2. To define piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.

3. Also to provide for punishing these crimes. 35. 4. To declare the punishment of treason. 70.

1.- COUNTERFEITING.

§ 1. The power to punish, or to prescribe the punishment as it is here to be understood, for counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, is a necessity growing out of the power of Congress to coin money and to regulate its value. The temptation to counterfeiting is very great; holding out the hope, as it does, of great rewards for comparatively little labor.

§ 2. Men of mechanical genius and skill, but wanting integrity, are to be found in every community, who are willing to take the risks of detection and punishment; hoping, however, to escape both. The finest artistic ingenuity is often prostituted to this purpose, and too often with success. Counterfeiting consists in making imitations of coin, bank-bills, or other securities, approaching so near to a likeness of the originals as to deceive a person of but ordinary expe rience.

§ 3. Without the power to attach severe penalties to crimes of this class, the securities and coin of the United States would soon become comparatively worthless; the country would be filled with spurious bills, bonds, and coin; and it would not be long before money would cease to be a medium of exchange among the masses, who are unskilled in detecting the base from the genuine.

2.- PIRACIES AND FELONIES ON THE HIGH SEAS.

§ 4. Congress is vested with power to define and punish piracies and felonies when committed on the high seas. A felony committed on the high seas is not necessarily an act of piracy. By common law, piracy can not be committed on land, unless it be on an island of the sea. Sir William Blackstone defines piracy at common law to consist in committing those acts of robbery and depredation on the high seas, which, if committed on land, would amount to felony

§ 5. The same author says that piracy is an offense against the universal law of society. A pirate renounces all the benefits of society and government, and reduces himself afresh to the savage state of nature, and declares war against all mankind. statutes of England, however, various modified definitions have been given to this crime, essentially changing its common-law import. Statutes are often passed changing the common-law definitions of

crimes.

By the

§ 6. In pursuance of this power to define piracy, Congress has passed several acts on the subject. For instance, in 1820, the foreign slave-trade was made piracy, punishable by death. From the foundation of our government until 1808, the foreign slave-trade was lawful commerce. Congress has the power to enlarge or contract the definition of piracy from its common-law meaning.

§ 7. Felony is another word of common-law definition. The author last quoted defines it to be every species of crime which at common law occasioned the forfeiture of the lands and goods of the criminal; and this happens most frequently in those crimes for which a capital punishment is or was inflicted.

$ 8. By the clause in the Constitution under consideration, Congress is at liberty to depart from the common-law meaning of the word "felony." Felony can hardly be said to be a crime; for it is a word of generic import, including a large number of crimes, such as murder, larceny, arson, burglary, &c. When committed on the high seas, it could not properly be left with the States to define it, as the jurisdiction of offenses not committed within State limits must necessarily be restricted to the Federal courts.

$ 9. The high seas are defined by Judge Story to "embrace not only the waters of the ocean which are out of sight of land, but the waters on the sea-coast below low-water mark, whether within the territorial boundaries of a nation or of a domestic State."

$10. The power to define offenses against the law of nations must be considered here as restricted to American citizens. There is a responsibility resting on every government, which it cannot ig nore, with regard to the conduct of its own citizens. Governments

are responsible in some sense to neighboring nations for all violations of the laws of nations by their citizens. Out of this responsibility may grow the issues of war.

3.- PUNISHING THESE CRIMES.

§ 11. The same considerations that render it proper for Congress to have the power of defining these crimes, also render it proper that they should have the power of annexing to them suite ble penalties. Criminal law would be nugatory without penalties On account of our relations to foreign neighboring nations, it seems in the highest degree proper that this power of defining and punishing offenses of the class herein specified should belong exclusively to the National Legislature.

4.- PUNISHMENT FOR TREASON.

§ 12. The Constitution defines the crime of treason, but leaves it with Congress to prescribe its punishment. In 1790, Congress affixed to this crime the penalty of death. In 1862, Congress passed another act, punishing treason with death, or imprisonment for not less than five years, and a fine of ten thousand dollars, and the slaves of the party convicted to be free. This act was passed before the abolition of slavery in the United States.

ART. V.- POSTAL

1. To establish post-offices.

2. To establish post-roads.

1.- POST-OFFICES.

§ 1. The power vested in Congress by the Constitution to establish post-offices and post-roads is presumed to include all other powers necessary to render them effective. Any plan that should leave the supervision of the post-office department in the hands of the several States would necessarily be inefficient.

§ 2. The several States, and the citizens thereof, are bound together by ties of interest, commerce, and affection, rendering it indispensable that they should have some reliable and uniform means of communication with each other. These benefits could not be

derived from the adoption of as many different postal systems as there are States in the Union.

§ 3. Besides, the burdens would be unequal. It is far more expensive to transport the mails through the sparsely-populated regions of the West, South, and South-west, in proportion to the amount of matter conveyed and distance traveled, than it is through the more densely inhabited regions of the East and North. Yet it is in a high degree important to the whole country that the forest and the prairie be subjected to the hand of cultivation.

§ 4. And who will become pioneer, if he must be shut out from all communication with that world which he has left behind? Hardly one in a thousand of the hardy, industrious settlers who have peopled the Western and South-western States would have left their homes in the East to undergo the privations of a new country, were there no facilities for the transmission of intelligence to and from the friends of other days.

§ 5. The general superintendence and direction of the post-office department is under the care of the Postmaster-General. He has the establishing of post-offices, appoints most of the postmasters, and has the letting of the contracts for carrying the mails. For some of the larger offices, to the number of nearly a thousand, the appointments of postmasters is made on nomination of the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

§ 6. Few of the pupils, or even of the teachers, of the common schools of the present day, remember the days of dear postage. Until 1845, postage was much higher than at present. Letter postage was as follows:

:

§ 7. March 3, 1845, Congress passed an act reducing the rates

of letter postage thus:

Each letter or package weighing less than half an ounce,

if carried less than 300 miles

5 cts.

10 cts.

§ 8. At the second session of the Thirty-first Congress, which convened Dec. 2, 1850, another act was passed, reducing still lower the price of letter postage, to take effect July 1, 1851. Under

Each letter prepaid, weighing not over half an ounce, and

conveyed not over 3,000 miles, wholly within the
United States

When the same shall not be prepaid

3 cts

5 cts

For any distance exceeding 3,000 miles, double these rates. Double weight (that is, one ounce), double charges; triple weight, triple charges; and so on; every additional weight of half an ounce or less to be charged with an additional single postage.

For letters sent to foreign countries, various rates were established (higher than these), the rates depending on the countries to which the letters are sent.

§ 9. When at first cheap postage was established, there was a great deficiency in the finances of the post-office department for several years. The income did not equal the expenses until 1861, when the mails were withdrawn from the disaffected States of the South. On account of the less expense of transporting the mails at the North in proportion to receipts, the post-office department exhibited a better financial condition after the mails were withdrawn from the Southern States.

§ 10. The report of the Postmaster-General, dated Nov., 1882, showed that there were in the United States, June 30, 1882, 46,231 post-offices. The receipts from all sources during the year were $41,876,410. The expenditures for the same time were $40,039,635. Receipts over expenditures, $1,836,775.

§ 11. This exhibit led Congress, in February, 1883, to enact that after October 1, 1883, the rate of letter postage to any part of the United States should be only 2 cents. The introduction of cheap postage has encouraged and stimulated correspondence of all kinds to such extent as to secure this result. Some idea may be formed of the progress of the postal system in this country, when it is known, that, at the adoption of our Constitution in 1789, there were but seventy-five post-offices in the United