[Sidenote: Difference between confederation and federal union.] We have already remarked upon the vastness of the functions retained by the states. At the same time the powers granted to Congress have proved sufficient to bind the states together into a union that is more than a mere confederation. From 1776 to 1789 the United States _were_ a confederation; after 1789 it was a federal nation. The passage from plural to singular was accomplished, although it took some people a good while to realize the fact. The German language has a neat way of distinguishing between a loose confederation and a federal union. It calls the former a _Staatenbund_ and the latter a _Bundesstaat_. So in English, if we liked, we might call the confederation a _Band-of-States_ and the federal union a _Banded-State_. There are two points especially in our Constitution which transformed our country from a Band-of-States into a Banded-State. [Sidenote: Powers granted to Congress.] The first was the creation of a federal House of Representatives, thus securing for Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common welfare of the United States. Other powers are naturally attached to this,--such as the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States; to regulate foreign and domestic commerce; to coin money and fix the standard of weights and measures; to provide for the punishment of counterfeiters; to establish post-offices and post-roads; to issue copyrights and patents; to define and punish felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; to raise and support an army and navy, and to make rules for the regulation of the land and naval forces; to provide for calling out the militia to suppress insurrections and repel invasions, and to command this militia while actually employed in the service of the United States. The several states, however, train their own militia and appoint the officers. Congress may also establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies. It also exercises exclusive control over the District of Columbia,[23] as the seat of the national government, and over forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, which it erects within the several states upon land purchased for such purposes with the consent of the state legislature. [Footnote 23: Ceded to the United States by Maryland and Virginia.]