I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice.
Article I.
Section. 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
When setting out to explain something important, the first thing to do is define some terms. This short sentence is a real beaut of the artform. It says four things, for our purposes here.
First, there is a thing called Congress. It has two parts, and they are called “the Senate” and “the house of Representatives.” They aren’t defined here, but they are delineated for future reference. In coming sections, powers for the Senate aren’t for the House—and vice versa—but powers for Congress might be for either or both.
Second, it specifies that this is only dealing with legislative powers. This colors the reading of the rest of the Article—the rest of the document, really—because anything here that looks like a non-legislative power is intended to be viewed through the lens of legislation.
Third, this Article (herein) grants powers to the Congress. Remember, the Government has no innate power under the Constitution. We, the People from the Preamble are granting these powers to Congress.
Fourth and finally, the powers We give Congress are vested powers. Vested means they are given, bestowed, and draped upon Congress. Once Congress wears the vest, nobody else can have it.
Look at that: Separation of Powers, here in the document’s first operative sentence. That suggests it’s going to be an important theme going forward.
With the preliminaries out of the way, next episode will get us into what that stuff means and how it works.