Benjamin Franklin popularized the concept of a political union in his famous “Join, Or Die” cartoon in 1754. A generation later, the concept of unity became a reality. Thomas Jefferson is credited as being the first person to come up with the name, which he used while drafting the Declaration of Independence. In June 1776, Jefferson’s draft version of the Declaration started with the following sentence: “A Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled.” The final version of the Declaration starts with the date July 4, 1776 and the following statement: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia had used the name “United Colonies” in a June resolution to Congress: “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved,” Lee wrote.

These thoughts are included in the Declaration’s final paragraph. “We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States,” it reads.

On Monday, September 9, 1776, the Congress moved to approve some important resolutions, including payments for the army. The fifth resolution read as follows: “That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the “United States.”

John C. Fitzpatrick from the Library of Congress, back in 1920, explained the origin of “United Colonies” and the abbreviation “U.S.A.” in an article for the Daughters of the American Revolution magazine.

Fitzpatrick said the words United Colonies were used by the Congress when it appointed George Washington as commander in chief in June 1775. The abbreviation U.S.A. had its origins as a way that government inspectors approved official gunpowder. Fitzpatrick said the army needed to have inspectors verify that gunpowder met standards, and it stamped “U.S.A.” on the casks as a mark, starting in August 1776,

Also, the words “United States of America” appeared in the first draft of the Articles of Confederation on July 8, 1776, as it was submitted to Congress. The Articles weren’t ratified by the states until March 1781.

Watergate reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward had vehemently opposed the pardon after Ford went on national television on September 8, 1974, to announce it. But in recent years, the former Washington Post journalists have approved of Ford’s move to absolve Nixon of any criminal charges related to the Watergate break-in and its cover-up.

In a July 2014 panel hosted by the Post, Woodward called the pardon “an act of courage.” He had talked with Ford decades after the pardon and said the former President made a “very compelling argument” for his actions based on national security and economic needs.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy said in 2001 that while he initially opposed the pardon, he had come to accept it as the best move for the country. And Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor and a Democrat, wrote about the pardon shortly after Ford’s passing in 2006.

“Did Ford make the right decision in pardoning his predecessor? The answer to that question is more nuanced than either the howls of outrage that greeted the pardon three decades ago or the general acceptance with which it is viewed now,” Ben-Veniste said in a commentary for the Post.

“The decision to pardon Nixon was a political judgment properly within the bounds of Ford's constitutional authority,” he argued. “Jerry Ford acted in accord with what he sincerely felt were the best interests of the country; that there was no secret quid pro quo with Nixon for a pardon in return for resignation; and that Ford, a compassionate man, was moved by the palpable suffering of a man who had lost so much.”

But in the months after the pardon back in 1974, most Americans didn’t approve of Ford’s move. In a Gallup poll taken 43 years ago, 53 percent of those polled disapproved of the pardon. However, in a 1986 Gallup poll, 54 percent of Americans said they now approved of the presidential pardon.

Ford appeared in front of a House judiciary committee in October 1974 to explain the pardon.

“I was absolutely convinced then as I am now that if we had had [an] indictment, a trial, a conviction, and anything else that transpired after this that the attention of the President, the Congress and the American people would have been diverted from the problems that we have to solve. And that was the principle reason for my granting of the pardon,” he told Representative Elizabeth Holtzman.

At a 2014 panel discussion, Ford’s lawyer during that period, Benton Becker, explained an additional element that influenced Ford’s decision to issue a presidential pardon: a 1915 Supreme Court decision. In Burdick v. United States, the Court ruled that a pardon carried an “imputation of guilt” and accepting a pardon was “an admission of guilt.”. Thus, this decision implied that Nixon accepted his guilt in the Watergate controversy by also accepting Ford’s pardon.

Prior to Ford’s issuance of the pardon, Becker was tasked with the difficult job of mediating the negotiations between Ford and Nixon. Becker said he took copies of the Burdick decision to California when he met with former President Nixon, and under Ford’s instructions, walked through the decision with Nixon.

