ARTICLE IV.

SEC. 1. Full faith to be given to the public acts, records, &c.

2.-1. Privileges and immunities of citizens.

2. Of fugitives from justice.

3. Of persons held to service or labor in one state and fleeing to another. 3.-1. Of the admission of new States into the Union.

2. Of the disposition of territory, &c

4. Guarantee and disposition of the several states.

SECTION 1.

1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings, shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

SECTION 2.

1. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

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2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.

3. No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

SECTION 3.

1. New states may be admitted by the congress into this union; bnt no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, or any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, as well as of the congress.

2. The congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

SECTION 4.

1. The United States shall guaranty to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence. ARTICLE V.

SEC. 1. Amendments to the constitution, how made, and how ratified.

1. The congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution; or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by congress; provided, that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shail in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth seetion of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the senate.*

ARTICLE VI.

SEC. 1.-1. Former debts of the Government valid under this constitution.

2. The constitution, &c. the supreme law of the land.

3. All officers, state and national, to take an oath to support the constitution of the United States-no religious test shall be ever required.

1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this constitution, as under the confederation.

2. 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 and laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

3. The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several legislatures, and all executive and judicial offiSee ante. art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1.

cers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution; and no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

1. The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution betrveen the states so ratifying the same.

Done in convention, by the Unanimous consent of the states pre sent, the seventeeth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the independence of the United States of America, the twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names. GEORGE WASHINGTON,

Present: The states of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mr. Hamilton from New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

1. Resolved, That the preceeding constitution be laid before the United States in congress assembled, and that it is the opinion of this convention, that it should afterwards be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification; and that each convention assenting to, and ratifying the same, should give notice thereof to the United States in congress assembled.

2. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this convention, that as soon as the conventions of nine states shall have ratified this constitution, the United States in Congress assembled, should fix a day on which electors should be appointed by the states which shall have ratified the same, and a day on which the electors shall vote for the president, and the time and place for commencing proceedings under this constitution. That after such publication, the electors should be appointed, and the senators and representatives elected. That the electors should meet on the day fixed for the election of the president, and should transmit their votes, certified, signed, sealed and directed, as the constitution requires, to the secretary of the United States, in congress assembled; that the senators and representatives should convene at the time and place assigned; that the senators should appoint a president of the senate, for the sole purpose of receiving, opening, and counting the votes for president; and that after he shall be chosen,

the congress, together with the president, should, without delay, proceed to execute this constitution.

By the unanimous order of the convention,

GEORGE WASHINGTON, President.

WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary.

IN CONVENTION,

Letter from Convention.

SEPTEMBER 17th, 1787.

SIR,

1. We have now the honor to submit to the consideration of the United States in congress assembled, that constitution which has appeared to us the most advisable.

2. The friends of our country have long seen and desired, that the power of making war, peace, and treaties; that of levying money, and regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and Judicial authorities, should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the union: but the impropriety of delegating such exten sive trust to one body of men, is evident; hence results the necessity of a different organization.

3. It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states, to secure all. rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several states, as to their situation, extent, habits and particular interests.

4. In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our union, in which is involved our greatest prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence.This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed upon our minds, led each state in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and C