U.S. Constitution · Article III, Section 3, Clause 1
Treason Clause
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Also known as: Treason Clause
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The text
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.
National Archives transcription (public domain; original spelling and capitalization). archives.gov
SI explainer
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In the founders’ words
- “As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it. But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.” James Madison, The Federalist No. 43 (1788-01-23)
- “Mr. MADISON , thought the definition too narrow. It did not appear to go as far as the Stat. of Edwd. III. He did not see why more latitude might not be left to the Legislature. It wd. be as safe as in the hands of State legislatures; and it was inconvenient to bar a discretion which experience might enlighten, and which might be applied to good purposes as well as be abused.” James Madison, Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention, August 20, 1787 (1787-08-20)
Public-domain primary sources, quoted word for word and checked against the linked text.
Leading Supreme Court cases
- Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. 1 (1945)
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Cite this page
Values for America Constitution Explorer, https://www.valuesforamerica.com/constitution (text: National Archives transcription, public domain), Article III, Section 3, Clause 1, https://www.valuesforamerica.com/constitution/article-3/section-3/clause-1
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