Constitution Series Part 14: Article I, Section 10

Article I of the United States Constitution is ostensibly about Congress, but in fact it touches on every branch of the government, as well as governments below the national level. It's due to this scope and laying down the foundations of what's to be expected of our government as a whole that Article I takes up approximately 50% of the entire Constitution. The rest just kind of builds upon the groundwork laid by Article I.

Section 10 in particular focuses on limitations placed upon the states. Some are absolute limitations, while others require Congressional approval to circumvent. I assume it's these Congressional consent clauses that make these limitations appropriate for Article I.

Constitution Series Part 13: Article I, Section 9, Clauses 6 through 8

Of the eight clauses of Section 9, only three seem really necessary to me: clauses 2, 3, and 7, which we'll be getting to today.

Clause 1 is a weird and uncomfortable reminder of our nation's past, but I understand it and I appreciate this reminder of how far we've come from where we started.

Clauses 4 and 5 are about taxation, and it's hard to say how vital these clauses were. Each one has some benefits and some drawbacks from an economic standpoint.

Clauses 6 and 8 each annoy me somewhat, for very different reasons. I'll be discussing them today!

Constitution Series Part 12: Article I, Section 9, Clauses 3 to 5

In continuing our exploration of the limitations placed on Congress by the Constitution, heads up that we're about to run head-first into some jargon. I'll do my best to explain it, but I'm no lawyer, so if you see me trying to explain something incorrectly, please correct me!

Constitution Series Part 11: Article I, Section 9, Clauses 1 and 2

After Section 8 detailed all of the things Congress is explicitly allowed to do, naturally what follows is a list of what Congress is explicitly not allowed to do. You might consider this a sort of first-round Bill of Rights, though as you'll see it's kind of weird what limitations were determined to be more important than, say, freedom of speech.

Before I go into these limitations, though, I feel the need to point out that there is a void between Section 8 and Section 9, a space between the explicit rights and limitations of Congress that's filled with implicit rights and limitations that seem to contradict each other. Section 8 reads like a list of powers, but some read them as limitations; as if those are the only things Congress is allowed to do. Likewise, you can read Section 9 (and, by extension, the Bill of Rights) as a definition of Congress's rights; these are the things they definitely can't do, but everything else is fair game!

The thing is, it can only be one or the other. Is Section 8 a list of limitations, or is Section 9 defining Congress's rights? The fact that both sections exist makes it kind of confusing. In the early days they seemed to take the "Section 8 as limitations" route, while lately it seems we're more inclined toward the "Section 9 defines rights" route. What do you think?

Consider that as we go through these limitations and, later, the Bill of Rights.

Constitution Series Part 10: Article I, Section 8, Clauses 17 and 18

Time to finish off Section 8! Finally. The only other clause this long is Article II, Section 1. So, look forward to that.

Constitution Series Part 9: Article I, Section 8, Clauses 11 through 16

As a reminder, you can read the Constitution yourself at the National Archives website. When I quote the Constitution in this series, I'm quoting from there.

Anyway, today we're going to explore Congress's powers regarding war and the military!

Constitution Series Part 8: Article I, Section 8, Clauses 6 through 10

Five clauses down, thirteen to go! The next few clauses are fairly straightforward.

Constitution Series Part 7: Article I, Section 8, Clauses 4 and 5

ARTICLE I

Section 8

As a reminder, we're going through the powers being explicitly granted to Congress. We've already gone through the first three, so we're starting with the fourth clause in this section.

[The Congress shall have Power] To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

Well, these seem like fairly unrelated powers. Why were they listed together?

Constitution Series Part 6: Article I, Section 8, Clauses 1 to 3

Do you want to know what, exactly, Congress is allowed to make laws about? They can't simply make laws about whatever they want, after all. The Bill of Rights will detail the things that Congress is expressly not allowed to make laws about, but here we'll see what Congress is explicitly allowed to do:

Constitution Series Part 5: Article I, Section 6 and 7

Let's slide right into this by detailing the perks of being a member of Congress, besides the whole "shaping our country" thing:

Constitution Series Part 4: Article I, Sections 4 and 5

With the composition and election procedures of the House and the Senate established, let's get into figuring out what, exactly, these people are supposed to be spending their time doing!

Constitution Series Part 3: Article I, Section 3

With the House of Representatives established, we're moving on to the Senate. The makeup of the Senate and the House were the result of a compromise between the populous states and the smaller states. Smaller states wanted each state to have equal representation in Congress, while larger states supported proportionate representation. In the end, we got both: proportionate representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate.

The Senate was designed to be the "higher" house, populated by the country's "elites." Social classes were very much still a thing at the time (and you might say it still is), and while it was all well and good to populate the House of Representatives with riffraff, the Senate was supposed to be populated with only the well-to-do, much like the British House of Lords.

Constitution Series Part 2: Article I, Sections 1 and 2

By far the longest section of the Constitution is Article I, which details the creation and powers of the nation's legislative branch. Congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch of the government since it's the most democratic and the least likely to generate a despot. As such, it was the first thing addressed in our Constitution, and it got the most ink.

Even so, it's by no means a novel. The description had to be fairly straightforward so that the states would actually read and comprehend it, so it's as lean as it can be while still being pretty dense. There are 10 sections total in Article I, so let's see how many we can get through today.

Reflections of the Republican Debate: Congressional Authority

I'm starting to write this last post about the Republican debate 45 minutes before the next Democratic debate begins. It's possible that the Democratic debate will cause me to lose my train of thought, so I've got to organize my thought on this matter in 45 minutes or, well, less now. Let's get to it.

The subject: congressional authority, or the limits of presidential power, or bipartisanship. It's all pretty interrelated.