That Which Defines Us...Part II

That Which Defines Us...Part II

If you read the first page [you did read the first page, didn't you?] then you have a foundational understanding of the structure of our government. The first three articles of our Constitution set that up for us. Sure, they're actually more wordy and detailed than I've put forth here, but I did so for the sake of brevity and simplicity. From this point forward my aim is to focus on the heart of the matter--not the structure of government, per se, but the letter-of-the-law which greases the gears of the governmental machine.

The Art of Compromise
The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25.

On May 25th, freshly spread dirt covered the cobblestone street in front of the Pennsylvania State House, protecting the men inside from the sound of passing carriages and carts. Guards stood at the entrances to ensure that the curious were kept at a distance. Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, the "financier" of the Revolution, opened the proceedings with a nomination--Gen. George Washington for the presidency of the Constitutional Convention. The vote was unanimous. With characteristic ceremonial modesty, the general expressed his embarrassment at his lack of qualifications to preside over such an august body and apologized for any errors into which he might fall in the course of its deliberations.

Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would draft an entirely new frame of government. Three separate plans were proposed during that time: The Virginia Plan, The New Jersey Plan, and The Hamilton Plan. All through the summer, in closed sessions, the delegates debated, and redrafted the articles of the new Constitution. Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected--directly by the people or by the state legislators. The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise

Did you know...
Federal law passed in 2004 requires that all schools that receive federal funding provide a course to all students on the Constitution on Constitution Day, September 17. The law is known as H.R. 4818, and the text is found at section 111(b):

Each educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution.
This law does not distinguish between elementary, secondary, or college-level institutions.

If you were paying close attention, you would have noticed there is quite a time lapse between our declaration of independence from tyrannical rule and the authoring and adoption of our Constitution; i.e. 1776 to 1787. So what happened in-between? Was our infant country beset by bedlam, piracy, and blatant corruption? No, there would be plenty of time for that later. During that period our "country" operated under the first attempt at a constitution, the Articles of Confederation.

⁽¹⁾Throwing off the British monarchy on July 4, 1776, left the United States with no central government. It had to design and install a new government–and quickly. As early as May 1776, Congress advised each of the colonies to draw up plans for state governments; by 1780, all thirteen states had adopted written constitutions. In June 1776, the Continental Congress began to work on a plan for a central government. It took five years for it to be approved, first by members of Congress and then by the states.

This first constitution directed most of its attention to fighting and winning the War for Independence. It came into being at a time when Americans had a deep-seated fear of a central authority and long-standing loyalty to the state in which they lived. Ultimately, the Articles of Confederation proved unwieldy and inadequate to resolve the issues that faced the United States in its earliest years. Yet even with its inherent weaknesses this document marked a crucial step toward nationhood. The Articles of Confederation were in force from March 1, 1781, until March 4, 1789, when the present Constitution went into effect.

The Preamble
The opening salvo to the Constitution; perhaps one of the most easily recognized and memorized pieces of historical literature in American history. The Preamble has no basis or force in law, rather, simply and eloquently establishes the reason for the Constitution's very existence. It highlights the framers' desire to make wholesale improvements on what they had going at the time--the Articles of Confederation.

The framers intended the Constitution to speak to the common man, not to only themselves (they were culled from higher society--elitists). If the Constitution didn't speak to the every-day lay-person, they feared revolution, the very thing they'd just emerged from with Britain. By assuring it related to the common man they concretely established the notion that the Constitution was created by the people... not handed down by a god or by a king - it was created by the people.

of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is wild! An artist (Mike Wilkins) contructed the Preamble using license plates from all fifty states.

Once again I stoop to childhood nostalgia, yet with a purpose! Admittedly, this is aged and a touch cheeky, but I daresay many of my generation remember the Preamble because of this animated short. Click on the graphic to the right to see it.

Since Articles I - III are summarized on the previous page, we won't address them again here. In the interest of all things less boring, let's sally over to Article IV, shall we? Please note that in the notations that follow I have added a superscript character to simply make associations easier. The superscript annotations are not in the actual Constitution. So you could loosely say that I have made my own amendments...Hard to resist the pun.

