The National Constitution: Labour and Service

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. (A judgment of a State court has the same credit, validity, and effect, in every other court within the United States, which it had in the court where it was rendered; and whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such State, and none others, can be pleaded in any other court within the United States.--Hampton v. McConnell, 3 Wheaton, 234.) And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. (On the 26th of May, 1790, Congress, by act, gave effect to this section.)

Privileges of citizens.

Section 2

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. (This is a recognition of nationality--the supreme rights of the people as citizens of the United States. It decrees the right to all fundamental privileges and immunities which any State grants to its citizens, excepting those granted to corporations, or conferred by special local legislation. It is intended to secure and perpetuate a friendly intercourse throughout the Republic. It sets aside the erroneous assumption that National citizenship is subordinate to State citizenship.)

Executive requisition.

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 Demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Juristiction of the Crime. (This is to aid the claims of justice, by preventing one portion of the Republic becoming an asylum for the criminals of another portion.)

Law regulating service or labor.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof escaping to another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. (This is the clause of the Constitution on which was based the provisions of the Fugitive-Slave Law of 1850. It applied to runaway slaves and apprentices. Congress gave effect to it by an act on the 12th of February, 1793, and another on the 18th of September, 1850. At the time when the Constitution was framed, slavery existed in all the States of the Union, excepting Massachusetts. By the operation of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, this clause has no relation to any other persons excepting fugitive indentured apprentices.)

New States, how formed and admitted.

Section 3

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; (The Congress is not compelled to admit a new State. It is left to the option of that body, whether any new State shall be admitted). but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. (States have been admitted in three ways: 1. By joint action of the Congress and a State, by which a portion of a State has been made a separate commonwealth, as in the case of Vermont, Kentucky, Maine, and Virginia. 2. By an act of Congress, creating a State directly from a Territory of the United States, as in the case of Tennessee. 3. By a joint resolution of Congress and a foreign State, such State may be admitted, as in the case of Texas.)

Power of Congress over public lands.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. (This provides for the establishment, under the authority of Congress, of Territorial governments, which is the first step toward the formation of a State or States. The first government of the kind was that of the Northwestern Territory, established in 1787, and adopted by Congress under the National Constitution of the 7th of August, 1789.)

Republican government guarantied.

Section 4

The Constitution shall guaranty to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, (No other form of government could exist within the United States, without peril to the Republic. By this section, the National Government is empowered to assume positive sovereignty, as to the fundamental character of the State Government, leaving to the State territorial sovereignty, as to its municipal laws and domestic institutions, so long as they are consonant with a republican form of government.) and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature can not be convened) against domestic violence. (The States are prohibited from keeping troops as a standing army, or ships of war, in time of peace, individually; therefore it is made the duty of the sovereign power of the United States to protect the States against invasion and "domestic violence," such as treason, rebellion, or insurrection. When these exist in any State, it is the duty of the National Government to use its power in suppressing it.)

Article V

Constitution, how to be amended.