Becker said the discussion with Nixon was very difficult, and the former President kept trying to change the subject way from Burdick. Finally, Nixon acknowledged Becker’s argument about what the Supreme Court decision meant.

After he left the White House, Ford carried part of the Burdick decision with him in his wallet in case someone brought up the pardon. In a later interview with Woodward for Caroline Kennedy’s book, “Profiles in Courage for Our Time,” Ford pulled out the dog-eared decision and read the key parts of it to Woodward.

McKinley had led America out of a recession, won a war and re-election, and he was about six months into his second term as President. The Exposition had been postponed during the Spanish-American War, and McKinley wanted to be at an event that showcased the United States’ role as a regional power.

While in Buffalo, he went against the advice of his staff by agreeing to extend a long round of public handshaking with an appearance at the exhibition’s Temple of Music. Toward the end of his scheduled appearance, Leon Czolgosz, a self-avowed anarchist, shook McKinley’s left hand while shooting twice at the President.

After about eight days, President McKinley died early on September 14 from an infection caused by a gunshot wound to the abdomen, which may have been worsened by a medical team that didn’t use modern sanitary precautions during surgery. And for 13 hours, as Roosevelt made his back to Buffalo using a horse-drawn wagon and then train travel, the office of President technically remained vacant.

Until the ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967, presidential succession due to death or disability was handled under a precedent set by Vice President John Tyler in 1841. After President William Henry Harrison’s death, Tyler declared himself as the office holder of President on April 6, 1841, two days after Harrison’s death, by taking a new presidential oath.

In the ensuing years, three other Vice Presidents became President under similar circumstances. Millard Fillmore and Andrew Johnson were near their fallen Presidents in Washington at the time of their deaths, while Chester Alan Arthur was in New York City awaiting word about President James Garfield’s condition when Garfield died.

At the time of McKinley’s shooting, Roosevelt had been at Lake Champlain, speaking at a fish and game event. It was there that the Vice President was told of the shooting on September 6. He left by rowboat, yacht, and train to get to Buffalo, where he stayed with an old friend, Ansley Wilcox.

Roosevelt, believing reports that McKinley would recover, left Wilcox’s Buffalo home on September 10. He traveled to the Adirondacks to climb Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York state, as part of a family vacation. The Vice President was staying at a cottage when he received word that McKinley had taken a turn for the worse. Deciding not to wait for daybreak, Roosevelt left the cottage at midnight. With the help of several wagon drivers, he traveled five hours to the nearest train station to board a train to Buffalo. It was at the train station that Roosevelt learned that McKinley was dead. About 13 hours after McKinley’s passing, Roosevelt privately took the oath of office at Wilcox’s house.

Roosevelt had to borrow formal clothes for the occasion, and he barred photographs of the ceremony. At the prompting of Secretary of War Elihu Root, Roosevelt took an oath administered by federal judge John Hazel.

The group of colonial luminaries didn’t meet in Independence Hall (which, at the time, was called the Pennsylvania State House). Instead, delegates selected by colonial legislatures met next door in Carpenters’ Hall, which had just been constructed. The State House was already occupied by the Pennsylvania provincial assembly.

The delegates gathered on the morning of September 5 at Philadelphia’s City Tavern, near Benjamin Franklin’s home. Franklin had remained in England, and he would deliver a petition from the First Congress to King George III in late 1774. The group then walked over to Carpenters’ Hall to inspect the meeting room.

“They took a view of the room, and of the chamber where is an excellent library… The general cry was, that this was a good room, and the question was put, whether we were satisfied with this room? and it passed in the affirmative,” said John Adams.

In all, 56 delegates from 12 colonies came to Philadelphia for the meeting to address the Coercive or Intolerable Acts. The laws were meant as punishment for the activities of the Boston Tea Party, but they affected all colonies. Neither Franklin nor Thomas Jefferson attended, but in addition to Adams, the delegates included Patrick Henry, Roger Sherman, John Jay, John Dickinson, Richard Henry Lee,  George Washington, and John Adams’ cousin, Samuel Adams.