Article IV: Full Faith and Credit

Section I: 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.

This section, known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, requires states to respect one another's civil laws, records, and court rulings in essence. For example, a guy in New York owes his landlord 3 months back rent. Instead of ponying up, he decides to head out west--you know, swimmin' pools, movie stars, etc. As you can imagine, the landlord is not amused. The ex-tenant thinks he's beat the system because he will no longer be in New York's jurisdiction. You and I know better now, because we have read this part of the Constitution.
The landlord provides proof of judgement against said ex-tenant which he obtains in a court of the State of New York. The State court of California, according to Article IV, must still enforce the judgment against Joe Flee--the same as it would have been enforced in New York. Because of this constitutional provision it is no longer necessary to go to the trouble and expense of bringing in witnesses and proving the case.
Do the states have any control at all in these matters? Actually, to a degree, yes. They are allowed to make certain exceptions for "public policy" reasons--issues which society, by and large, frown upon. For instance, states may refuse to recognize marriages that involve incest or polygamy. Bear in mind, the law isn't setting forth any sort of dogma stating who you can or cannot marry, but the law provides for certain benefits under the institution of marriage: income tax deductions, power of attorney, etc. Suffice to say, it's a very sticky wicket.

Section II: ^(a)The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
^(b)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.
^(c)No Person held to Service or Labour 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 Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

The primary reason for this section (annotated with (a)) was to help "fuse into one Nation a collection of independent sovereign States." In a very general sense, this clause guarantees to the citizen of any State the rights which he enjoys as such even when he or she travels into another State; that is, it enables him to carry the rights of State citizenship throughout the Union. This clause also prohibits states from discriminating against citizens of other states without justification.
An interesting tidbit: States may not deny nonresidents admission to local universities or colleges, however, they are allowed to charge higher tuition to out-of-state students. Why, you ask? ... Because local citizens have paid taxes to support public universities.

The second part of this section (annotated with (b)) is about extradition. In the event that you were stupid enough to break the law and then high-tail it across the state line, this clause gave the long-arm-of-the-law a way to reach out and drag your sorry butt back into the state "from which he fled." This same principle is applied today in the form of extradition treaties between nations.
Step into the Wayback Machine for a moment as we head back to 1861 -- the Supreme Court held that it did not have the power to coerce a state to comply with extradition. Accordingly, governors have occasionally refused to extradite certain fugitives. [this would seem to be contradictive to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, as in this case a state is refusing to honor another states laws or rulings...or are they? Think about it.]
A return trip in the Wayback Machine brings us closer to present-day...the year 1987: the Supreme Court rules that federal courts could order governors to comply with the extradition provisions in Article IV.

The third slice of this article (annotated with (c)), also known as the Fugitive Slave Clause, says that any indentured servant can't bolt and not expect to be held accountable, that he or she could be extradited back to the state of their owner. Remember, during the time this was written, slaves were considered to be property. This part has since been superceded by the 13th Amendment. For those who paid attention in school, this may ring a bell...the 13th Amendment is part of what the Civil War was all about--the abolishment of slavery.
To throw into sharp relief the difference in societal attitudes between today and "back then," check out this seemingly draconian measure ... In 1850, Congress approved a much harsher version of the Fugitive Slave Act which denied accused slaves the right to trial by jury and other due process guarantees. Under this provision almost nine hundred alleged fugitives were extradited to southern states between 1850 and 1861 (sometimes referred to as the Antebellum Period). It's estimated that close to 50,000 escape attempts were made annually as of 1860, usually by young men in their twenties, but only a small percentage of the attempts were successful.

Section III: ^(a)New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor 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.

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.

(a)The framers certainly expected the country to expand. This provision allowed for such growth and kept Congress in the loop as things progressed. It also placed restrictions upon current states, declaring no state may be formed within the jurisdiction of another, or by the joining of different states or parts of different states, without the consent of all state legislatures concerned.
Five states have been created from pre-existing states:

Vermont was admitted from New York in 1791

Kentucky from Virginia in 1792 [that answers some questions, huh!]

