[Sidenote: The states have the residuum of powers.] =The Powers of the States.=—Some years ago a foreign student of government, desiring to find out what powers belonged to the legislature of Massachusetts, took a copy of the state constitution and began reading it carefully. Much to his surprise he found that it contained no list of the powers which the legislature might exercise but merely stated some things which the legislature must not do. The reason for this, of course, is simple enough. The states retain all the powers which they have not given to the national government. The way to find out whether a state possesses a certain power is to look in the constitution of the United States. If the power is there given exclusively to Congress or prohibited to the states, then the state legislature cannot exercise it. But if the power is not mentioned in the national constitution, either expressly or by implication, then the state legislatures have it. On this basis a certain division of powers is made between the nation and the states. The general principles on which the division is made are easy enough to understand, but the exact distribution of powers is something that can only be mastered by studying it. Even lawyers do not always get hold of it accurately and newspapers are constantly making mistakes because they fail to realize just where the boundaries of the various governmental powers begin and end. So let us try to condense the matter into a nutshell, or, to be more accurate, into four nutshells as follows: 1. _Some powers belong exclusively to the nation._ These include the power to declare war, to regulate foreign and interstate commerce, to coin money, to establish post offices, and so on. No share in the management of these things belongs to the state governments. 2. _Some powers belong concurrently both to the nation and the states._ Both the nation and the states, each within its own sphere, have the power to tax, to borrow money, to charter banks, to promote education, and to do many other things. These are called concurrent powers because the national and state authorities may both exercise them at the same time. 3. _Some powers are prohibited to the nation and some are prohibited to the states._ The national and state governments, for example, are forbidden to pass any bill of attainder, to grant titles of nobility, or to take private property for public use without compensation. The states, in addition, are forbidden to make treaties, coin money, or levy tariff duties. There are various other prohibitions upon both the nation or the states, as will be seen by reading carefully the provisions of the national constitution.[97]