To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises,[1] to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States:[2]
To borrow money.To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce.To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;[3]
Naturalization.Bankruptcies.
To coin money. To fix the standard of weights and measures.To establish a uniform rule of naturalization,[4] and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;[5]
- ↑ The power of Congress to levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises is coextensive with the territory of the United States. Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317; 4 Cond. Rep. 660. The power of Congress to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatever, within the District of Columbia, includes the power of taxing it, Ibid. The authority of Congress to lay and collect taxes, does not interfere with the power of the States to tax for the support of their own governments; nor is the exercise of that power by the States, an exercise of any portion of the power that is granted to the United States. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; 5 Cond. Rep. 562.
- ↑ The constitutional provision that direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, according to their respective numbers, to be ascertained by a census, was not intended to restrict the power of imposing direct taxes to States only. Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317; 4 Cond. Rep. 660.
- ↑ An act of Congress, laying an embargo for an indefinite period of time, is constitutional and valid. The United States v. The William, 2 Hall’s Am. Law Jour. 255. The power of regulating commerce extends to the regulation of navigation. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; 5 Cond. Rep. 562. The power to regulate commerce extends to every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, and among the several States. It does not stop at the external boundary of a State; but it does not extend to a commerce which is completely internal. Ibid. The power to regulate commerce is general, and has no limitations but such as are prescribed by the Constitution itseli This power, so for as it extends, is exclusively vested in Congress, and no part of it can he exercised by a State. Ibid. The power of regulating commerce extends to navigation carried on by vessels employed in transporting passengers. Ibid. All those powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or which may he properly called internal police, are not surrendered (by the States) or restrained, and consequently in relation to those the authority of a State is complete, unqualified, and exclusive. The City of N. York v. Mila, 11 Peters, 102. The act of the legislature of New York passed February 1824, entitled, “An Act concerning passengers in vessels arriving in the port of New York,” is not a regulation of commerce, but of police; and being so, it was passed in the exercise of a power which belonged to that State. Ibid. The power to regulate commerce, includes the power to regulate navigation, as connected with the commerce with foreign nations and among the States. It does not stop at the mere boundary line of a State, nor is it coniined to acts done on the waters, or in the necessary course of the navigation thereof. It extends to such acts done on the land, which interfere with, obstruct, or prevent the due exercise of the powers to regulate commerce and navigation with foreign nations, and among the States. Any offence which thus interferes with, obstructs, or prevents such commerce and navigation, though done on land, may be punished by Congress, under its general authority to make all laws necessary and proper to execute their delegated constitutional powers. The United States v. Lawrence Coombs, 12 Peters, 72. Persons are not the subjects of commerce, and not being imported goods, they do not fall within the meaning founded upon the Constitution, of a power given to Congress, to regulate commerce, and the prohibition of the States for imposing a duty on imported goods. Ibid.; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; 5 Cond. Rep. 562.
- ↑ Under the Constitution of the United States, the power of naturalization is exclusively in Congress. Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Wheat. 259; 4 Cond. Rep. 111; Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1; 4 Cond. Rep. 589.
- ↑ The powers of Congress to establish uniform laws; on the subject of bankruptcy throughout the
The powers granted to Congress are not exclusive of similar powers existing in the States, unless where the Constitution has expressly, in terms, given an exclusive power to Congress; or the exercise of a like power is prohibited to the States; or there is a direct repugnancy, or incompatibility in the exercise of it by the States. The example of the first class is to be found in the exclusive legislation delegated to Congress over places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be located for forts, arsenals, dockyards, &c.; of the second class, of the prohibition of a State to coin money, or emit bills of credit; of the third class, the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and the delegation of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. In all other cues the States retain concurrent authority with Congress. Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1; 4 Cond. Rep. 589.
An act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution cannot become the law of the land. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137; 1 Cond. Rep. 267. The mere grant of power to Congress does not imply a prohibition on the States to exercise the same power. Whenever the terms in which such a power is granted to Congress require that it should be exercised exclusively by Congress, the subject is as completely taken from the State legislatures as if they had been expressly forbidden to act upon it. Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122; 4 Cond. Rep. 409.