Category: P
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Privilege from Arrest
Members of Congress Privilege from ArrestThis clause is practically obsolete. It applies only to arrests in civil suits, which were still common in this country at the time the Constitution was adopted.1 It does not apply to service of process in eit…
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Proposals by Congress
Few difficulties of a constitutional nature have arisen with regard to this method of initiating constitutional change, the only method, as we noted above, so far successfully resorted to. When Madison submitted to the House of Representatives the proposals from which the Bill of Rights evolved, he …
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Proclamation
Formerly, official notice from a state legislature, duly authenticated, that it had ratified a proposed amendment went to the Secretary of State, upon whom it was binding, "being certified by his proclamation, [was] conclusive upon the courts" as against any objection which might b…
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Preemption
The General Issue: Preemption (Concurrent Federal and State Jurisdiction)In Gibbons v. Ogden,1 the Court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, held that New York legislation that excluded from the navigable waters of that state steam vessels enrolled …
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Private International Law
Private International LawThe historical background of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is furnished by the branch of private law that is variously termed "private international law," "conflict of laws," and "comity." This branch comprises a body of rules, based largely …
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Probate Decrees
Probate DecreesMany judgments, enforcement of which has given rise to litigation, embrace decrees of courts of probate respecting the distribution of estates. In order that a court have jurisdiction of such a proceeding, the decedent must have been domiciled in the state, and the question whether he…
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Penal Judgments
Penal Judgments: Types Entitled to RecognitionThe Full Faith and Credit Clause has been interpreted in the light of the "incontrovertible maxim" that "the courts of no country execute the penal laws of another." 97 In the leading case of Huntington v. Attrill,98 however, the Cour…
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Procedure for Removal
Procedure for RemovalOnly after a person has been charged with a crime in the regular course of judicial proceedings is the governor of a state entitled to make demand for his return from another state.240 The person demanded has no constitutional right to be heard before the governor of the state i…
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Property of the United States
Clause 2. Property of the United StatesThe 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 Sta…
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Public Lands
Public Lands: Federal and State Powers ThereoverNo appropriation of public lands may be made for any purpose except by authority of Congress.303 However, Congress was held to have acquiesced in the long-continued practice of withdrawing land from the public domain by Executive Orders.304 In 1976 Con…
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Prior Debts
There have been no interpretations of this clause.Prior Debts and the U.S. ConstitutionResourcesSee AlsoReferencesThis text about Prior Debts is based on "The …
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Priority of National Claims
Anticipating his argument in McCulloch v. Maryland,1 Chief Justice Marshall in 1805 upheld an act of 1792 asserting for the United States a priority of its claims over those of the states against a debtor in bankruptcy.<a name=t2 href=#f2 target=&quo…
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Pendent Jurisdiction
Pendent JurisdictionOnce jurisdiction has been acquired through allegation of a federal question not plainly wanting in substance, 1 a federal court may decide any issue necessary to the disposition of a case, notwithstanding that other non-federal q…
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Protective Jurisdiction
Protective JurisdictionA conceptually difficult doctrine, which approaches the verge of a serious constitutional gap, is the concept of protective jurisdiction. Under this doctrine, it is argued that in instances in which Congress has legislative jurisdiction, it can confer federal jurisdiction, wit…
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Parens Patriae
The State as Parens PatriaeThe distinction between suits brought by states to protect the welfare of their citizens as a whole and suits to protect the private interests of individual citizens is not easily drawn. Thus, in Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry.,<a name=t1 href=#f1 target="_self&qu…