Thomas Jefferson’s cousin, Peyton Randolph, was named as the first president of the Continental Congress. Randolph was another prominent Virginia leader and Washington’s close friend.

After about seven weeks of debates, the group agreed to a boycott of British goods within the colonies as a sign of protest, spelled out in the Articles of Association. In addition to the boycott, the Articles called for an end of exports to Great Britain in the following year if the Intolerable Acts weren’t repealed. The First Continental Congress also made plans to convene a second Continental Congress in May 1775 to continue the work started in Philadelphia if the Intolerable Acts remained in force.

A separate document, now called the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, stated the group’s objections to the Intolerable Acts, listed the rights of the colonists, and itemized objections to British rule beyond the Intolerable Acts. On October 26, the delegates also crafted a  formal petition to King George III. It outlined the grievances of the colonies to the King, but it also didn’t assign blame to him.

Next May, when the Second Continental Congress came back to Philadelphia, it met in the Pennsylvania State House. Violence had broken out in Boston with the battles of Lexington and Concord. Delegates from Georgia joined the Second Continental Congress, as did Franklin and John Hancock. Jefferson arrived to replace Randolph, who was called back to Virginia on political business.

The new Congress became focused on the war effort, just seven months after it had left Carpenters’ Hall hoping for a constructive response from the King and the British government.

The tradition is that Parliament holds sovereign power – the ultimate power and control of government – not the people (as in America). Even the British Crown, for centuries, has not posed a genuine threat to the national legislature’s eminence and authority.

As one British politician put it last week: “Parliamentary sovereignty remains the foremost and over-arching principle of our constitution.” (The British constitution is unwritten, at least in the sense of a single document. Rather, it is a huge compendium of traditions and court rulings that, together, establish the equivalent of a working constitution.)

Now, however, that central idea of Parliament’s sovereignty is under siege, one of a multitude of the effects of “Brexit,” the intensely debated but still unsettled plan to leave the European Union on October 31. The British public narrowly voted three years ago for Brexit, 51.9 to 48.1 percent.

In an ironic twist, Britain may have to depend upon its courts – though subordinated to Parliament – to rescue the “mother of all parliaments” from Her Majesty’s government, and in particular, from the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

With Parliament due to return this Tuesday as a summer recess ends, and with only nine weeks to go before “Exit Day” is to happen, the Prime Minister made his move last week to take control and to set the stage for his plan to carry out Brexit, “do or die,” at the end of next month.

He asked Queen Elizabeth II (who had little choice but to comply) to order Parliament to interrupt its new sitting for five weeks this month (the longest such suspension, or “prorogation,” since 1945).

The suspension has caused a political uproar across Britain. There have been protest rallies across the nation, with angry messages such as “Stop the Coup.” There also was an audacious march on Buckingham Palace itself. Politicians have been denouncing “constitutional chaos.” The colorful and no-nonsense Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, labeled the maneuver a “constitutional outrage.”

Scary headlines are appearing in the media. Prospect Magazine had an opinion article proclaiming: “The fight is now against something even more horrifying than Brexit.” A smaller headline read: “We must stop this descent into demagoguery before it is too late.”

The opposition Labor Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, have talked darkly of forcing a vote of no-confidence in the Prime Minister, and various politicians and public figures are calling either for a new public referendum on Brexit, or a general election to choose a new House of Commons.

In a few circles, there has even been talk (probably unrealistic) of giving up the hereditary monarchy for an elected head of state. The Queen, who is supposed to be kept above the political fray and relies on her government to do that for her, is now taking some of the heat.

Last weekend, Lewis Goodall, a political correspondent for Britain’s SkyNews, lamented the politicization of the Queen, as he called it in a tweet. He added ruefully: “Now, not one of our political institutions remains untouched or undiminished by Brexit.”

