]