Constitution of United States of America

Article 3 outlines the responsibilities of and checks on the judiciary, while Article 4 describes the relationship between the federal government and the states; it specifically addresses issues of treason and fugitives from slavery.

The highest court in the United States is the Supreme Court, as specified in Article 3. The Supreme Court hears cases related to constitutional law and other types of cases, like those related to conflicts between states, called “controversies” in the Constitution. Importantly, the section of Article 2 that describes this role of the Court (Section 2) is also understood to prevent the Court from acting in an advisory role to other branches of government, telling them what is or is not Constitutional. A case must be brought before the Court in order for the Court to speak to its legal standing. This reflects the Framers’ concern to separate the judiciary from the other branches of government, which was a novel idea in the 18th century, when the judiciary was usually understood to be a function of executive power; in England, the monarch appointed judges, and judges sometimes operated as agents of the monarch during periods of factional dispute.

The 11th Amendment, ratified in 1795, limits the power of the Supreme Court authority to hear cases between citizens of different states or cases filed by citizens of other nations. While the Supreme Court frequently hears cases that have risen to the court through appellate courts on appeal, the Constitution designates “original Jurisdiction” to the Court over cases impacting ambassadors, consuls, and other officials. In other words, these cases do not have to be heard in lower courts first before they arrive at the Supreme Court.

Article 3 notably defines treason of two forms: making war against the United States and providing “Aid and Comfort” to the nation’s enemies. In 1807, a case known as Ex Parte Bollman came before the Supreme Court that clarified the definition of treason found in Article 3. The case is named for Erick Bollman, who was implicated in the Burr Conspiracy to create an independent nation carved out of the Louisiana Territory and some of the western states, to be governed by former Vice President Aaron Burr as king. Burr contacted a British diplomat about his plans with the intention of enlisting British support. Bollman was one of the men reportedly recruited to mobilize against the United States as part of this scheme. However, the Supreme Court ruled that simply “enlisting” in such a scheme did not constitute a treasonable offense, thus raising the bar for a conviction of treason against the United States. Chief Justice John Marshall insisted on a strict reading of the clause, arguing that conspiring to levy war and doing so are distinct offenses, the latter treasonable, the former not. Marshall wrote that “there must be an actual assembling of men, for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war” (“Levying War as Treason.” ConstitutionCongress.gov). For this reason, ringleader Aaron Burr was also acquitted on charges of treason. Likewise, merely criticizing the nation (that is, providing “comfort” to an enemy), for instance, does not qualify as treason, according to the Supreme Court decision in Cramer v. United States, reached in 1945. The accused must intend disloyalty but also take specific action against the Union to be convicted of treason.

Article 4, Section 2’s clause on self-emancipated individuals is one of several instances in which the Framers were forced to confront the practice of slavery, over which they had differing and conflicting views. This clause holds that those enslaved who flee from one state to another will not be freed. Instead, states will return fugitives from slavery, if they are caught, to their enslavers. The text does not use the word “slave,” so anti-slavery northerners suggested that the Constitution provided no legal basis for slavery’s existence. Tensions between states over slavery already existed at the time of the Constitution’s drafting and later erupted into armed conflict during the Civil War (1861-1865). It was only with the 13th Amendment’s ratification in 1865 that enslavement was formally ended in the United States, with the exception of its employment as punishment for those convicted of crimes.