The expressions of gloom have grown so intense that the Parliament’s formal name – the “Union Parliament” – might not continue to be descriptive because of the prospect that Scotland (deeply upset over Brexit and already chafing under close oversight from London) might try to secede from the Union that has existed since 1707. (Northern Ireland’s stay in the Union is also sometimes doubted; Wales might remain as England’s only sibling.)

Prime Minister Johnson has insisted that he asked the Queen to “prorogue” Parliament simply because he is new to the job and needs more time to develop his own policy agenda. But critics have charged that he is trying to “run out the clock,” to keep Parliament from passing laws to stop what seems like inevitable turmoil surrounding Brexit.

There is no agreed plan on what to do on “Exit Day.” The former Prime Minister, Theresa May, herself a political casualty of Brexit, had a plan worked out with the European Union, but it has been voted down three times in Parliament this year (suggesting to some critics that its wounds are self-inflicted).

Without some scheme for coping with the separation, the nation may face shortages of food and medicine, legal rights probably will be impaired, travel and transport probably will be snarled, and there is even a threat that the past violence along the border between Northern Ireland and the independent republic of Ireland could erupt again. (The violence ended in 1998 with the so-called “Good Friday Agreement,” successfully brokered by an American, George J. Mitchell, then a Democratic Senator from Maine.)

Adding to the uncertainty, U.S. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, vowed on a visit to London that Congress would approve no new trade deal with Britain if peace along the Irish border were truly threatened. However, President Trump – an admirer of Brexit and a strong supporter of Boris Johnson – has promised to work out a new deal on his own.

If all of this tumult were unfolding in America, the courts surely would be the place to look for a way out – something either to delay “Exit Day” or thwart Johnson directly. (Actually, if a U.S. President attempted to send Congress home for a period, the U.S. Constitution would forbid it.)

Now, though it is uncomfortable for many traditionalists in Britain, a move into the courts is, in fact, happening across the UK.

This week, the uproar over the suspension moves into the sober realm of the courts, with tribunals in London, Edinburgh, and Belfast – the centers of three of the four “countries” in the Union – holding hearings on pleas to cancel the suspension of Parliament.

One of the main legal claims in the challenges is that Her Majesty’s government has violated the “Claim of Right” – a document from 1689 in Scotland, when the Scottish Crown was handed to William and Mary but under terms of a limited monarchy, bound by the nation’s laws. (That document is a part of the UK constitution.)

In what is not at all a coincidence, the turn to the courts to rescue Parliament from the Queen’s government ministers comes at a time when there is a lively debate, in legal and academic circles in Britain, over whether the nation’s courts are assuming too much power, and actually distorting the constitutional hierarchy of authority.

Americans, an ocean away from the Brexit drama but fascinated to some degree by it, can see the vivid contrasts in the basic governing arrangements of the two nations.

The lower rank of the British courts (even including its Supreme Court, a 10-year-old institution split off from the House of Lords) are not like the American federal courts, made constitutionally equal to the other branches of the federal government and guaranteed a sturdy independence, which they use – sometimes boldly – to strike down actions of the other branches.

Part of the vigorous new debate in Britain over the role of the courts, a debate that focuses some of the time on whether the nation’s constitution is a political or a legal document, arises out of a decision early last year by the UK Supreme Court.

When ministers in the May government took the position that it was up to them to initiate the move to actually declare the exit from the European Union, a high-profile lawsuit led to a Supreme Court decision that only Parliament had the authority to do that, by explicitly passing a law. Critics, including some retired judges, saw that as an unseemly grab for power, intervening rather than leaving it to the political institutions to work out.

To a degree, the fondness of Americans for suing their government over a grievance is making a return appearance in the Mother Country, which invented the idea of judicial power to strike down government acts in 1610, in a ruling by the famous jurist, Edward Coke, in Dr. Bonham’s Case.

