Article VI: Supremacy, Oaths, and Debts

Article VI has three clauses. The first provides that all debts contracted and engagements entered into before the Constitution's adoption shall be as valid against the United States under the Constitution as under the Confederation, assuring creditors that the new government would honor the old one's obligations. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton built on that promise in 1790 when Congress agreed to fund the national debt and assume the states' war debts. The Fourteenth Amendment later added that the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned, language cited in debt ceiling disputes.

The second clause, the Supremacy Clause, makes the Constitution, federal laws made in pursuance of it, and treaties the supreme law of the land, binding on judges in every state. It is the basis for federal preemption of conflicting state law and for the rule that state officials must follow federal constitutional rulings, as the Supreme Court held in Cooper v. Aaron in 1958. It does not, however, let Congress order state officials to carry out federal programs.

The third clause requires members of Congress and state legislatures and all executive and judicial officers of the United States and the states to be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution, and declares that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office under the United States. The first law Congress passed, on June 1, 1789, set the text of the oath. In Torcaso v. Watkins in 1961 the Supreme Court struck down a Maryland requirement that officeholders declare belief in God, and several state constitutions still contain similar language that cannot be enforced.