of treason confess in open court. It also limits the ways in which Congress can punish those convicted of treason. Background Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the US Constitution separated the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Article III separates and places the judicial power in the judiciary. This idea is most often attributed to Montesquieu. Although not the progenitor, Montesquieu's writing on the separation of power in The Spirit of Laws was immensely influential on the U.S. Constitution. Section 1: Federal courts Section 1 is one of the three vesting clauses of the United States Constitution, which vests the judicial power of the United States in federal courts, requires the supreme court, allows inferior courts, requires good behavior tenure for judges, and prohibits decreasing the salaries of judges. Clause 1: Vesting of judicial power and number of courts Article III authorizes one Supreme Court, but does not set the number of justices that must be appointed to it. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 refers to a Chief Justice (who shall preside over the impeachment trial of the President of the United States). Since 1869 the number of justices has been fixed at nine (by the Judiciary Act of 1869): one chief justice, and eight associate justices. Proposals have been made at various times for organizing the Supreme Court into separate panels; none garnered wide support, thus the constitutionality of such a division is unknown. In a 1937 letter (to Senator Burton Wheeler during the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill debate), Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote, "the Constitution does not appear to authorize two or more Supreme Courts functioning in effect as separate courts." The Supreme Court is the only federal court that is explicitly established by the Constitution. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made for the Supreme Court to be the only federal court, having both original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. This proposal was rejected in favor of the provision that exists today. The Supreme Court has interpreted this provision as enabling Congress to create inferior (i.e., lower) courts under both Article III, Section 1, and Article I, Section 8. The Article III courts, which are also known as "constitutional courts", were first created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, and are the only courts with judicial power. Article I courts, which are also known as "legislative courts", consist of regulatory agencies, such as the United States