The new lawsuits will not be aimed at the Queen; she cannot be sued. A prominent London barrister, Lord David Pannick, who was one of the attorneys who won the Supreme Court case last year and is handling one of the new cases against Johnson, told The Times of London last week: “The courts would not entertain a challenge to a personal decision by the Queen, because she, the head of the UK’s constitutional structure, is immune from legal process.”

He argued, though, that the advice her ministers gave to her about suspending Parliament is a proper subject for review by the courts.

As Americans watch the Brexit drama (it is being covered closely by U.S. media), they could see how very different the two countries are, constitutionally speaking.

One of the most basic differences is that Parliament, if it wished, could do something that Congress would never dare: it could totally ignore the peoples’ vote for Brexit three years ago and remain a part of Europe. Such a vote is not a sovereign mandate, either to the national legislature or even to the Crown’s ministers drawn from the benches at Westminster.

And, if there were actually to be a breakup of the UK, that is something that would be out of the question in the United States. The Civil War settled that more than 150 years ago.

Lyle Denniston has been writing about the Supreme Court since 1958. His work has appeared here since mid-2011.

Douglass posed as a sailor when he grabbed a train in Baltimore that was headed to Philadelphia. He was also given papers from a freed black sailor to help in the journey.

“My knowledge of ships and sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an 'old salt,'” he later said in his autobiography.

Link: Read Quotes From Douglass about his escape

Once Douglass made the harrowing train trip to Philadelphia he was able to move on to New York City.

“My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the morning of the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a a free man - one more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway,” he said.

The anniversary is also an occasion to note the 2013 publication of “TransAtlantic” by Colum McCann, who won the National Book Award for his previous novel “Let The Great World Spin.”

“TransAtlantic” is a lyrical novel about stories cutting across time, in Canada, Ireland, and the United States—and about how, as McCann’s website describes, “the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.”

National Public Radio reported that “TransAtlantic” was inspired by McCann learning that, in 1845, when Douglass was only 27 and still a slave, he went to Ireland to raise money for his anti-slavery campaign and to stir support for abolition. (This 1988 senior thesis at Yale tells more about that history.)

McCann told the NewsHour: “The real is imagined, in the sense that we shape our stories, so anything that even happens on the news gets shaped in a certain way and gets a texture …” He went on, “what I'm interested in is how the small anonymous moments, they can enter into the large narrative of the bigger, more public moments,” including when Frederick Douglass went to Ireland.

The Labor Day holiday grew out of the late 19th century organized labor movement, and it quickly became a national holiday as the labor movement assumed a prominent role in American society. Here’s how it all started, with the facts, as we know them, supplied by the Labor Department, the Library Of Congress, and other sources.

1. The idea first became public in 1882. In September 1882, the unions of New York City decided to have a parade to celebrate their members being in unions, and to show support for all unions. At least 20,000 people were there, and the workers had to give up a day’s pay to attend. There was also a lot of beer involved in the event.

2. The New York parade inspired other unions. Other regions started having parades, and by 1887, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Colorado made Labor Day a state holiday.

3. How did the Haymarket Affair influence Labor Day? On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded at a union rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, which led to violence that killed seven police officers and four others. The incident also led to May 1 being celebrated in most nations as Workers Day. The U.S. government chose Labor Day instead to avoid a celebration on May 1 and New York's unions had already picked the first Monday in September for their holiday.

4. Two people with similar names are credited with that first New York City event. Matthew Maguire, a machinist, and Peter McGuire, a carpenter, have been linked to the 1882 parade. The men were from rival unions; in 2011, Linda Stinson, a former U.S. Department of Labor’s historian, said she didn't know which man should be credited - partially because people over the years confused them because of their similar-sounding names.

5. Grover Cleveland helped make Labor Day a national holiday. After violence related to the Pullman railroad strike, President Cleveland and lawmakers in Washington wanted a federal holiday to celebrate labor - and not a holiday celebrated on May 1. Cleveland signed an act in 1894 establishing the federal holiday; most states had already passed laws establishing a Labor Day holiday by that point. Sen. James Henderson Kyle of South Dakota introduced S. 730 to make Labor Day a federal legal holiday on the first Monday of September. It was approved on June 28, 1894.

