adjustment of debts on the ground of inability to pay. Congress was
further empowered to establish a uniform rule of naturalization and a
uniform law of bankruptcy. But it was prohibited from passing bills of
attainder or _ex post facto_ laws, or suspending the writ of _habeas
corpus_, except under the stress of rebellion or invasion. It was
provided that all duties, imposts, or excises should be uniform
throughout the United States. The federal government could not give
preference to one state over another in its commercial regulations. It
could not tax exports. It could not draw money from the treasury save by
due process of appropriation, and all bills relating to the raising of
revenue must originate in the lower house, which directly represented
the people. Congress was empowered to admit new states into the Union,
but it was not allowed to interfere with the territorial areas of states
already existing without the express consent of the local legislatures.
To insure the independence of the federal government, it was provided
that senators and representatives should be paid out of the federal
treasury, and not by their respective states, as had been the case under
the confederation. Except for such offences as treason, felony, or
breach of the peace, they should be "privileged from arrest during their
attendance, at the session of their respective houses, and in going to
or returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either
house" they were not to be "questioned in any other place." It was
further provided that a territory not exceeding ten miles square should
be ceded to the United States, and set apart as the site of a federal
city, in which the general government should ever after hold its
meetings, erect its buildings, and exercise exclusive jurisdiction.
During the past four years the Continental Congress had skipped about
from Philadelphia to Princeton, to Annapolis, to Trenton, to New York,
until it had become a laughing-stock, and the newspapers were full of
squibs about it. Verily, said one facetious editor, the Lord shall make
this government like unto a wheel, and keep it rolling back and forth
betwixt Dan and Beersheba, and grant it no rest this side of Jordan.
This inconvenience was now to be remedied. Congress was hereafter to
have a federal police force at its disposal, and was never more to be
reduced to the humiliation of a fruitless appeal to the protecting arm
of a state government, as