without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State." Article 3, Section 2, Clause 3, "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed." Section 3, of the same Article, "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open Court." And Clause 3, of the same Section, "The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted."
It may well be a question, whether these are not, upon the whole, of equal importance with any which are to be found in the Constitution of this State. The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex post facto laws, and of titles of nobility, to which we have no corresponding provisions in our Constitution, are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone,[1] in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital:
- ↑ Vide Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. 1, page 136.—Publius.