6. The holiday has evolved over the years. In the late 19th century, celebrations focused on parades in urban areas. Now the holiday is a celebration that honors organized labor with fewer parades, and more activities. It also marks the perceived end of the summer season.

7. Can you wear white after Labor Day? This old tradition goes back to the late Victorian era, where it was a fashion faux pas to wear any white clothing after the summer officially ended on Labor Day. The tradition isn’t really followed anymore. EmilyPost.com explains the logic behind the fashion trend – white indicated you were still in vacation mode at your summer cottage.

8. Labor Day is the unofficial end of Hot Dog season. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says that between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Americans will eat 7 billion hot dogs.

9. How many people are union members today? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 14.8 million union members in the workforce in 2017. There were 17.7 million in 1983.

10. What is the biggest union today? The National Education Association has about 3 million people who are members, including inactive and lifetime members.

The Founders knew that government under the new Constitution had to stabilize the shaky financial foundations of a new nation that struggled with debts incurred during and after the break from Great Britain. In July 1789, Congress approved a bill establishing a Treasury Department and sent it to President George Washington for consideration.

At first, President Washington offered the Secretary of the Treasury job to Robert Morris, who was known as the “financier of the Revolution” and had led a predecessor department during the pre-Constitution era. Morris declined but recommended that Washington turn to Alexander Hamilton for the critical position. (Morris and Hamilton had similar visions of a national bank that would become a point of political debate for generations.)

On September 2, 1789, Washington signed a Treasury Act that said “there shall be a Department of Treasury, in which shall be the following officers, namely: a Secretary of the Treasury, to be deemed head of the department; a Comptroller, an Auditor, a Treasurer, a Register, and an Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, which assistant shall be appointed by the said Secretary.” It immediately became the biggest department in the executive branch, with 39 employees.

Hamilton became Treasury Secretary on September 11, 1789, and shortly after, Hamilton’s vision of a central banking system that supported manufacturing, as well as agriculture, met with equally strong opposition from Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Edmund Randolph.

Hamilton presented this vision in a January 1790 treatise called “Report Relative to a Provision for the Support of Public Credit.” The report to Congress detailed Hamilton’s argument that a coordinated system of central federal credit and debt was needed for the nation’s survival.

“In the affairs of nations, in which there will be a necessity for borrowing,” Hamilton wrote. “That loans in times of public danger, especially from foreign war, are found an indispensable resource, even to the wealthiest of them. And that in a country, which, like this, is possessed of little active wealth, or in other words, little monied capital, the necessity for that resource, must, in such emergencies, be proportionably urgent.”

In December 1787, Hamilton argued in The Federalist No. 30 that a central economic system with managed debt was critical to the United States’ ability to undertake commerce. (Hamilton had first argued for a national bank in 1779 at the age of 24.)

“The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation by its own authority would enable the national government to borrow, as far as its necessities might require. Foreigners as well as the citizens of America, could then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements,” Hamilton wrote.

The 1790 report offered several controversial proposals. First, Hamilton wanted the Treasury Department to redeem federal debt on generous financial terms. He also proposed that the federal government assumed debt incurred by the states and that they become equal partners in the federal debt. Hamilton also wrote that “the Secretary contemplates the application of this money, through the medium of a national bank, for which, with the permission of the House, he will submit a plan in the course of the session.”

The final proposal about a national bank met with immediate objections from Madison and Jefferson as falling outside the bounds of the Constitution. Madison believed it was clear that the Constitution intended for the states to charter and run their own banking systems.

Hamilton’s proposal was “a broad construction of federal powers … [that would deliver] a powerful blow at the barriers against an indefinite expansion of federal authority,” Madison argued on the House floor.

