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LESSONS IN CIVICS & THE CONSTITUTION – G
Article I, Section 8 defines the Admiralty Jurisdiction of Congress in the following:
“The Congress shall have the power to collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts . . . of the United States . . . To borrow money on the credit of the United States. To regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes. To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of Bankruptcies. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the Law of Nations. To declare War, grant letters of Manqué and Reprisal, and make rules concerning Captures on Land and Water. To raise and support armies. . .
To provide and maintain a Navy. To make rules for . . . Land and Naval forces. To provide for the calling forth the militia . . . To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia . . .”
- - The powers listed here are all within the jurisdiction of Admiralty and Maritime Law and encompass most of the powers granted to Congress.
Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is defined in Article III, Section 2:
“The judicial power shall extend to all cases in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, the Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Minister and Consuls; to all cases of Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction; . . .”
The full meaning of Article III, Section 2, was addressed in the case of De Lovio v. Boit in 1815 by Justice Story: What is the true interpretation of the clause—all cases of Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction? When we examine the etymology, or received use of the words “Admiralty” and “Maritime jurisdiction”, we will find that they include jurisdiction of all things done upon or relating to the sea, or, in other words, all transactions and proceedings relative to commerce and navigation, and to damages or injuries upon the sea.
In all of the great maritime nations of Europe, the same “Admiralty jurisdiction” is uniformly applied to the courts exercising jurisdiction over maritime contract and concerns. These terms are just as familiarly known among the jurists of Spain, Scotland, Holland and France as of England, and applied to their own courts, having substantially the same jurisdiction, as the English Admiralty during the reign of Edward the Third. The clause however of the constitution not only confers Admiralty jurisdiction, but the word “Maritime” is superadded, seemingly ex-industria to remove any latent doubt. “Cases of Maritime jurisdiction” must include all maritime contracts, torts and injuries, which are in the understanding of Common Law, as well as of the Admiralty, . . .”
Article VI states:
“All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this constitution, shall be valid against the United States under this constitution, as under the Confederation. This constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
It is obvious, the Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction granted to the Congress and the Judiciary is very broad and extensive. So, what provisions were made in the Constitution to prevent the encroachment of this Admiralty jurisdiction into our Domestic law (the substantive Common Law) pursuant to the Declaration of Independence? We can find this answer in Article I , Section 8, and Article I, Section 10, Clause 1, but let me give a little background information first:
Beginning as far back as 1690, the colonies had periodically experimented with credit and unbacked paper as a form of public money. The end results were always the same, gold and silver coin always disappeared from circulation, commerce became stagnate, unemployment grew by leaps and bounds, etc. The war for independence showed a new development in the system of credit, by the reckless disregard of its bounds.
When the Constitutional Convention was convened in Philadelphia, May 14, 1787 and George Washington was elected President, Randolph, the Governor of Virginia, brought attention to paper money in his opening speech by reminding his listeners that the patriotic authors of the confederation did their work “In the infancy of the science of constitutions and confederacies, when the havoc of paper money had not been foreseen.” The eighth clause of the seventh article, in the first draft of the Constitution, was as follows:
“The legislature of the United States shall have the power to borrow money and emit bills on the credit of the United States.”
By refusing the power of issuing bills of credit, the door was shut, but not barred, on paper money by constitutional law. Although Congress was not authorized to issue notes of the United States, the borrowing clause left a means of borrowing notes of another entity into circulation. (e.g., a private bank).
The Convention took steps to remedy that situation and thereby, guarantee a substance for our domestic Common Law to function on matters involving money. This was done on the 28th of August 1787. The first draft of the Constitution had forbidden the states to emit bills of credit without the consent of Congress. On this date, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Sherman inserted, after the words “coin money” the words “nor emit bills of credit,” nor make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, and in their words, “making these prohibitions absolute.” Mr. Sherman went on to say that he “thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money. If the consent of the legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money, would make every exertion to get into the legislature in order to license it.” After some discussion, Mr. Wilson’s and Mr. Sherman’s motion was unanimously agreed to by the convention. The result of this action appears in Article I, Section 10, Clause 1. Its most prominent feature is “No State shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”
Following the constitutional convention, it took almost a year for the States to ratify the Constitution, mainly because they insisted on certain substantive Common Law rights and principles being specified in the Constitution. These rights and principles appear as the first Ten Amendments, called the Bill of Rights. Common Law, operating on money of substance, brought quick relief as documented by George Washington. He wrote in a letter dated June 13,1790, he wrote to Marquis de Lafayette: “You have doubtless been informed, from time to time, of the happy progress of our affairs. The principle difficulties seem in a great measure to have been surmounted.”
Next week, July 10th: JUDICIARY ACT (1789)
“Abouna” Gregori
“Just Hitting
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