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Congress created the District of Columbia, which is regarded not as a state but as a federal territory and the nation’s capital.
    8. The final provision of Article I, Section 8, has proven to be one of the most important—and controversial—provisions of the Constitution. By giving Congress the power to make all laws “necessary and proper” for carrying into effect the previously enumerated powers, the framers of the Constitution opened the door to a significant expansion of federal power. Within just a few years of the adoption of the Constitution, some of the most important figures of the revolutionary era found themselves in bitter disagreement on the meaning of the phrase “necessary and proper,” with President Washington’s secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, arguing for a broad construction of its meaning (for example, as “needful,” “useful,” or “conducive to”) and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison arguing for a strict construction (for example, as “absolutely necessary”). This line of constitutional difference between “broad constructionists” and “strict constructionists” was a bitter source of contention in the period leading up to the Civil War and continues in somewhat diminished form between the respective proponents of a more limited or more active federal government even today.
SECTION 9
    The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
    The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
    No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
    No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
    No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.
    No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
    No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.
    Article I, Section 9, outlines those actions that the federal government may not take.
    The most controversial of these prohibitions is contained in the very first item. The Convention delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, whose slave economies were still expanding, insisted that no legislation interfering with the African slave trade be permitted until at least twenty years after the adoption of the Constitution. The prohibition of any legislation affecting “the Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” was intended to ensure that protection. As in all instances in which the Constitution deals with the institution of slavery, neither the word “slave” nor “slavery” is explicitly mentioned in the text of the document. In 1808 the U.S. Congress enacted legislation abolishing the international slave trade, but during that twenty-year interval some two hundred thousand slaves were imported from Africa into the United States.
    Many of the most important prohibitions to federal government action laid down in Article I, Section 9, were designed to protect fundamental liberties handed down to Americans