Madison insisted that Hamilton wanted to use the government to establish the national bank as a corporation – a power that fell outside of Article 1, Section 8, as a power granted directly to Congress. Attorney General Randolph told President Washington that he agreed with Madison’s reasoning.

Jefferson also urged Washington to veto a proposed bill to establish a national bank. He used many of the same arguments made by Madison, arguing that a strict reading of the Constitution made it clear that establishing a national bank fell outside the bounds of the Necessary and Proper Clause.

Washington, in turn, asked Hamilton to respond to these arguments. Hamilton’s lengthy reply, written in one evening, supported the idea of implied powers granted by the Constitution.

In his “Opinion on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank,” Hamilton made an argument that the Constitution implied that Congress could take necessary actions to meet national goals, regardless of whether these measures were explicitly stated in the Constitution

“It leaves therefore a criterion of what is constitutional, and of what is not so. This criterion is the end, to which the measure relates as a mean,” he argued. “If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure [has] an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution—it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.”

Washington agreed with Hamilton and thus declined to veto the bill that proposed the First Bank of the United States. The bank became a reality in 1791, but the debate over these core constitutional concepts remains strong today.

In the subsequent years of Hamilton’s time as Treasury Secretary, the American economy stabilized, but the philosophical rift between Hamilton’s Federalist allies and the Jefferson-Madison faction grew into the first version of partisan politics that we all know well today. Hamilton resigned as Treasury Secretary in 1795.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

The clause reads as follows in Article III, Section 3, of the Constitution:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.”

The Treason Clause was carefully worded to limit the charge to the most serious of crimes. Part of this was because of the application of treason charges, in a broader sense, in Great Britain.

The clause, as it was developed by James Wilson at the 1787 convention is Philadelphia, borrowed part of its wording from the English Statute of Treason, and it limited the ability of Congress to define treason. It also put a high burden of proof in place by requiring “the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act.”

Since the Constitution went into effect in 1789, treason charges have been brought fewer than 30 times. And Burr's landmark treason trial was one of the earliest, featuring some of the same people who were at the Constitutional Convention.

Working on Burr’s treason defense team in 1807 were Edmund Randolph and Luther Martin (as the lead attorney), both former constitutional delegates. President Thomas Jefferson directed the prosecution from the White House, with George Hay, and future attorney general William Wirt assisting Jefferson.

How Burr came to be arrested in Alabama in 1807 was a long story in itself, but the brief version is that Burr was rejected by his own party, the Democratic-Republicans, for opposing Jefferson in the 1800 presidential election runoff in the House, and then shunned by the Federalists and others for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

Burr moved west to seek better fortunes, which included an independent military adventure to seize lands belonging to Spain in Louisiana and Mexico (specifically, Texas), with the possible incentive offered to the western states joining in the “adventure.” His activities, to a lesser extent, had been public knowledge since 1805.

However, Burr’s longtime friend, General James Wilkinson, decided to abandon the adventure. Wilkinson sent a message to federal authorities and President Jefferson that Burr intended to entice the western states to leave the Union and join with him as he colonized new lands – with the support of England. Jefferson then alerted Congress about Burr’s plan, and he ordered his arrest.

“Jefferson himself never doubted that Burr was a traitor. Indeed, on January 22, 1807, he had pronounced Burr guilty of treason to Congress and the entire nation—without a grand jury indictment,” said Kent Newmyer, in his recent book, “The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics and the Character Wars of the New Nation.”

“In Jefferson’s morally dichotomous calculus, Burr was a danger to the republic; in Jefferson’s personalized view of the presidency, it was his responsibility to eliminate the danger, even if it meant breaking the law. Burr brought out the worst in Jefferson, and Jefferson brought out the worst in Burr,” said Newmyer.

Chief Justice John Marshall, Jefferson’s long-time political foe (and also his distant cousin), would preside at Burr’s treason trial since he was also the federal judge for the U.S. Circuit Court for Virginia.

