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Basic Constitutional Concepts
tion 8 by the Federal government); coin money or issue paper money, or
otherwise impair the Federal government’s monopoly of money-issuing;
pass bills of attainder or ex post facto laws; interfere with contractual obligations; or grant titles of nobility.
Nor may any State’s legislature—unless granted the consent of
Congress—tax exports or imports, except for incidental expenses of inspection; and even should Congress permit such export-import taxes,
the money collected must go into the Federal treasury. Neither may any
State, without the express consent of Congress, maintain troops or naval
vessels, enter into an agreement with any other State or with a foreign
power, or go to war unless actually invaded and in imminent danger.
These limitations aside, the State governments could do much as they
liked, so far as the Federal Constitution was concerned. It was up to the
State constitutions to provide restraints upon political power at the State
level, should the people of the States so choose.
The Division of Powers
These provisions of Article I promptly produced certain beneficial and
practical effects. They gave the new general government essential powers that were sorely lacking in the old Confederation government; and
they curtailed certain powers formerly asserted by the State governments that sometimes had endangered the Union itself.
Still more important, perhaps, in the long run, was Article I’s creation
of an enduring federal design of government. That federal system contrived in 1787 still is functioning in the United States—even though the
powers of the Federal government have since grown at the expense of
the State governments.
In effect, after 1788 the American nation would benefit from two coordinate governments, each with its own legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The general or Federal government would concern itself
with matters of high national importance, chiefly diplomacy, the common defense, international and interstate commerce, issuing of money,
management of the nation’s western territories, ensuring a republican
form of government in all States, and performing other public functions
that no State could undertake adequately in isolation.