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. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
Please help us improve our site! No thank you. LII U. The 'Travis Translation' of Article 3, Section This clause is unique in that, unlike many of the other general constitutional provisions relating to criminal law, this clause is quite specific. It defines the crime of treason, and enshrines it in the Constitution.
This both serves to impress the gravity of the offense, as well as ensure that its parameters are anything but unclear. The definition here works to set the American definition of treason apart from the earlier British version. The Founders went out of their way to define treason narrowly because they knew how it had been repeatedly abused in the past. The framers of the Constitution were reluctant to facilitate such prosecutions because they were well aware of abuses, and they themselves were traitors in the eyes of England.
Because of this history, a lot of things that might seem or feel like treason to casual observers do not, in fact, come close. So contemporary Russia is out, whatever role it may have played in the election. Even during the height of the Cold War, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried, convicted and executed for conveying nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union , the charge against them was espionage, not treason.
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