Georgetown Center for the Constitution

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Related Citations

Robert G. Natelson, The Original Meaning of “Emoluments” in the Constitution, 52 Ga. L. Rev. 1 (2017).

Identifying four common uses of the term “emoluments” in the Founding era and arguing that the three uses of the term in the Constitution had common meaning, which was “compensation with financial value received by reason of public employment.”

Seth Barrett Tillman, Originalism & the Scope of the Constitution’s Disqualification Clause, 33 Quinnipiac L. Rev. 59 (2014).

Pointing out that President Washington accepted, without permission of Congress, a gift from the French Ambassador in 1791 and interpreting this as evidence of original public meaning that the Emoluments Clause does not apply to the President.

Adrian Vermeule, The Constitutional Law of Official Compensation, 102 Colum. L. Rev. 501 (2002).

Discussing how to resolve constitutional tensions between aggrandizement and self-dealing through contextual adjustments in the interpretation of the Compensation Clauses.

Jack M. Balkin, The Constitution of Status, 106 Yale L.J. 2313 (1997).

Arguing the prohibitions on titles of nobility were intended “to stamp out” a “pernicious system of social hierarchy” that created “an entire system of social prestige based on nobility.”