Tennessee from North Carolina in 1796

Maine from Massachusetts in 1820

In 1863, after the Civil War, Viriginia once again split into another state, which is now West Virginia.
Secession, the formal withdrawal of a state from the Union, is not addressed by the Constitution. ⁽²⁾ In Texas v. White (1869), however, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not unilaterally secede from the Union. The Court suggested that the Constitution ordained the "perpetuity and indissolubility of the Union." Even though a majority of the citizens of Texas voted to secede in a referendum, the secession ordinance passed by the state legislature during the Civil War was upheld.

Section IV: The United States shall guarantee 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.

The Guarantee Clause ensures that every state shall have a "republican form of government." In Federalist 39, James Madison defined a republic as "a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people." This model of government was considered far superior to a democracy, in which the people ruled directly, as in ancient Greece, which the framers considered mob rule.
The latter declaration pertaining to protection of invasion and domestic violence, simply states that the federal government shall protect states against invasion or domestic violence upon request. This small piece of authoring arose, in part, because of a little shindig thrown by some debt-ridden farmers and Revolutionary War vets in the summer of 1786, called Shay's Rebellion. Essentially, the manner in which the tax codes were written, along with war debt, didn't make small farmers happy. Economies in parts of the Commonwealth were better than others. ⁽³⁾As a result, to meet their debts, many small farmers were forced to sell their land, often at less than one-third of fair market price to eastern Massachusetts speculators. Loss of such property could reduce families to extreme poverty. It also often meant that such men might lose their right to vote since suffrage was often tied to property ownership.

In Other Words: Article IV is comprised of four sections, which combined mandate that states play nice with one another (in general), sets forth the legal means for extradition, guarantees privileges and immunities when traipsing across state lines, provides a means for admitting new states into the Union, and offers each state federal protection against "domestic violence" and invasion...if the state requests it.
Four down, three articles to go...and then to the fun stuff, the amendments!

Article V: Amendments

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 the Legislatures of 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 the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Notice the wording at the start of this Article: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution... Under the Articles of Confederation all states had to unanimously approve any proposed amendment to the AOC. Wanna guess how many amendments passed under this doctrine? A big goose egg. To get any amendment passed and ratified, the framers implemented a requirement that only two-thirds of the House and Senate need cast "yea" votes in favor of an amendment. The President has veto power, but a veto can be overturned by another 2/3 approval vote by both houses. But it's not quite finished yet...
To be fully ratified, the amendment must pass muster in a full three-quarters of state legislatures.
By building in the amendment process to the Constitution, the framers were able to avoid potential bloody revolutions, which is what it might have taken under the AOC to force change; this afforded the ability for peaceful change. Many delegates who participated in the writing of the Constitution were reticent to ratify it because it didn't originally provide for any addition of a bill of rights. Article V provided that promise, and only because of that inclusion did the Constitution get ratified.

ratification: Approval of the U.S. Constitution or its amendments by state conventions or legislatures

Increases in population have highlighted a somewhat controversial limitation imposed by Article V; under this article no amendment may deny a state of equal representation in the Senate ["...no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.."] To illustrate, as of the 2000 Census two states sat at extreme ends of the population spectrum: California, with about 34 million residents, and Wyoming, at half a million. Even with the huge population disparity, both states have equal votes in the Senate. This disproportionate representation doesn't correspond with the principle of "one person, one vote" that the Supreme Court has applied to both houses. Yet Article V prohibits an amendment to make the Senate more representative of the population. It laughs in the face of true representation, yet helps limit the number of Senators on the hill...not necessarily a bad thing.

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it...Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind....We might as well require a man to wear still the coat that fitted him as a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regime of their barbarous ancestors."
--Thomas Jefferson

Did you know...
Ever wonder how the nations capital came to be located where it's at now? The substance to the answer is below in the exposition of Article VI, but it has to do with the transfer of debts owed under the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
After the Constitution went into effect, Alexander Hamilton made an agreement with Thomas Jefferson that the national government would assume the war debts of the states in exchange for locating the national capital on the Potomac River.

