and when the Constitution and Bill of Rights was passed it would have been tried as treason- against the state where he was going to blow up the apartments. Under state law with no protections from the federal Bill of Rights.
The federal treason law was not meant for attacks like these. It was directed towards what may be termed political treason. I don't mean that it would never apply to attacks on property of structures of the federal government- though the attack on Harpoer's Ferry was tried as treason against Virginia not the federl government.
I'm really thinking of treason in the "adhering to the enemy" sense rather than in the "levying war" sense. *Planning* to levy war (or *planning* to set off a dirty bomb or fly a plane into a building) wouldn't be considered as *actually* levying war, so it couldn't Constitutionally be considered treason.