What Is: A Bill of Attainder

Article 1, section 9 of the United States Constitution provides that "no bill of attainder... shall be passed" by Congress.  So, what was a bill of attainder and why were America's early founders so frightened by it?

A bill of attainder was an act passed by Parliament or royal writ against a person or persons, stripping them of civil rights and property and ordering their punishment, often without benefit of trial.  Called writs or acts of attainder, or a bill of pains and penalties, it allowed for an individual convicted of treason to be attained, or declared tainted, and his titles and property forfeited to the Crown.  The law would also strip the person, if he were a royal or nobleman, of any rights to contest their conviction or punishment, by either a trial before Parliament or personal judgment by the King.  It also prevented that person's heirs from inheriting their title or property.  Thus, not only could anyone who angered the King be stripped of their rights of due process of law, being subject to confiscation and execution, but their family would also be dishonored and deprived of any property or inheritance.

No one was immune.  In 1321, two members of the Despenser family, Hugh Senior and Junior, were convicted of treason, attainted and stripped of their titles and property by Parliament for supporting King Edward II in his quarrel with his wife, Queen Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer.  Royals could also face the King's wrath.  In 1415, Richard of Conisburgh, a son of Edmund of Langley and grandson of Edward III was stripped of his title of Earl of Cambridge after he was implicated in a conspiracy against King Henry V.  His son, Richard, later Duke of York, later recovered his father's estates, but it was no easy task.  George, Duke of Clarence, was also attainted in 1478 for rising against his brother, King Edward IV.  Without the benefit of his royal status, George could be executed or even secretly killed at any time, which is what ultimately happened.  Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, George's daughter and one of the last Plantagenets, was attainted in 1540 and later executed.  King Henry VIII of England leveled bills of attainder at two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, as well as Lady Salisbury and other nobles who fell under his wrath.

The American Founding Fathers knew that political wrangling was a risky business and that anyone who fell afoul of the powers that be risked being stripped of his or her civil rights and property unless those rights were protected.  To prevent Congress from passing bills aimed at a particular person, read political rivals of individual members or even the President, the Constitution forbade Congress to pass bills of attainder.