Article VI: "The Supreme Law of the Land"

^(a)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.
^(b)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.
^(c)The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

This article underscores the concept of federalism, a political system in which power is shared between the national and state governments. It also provides a safeguard against religious tests for public office, that is to say, nobody can not be considered for office based upon their religious affiliation.
(a) By creating a new government the framers would have essentially declared bankruptcy under the Articles of Confederation...that is, had they done so without this provision. By including this provision they assured creditors that any debts incurred by the national government under the AOC would be honored under the Constitution. Debts from the Revolutionary War were heavy, and individual states still owed substantial sums for war efforts.
(b) This provision is known as the Supremacy Clause. It establishes the Constitution as the highest form of law in the American legal system. State judges are required to uphold the Constitution, even if state laws or constitutions conflict with it.
(c) All state and federal officials must swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Interesting to note that members of the military and naturalized citizens must take the same oath, yet natural-born citizens do not.

Article VII: Ratification

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth 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.

Seventy-four people had been selected to attend the Constitutional Convention, of those only fifty-five attended. Of those 55, only 39 actually signed the final document. Some left in protest, some simply left the convention early. The major objection by most was the lack of a bill of rights in the original constitution. This had the effect of causing a rift within the convention, which ultimately split into two parties: the Federalists, those who supported the new constitution, and the Anti-Federalists (who obviously, as their name would suggest, opposed it). Eventually the Federalists prevailed, but only after promising a bill of rights would be added once the new Congress convened. It still took a while to get all the states on board; Delaware was the first to ratify the Constitution on December 7, 1787--New York was the last state to ratify on July 26, 1788. The new Congress convened in March of 1789, thus putting the Constitution into effect.

Feeling more elucidated already, aren't you? What follows next is perhaps what foremost comes to mind when we hear the word "Constitution"...the Amendments!

⁽¹⁾ _{excerpted from the National Archives, Charters of Freedom, "A New World Is At Hand."}

⁽²⁾ _{excerpted from Wikipedia entry}

⁽³⁾ _{excerpted from a Wikipedia entry on Shay's Rebellion}.