At the trial, Marshall made the unusual move of issuing a subpoena to President Jefferson to deliver documents that Burr had requested to prepare his defense. Jefferson only supplied parts of the letters to the court and never acknowledged the subpoena. More damaging was testimony that showed that Burr was 100 miles away from a scene on Blennerhassett's Island on the Ohio River, the one location where the government claimed Burr was planning an overt act of treason.

Marshall told the jury that it had to confine its analysis to testimony that an act of war against the United States had been conducted on Blennerhassett's Island. Marshall and the Supreme Court had narrowed that definition in an earlier case related to Burr called Ex parte Bollman.

“No testimony relative to the conduct or declarations of the prisoner elsewhere, and subsequent to the transaction on Blennerhassett's Island, can be admitted; because such testimony, being in its nature merely corroborative and incompetent to prove the overt act in itself, is irrelevant until there be proof of the overt act by two witnesses,” Marshall said. “This opinion does not comprehend the proof by two witnesses that the meeting on Blennerhassett's Island was procured by the prisoner.”

The jury quickly reached a verdict.

“We of the jury say that Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under this indictment by any evidence submitted to us.  We therefore find him not guilty.”

Jefferson reportedly wanted the House to bring an impeachment charge against Marshall after the Burr trial. But he had failed in a similar attempt in 1805 when the Senate tried another Supreme Court justice, Samuel Chase after the House brought charges at Jefferson’s urging.

Marshall testified at Chase’s trial, which saw an acquittal for Chase in proceedings conducted by the Vice President at the time: Aaron Burr.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

Marshall was confirmed in a 69-11 floor vote to join the Court. He had previously been confirmed by the Senate twice for two other government positions, first when Marshall was confirmed as a federal judge in the Kennedy administration and then as Solicitor General for President Lyndon Johnson.

President Johnson nominated Marshall in June 1967 to replace the retiring Justice Tom Clark, who left the Court after his son, Ramsey Clark, became Attorney General.  Johnson said Marshall was “best qualified by training and by very valuable service to the country. … I believe it is the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.”

As a long-time civil rights litigator for the NAACP, Marshall had won most of the cases he argued in front of the Supreme Court in that capacity.  Arguably his biggest win was the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), one of the true landmark decisions in the Court’s history, which invalidated the concept of segregation at public schools under the Fourteenth Amendment. “This Court should make it clear that that is not what our Constitution stands for,” Marshall argued successfully.

Marshall’s confirmation hearing met with some resistance from southern senators who were concerned about his liberal track record.  The majority of Senators in the Judiciary Committee reported that Marshall “demonstrated those qualities which we admire in members of our highest judicial tribunal: thoughtfulness, care, moderation, reasonableness, a judicial temperament, and a balanced approach to controversial and complicated national problems.”

Five Senators, including Sam Ervin, a Democrat from North Carolina, didn’t recommend Marshall’s nomination. “It is clearly a disservice to the Constitution and the country to appoint a judicial activist to the Supreme Court at any time,” wrote Ervin in the committee’s report.

The actual debate and full floor vote on August 30, 1967, took about six hours, with the discussion focused on Marshall’s character and the conservative Senators’ concerns over Marshall as a liberal jurist and attorney. After he was finally approved by the Senate, Marshall then took two oaths, one in September 1967 and another in early October 1967 when he first joined the bench.

On the Court, Marshall was a member of the bench’s liberal wing. He served 24 years on the Court before retiring in 1991.

After Marshall’s death in 1993, the Court approved a special resolution honoring Marshall. “The great majority of Supreme Court Justices are almost always remembered for their contributions to constitutional law as a member of this Court. Justice Marshall, however, is unique because of his contributions to constitutional law before becoming a member of the Court were so significant,” wrote Chief Justice William Rehnquist.  “Inscribed above the front entrance to this Court building are the words, ‘Equal Justice Under Law.’  Surely no individual did more to make these words a reality than Thurgood Marshall.”