Section I:	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.
	This section, known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, requires states to respect one another's civil laws, records, and court rulings in essence. For example, a guy in New York owes his landlord 3 months back rent. Instead of ponying up, he decides to head out west--you know, swimmin' pools, movie stars, etc. As you can imagine, the landlord is not amused. The ex-tenant thinks he's beat the system because he will no longer be in New York's jurisdiction. You and I know better now, because we have read this part of the Constitution. The landlord provides proof of judgement against said ex-tenant which he obtains in a court of the State of New York. The State court of California, according to Article IV, must still enforce the judgment against Joe Flee--the same as it would have been enforced in New York. Because of this constitutional provision it is no longer necessary to go to the trouble and expense of bringing in witnesses and proving the case. Do the states have any control at all in these matters? Actually, to a degree, yes. They are allowed to make certain exceptions for "public policy" reasons--issues which society, by and large, frown upon. For instance, states may refuse to recognize marriages that involve incest or polygamy. Bear in mind, the law isn't setting forth any sort of dogma stating who you can or cannot marry, but the law provides for certain benefits under the institution of marriage: income tax deductions, power of attorney, etc. Suffice to say, it's a very sticky wicket.
Section II:	^(a)The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. ^(b)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. ^(c)No Person held to Service or Labour 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 Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
	The primary reason for this section (annotated with (a)) was to help "fuse into one Nation a collection of independent sovereign States." In a very general sense, this clause guarantees to the citizen of any State the rights which he enjoys as such even when he or she travels into another State; that is, it enables him to carry the rights of State citizenship throughout the Union. This clause also prohibits states from discriminating against citizens of other states without justification. An interesting tidbit: States may not deny nonresidents admission to local universities or colleges, however, they are allowed to charge higher tuition to out-of-state students. Why, you ask? ... Because local citizens have paid taxes to support public universities. The second part of this section (annotated with (b)) is about extradition. In the event that you were stupid enough to break the law and then high-tail it across the state line, this clause gave the long-arm-of-the-law a way to reach out and drag your sorry butt back into the state "from which he fled." This same principle is applied today in the form of extradition treaties between nations. Step into the Wayback Machine for a moment as we head back to 1861 -- the Supreme Court held that it did not have the power to coerce a state to comply with extradition. Accordingly, governors have occasionally refused to extradite certain fugitives. [this would seem to be contradictive to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, as in this case a state is refusing to honor another states laws or rulings...or are they? Think about it.] A return trip in the Wayback Machine brings us closer to present-day...the year 1987: the Supreme Court rules that federal courts could order governors to comply with the extradition provisions in Article IV. The third slice of this article (annotated with (c)), also known as the Fugitive Slave Clause, says that any indentured servant can't bolt and not expect to be held accountable, that he or she could be extradited back to the state of their owner. Remember, during the time this was written, slaves were considered to be property. This part has since been superceded by the 13th Amendment. For those who paid attention in school, this may ring a bell...the 13th Amendment is part of what the Civil War was all about--the abolishment of slavery. To throw into sharp relief the difference in societal attitudes between today and "back then," check out this seemingly draconian measure ... In 1850, Congress approved a much harsher version of the Fugitive Slave Act which denied accused slaves the right to trial by jury and other due process guarantees. Under this provision almost nine hundred alleged fugitives were extradited to southern states between 1850 and 1861 (sometimes referred to as the Antebellum Period). It's estimated that close to 50,000 escape attempts were made annually as of 1860, usually by young men in their twenties, but only a small percentage of the attempts were successful.
Section III:	^(a)New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor 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. 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.
	(a)The framers certainly expected the country to expand. This provision allowed for such growth and kept Congress in the loop as things progressed. It also placed restrictions upon current states, declaring no state may be formed within the jurisdiction of another, or by the joining of different states or parts of different states, without the consent of all state legislatures concerned. Five states have been created from pre-existing states: Vermont was admitted from New York in 1791 Kentucky from Virginia in 1792 [that answers some questions, huh!] Tennessee from North Carolina in 1796 Maine from Massachusetts in 1820 In 1863, after the Civil War, Viriginia once again split into another state, which is now West Virginia. Secession, the formal withdrawal of a state from the Union, is not addressed by the Constitution. ⁽²⁾ In Texas v. White (1869), however, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not unilaterally secede from the Union. The Court suggested that the Constitution ordained the "perpetuity and indissolubility of the Union." Even though a majority of the citizens of Texas voted to secede in a referendum, the secession ordinance passed by the state legislature during the Civil War was upheld.
Section IV:	The United States shall guarantee 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.
	The Guarantee Clause ensures that every state shall have a "republican form of government." In Federalist 39, James Madison defined a republic as "a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people." This model of government was considered far superior to a democracy, in which the people ruled directly, as in ancient Greece, which the framers considered mob rule. The latter declaration pertaining to protection of invasion and domestic violence, simply states that the federal government shall protect states against invasion or domestic violence upon request. This small piece of authoring arose, in part, because of a little shindig thrown by some debt-ridden farmers and Revolutionary War vets in the summer of 1786, called Shay's Rebellion. Essentially, the manner in which the tax codes were written, along with war debt, didn't make small farmers happy. Economies in parts of the Commonwealth were better than others. ⁽³⁾As a result, to meet their debts, many small farmers were forced to sell their land, often at less than one-third of fair market price to eastern Massachusetts speculators. Loss of such property could reduce families to extreme poverty. It also often meant that such men might lose their right to vote since suffrage was often tied to property ownership.
In Other Words:	Article IV is comprised of four sections, which combined mandate that states play nice with one another (in general), sets forth the legal means for extradition, guarantees privileges and immunities when traipsing across state lines, provides a means for admitting new states into the Union, and offers each state federal protection against "domestic violence" and invasion...if the state requests it. Four down, three articles to go...and then to the fun stuff, the amendments!