woman, named Margaret Morgan, with a design and intention of selling and disposing of, and keeping her as a slave or servant for life, contrary to a statute of Pennsylvania, passed on the 26th of March, 1826. That statute in the first section, in substance, provides, that if any person or persons shall, from and after the passing of the act, by force and violence take and carry away, or cause to be taken and carried away, and shall by fraud or false pretence seduce, or cause to be seduced, or shall attempt to take, carry away, or seduce any negro or mulatto from any part of that commonwealth, with a design and intention of selling and disposing of, or causing to be sold, or of keeping and detaining, or of causing to be kept and detained, such negro or mulatto as a slave or servant for life, or for any term whatsoever; every such person or persons, his or their aiders or abettors, shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a felony, and shall forfeit and pay a sum not less than five hundred, nor more than one thousand dollars; and moreover, shall be sentenced to undergo a servitude for any term or terms of years, not less than seven years nor exceeding twenty-one years; and shall be confined and kept to hard labor, &c. There are many other provisions in the statute which is recited at large in the record, but to which it is in our view unnecessary to advert upon the present occasion.

"The plaintiff in error pleaded not guilty to the indictment; and at the trial the jury found a special verdict, which, in substance, states, that the negro woman, Margaret Morgan, was a slave for life, and held to labor and service under and according to the [609] laws of Maryland, to a certain Margaret Ashmore, a citizen of Maryland; that the slave escaped and fled from Maryland into Pennsylvania in 1832; that the plaintiff in error being legally constituted the agent and attorney of the said Margaret Ashmore, in 1837, caused the said negro woman to be taken and apprehended as a fugitive from labor, by a State constable, under a warrant from a Pennsylvania magistrate; that the said negro woman was thereupon brought before the said magistrate, who refused to take further cognizance of the case; and thereupon the plaintiff in error did remove, take, and carry away the said negro woman and her

children out of Pennsylvania into Maryland, and did deliver the said negro woman and her children into the custody and possession of the said Margaret Ashmore. The special verdict further finds, that one of the children was born in Pennsylvania, more than a year after the said negro woman had fled and escaped from Maryland.

"Upon this special verdict, the Court of Oyer and Terminer of York county adjudged that the plaintiff in error was guilty of the offence charged in the indictment. A writ of error was brought from that judgment to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where the judgment was, pro forma, affirmed. From this latter judgment, the present writ of error has been. brought to this Court.

"Before proceeding to discuss the very important and interesting questions involved in this record, it is fit to say, that the cause has been conducted in the Court below and has been brought here, by the co-operation and sanction both of the State of Maryland and the State of Pennsylvania, in the most friendly and courteous spirit, with a view to have those questions finally disposed of by the adjudication of this Court; so that the agitations on this subject in both States, which have had a tendency to interrupt the harmony between them, may subside, and the conflict of opinion be put at rest. It should also be added, that the statute of Pennsylvania of 1826 was (as has been suggested at the bar) passed with a view of meeting the supposed wishes of Maryland on the subject of fugitive slaves; and that, although it has failed to produce the good effects intended in the practical construction, the result was unforeseen and undesigned.'

13 Wis. 112. Judge Smith, in Booth's case, says: "In the first place, it should be observed that the decision of the case [Prigg's case] by the State Supreme Court was pro forma merely. The responsibility of deciding upon the matter by the latter court was avoided, if my memory serves me, in conformity with a special act of the legislature of that State, and by common consent the United States Supreme Court was charged therewith. The question of jurisdiction was not raised at all. Jurisdiction was assumed and the case proceeded, in order to put to rest certain vexed and agitating questions; with what success time and experience have unfortunately shown. If that court had no jurisdiction, that fact alone would strip its decision of all claim to authority. However patriotic the motives which induced the one court to concede, and the other to assume jurisdiction, it is not improper perhaps to remark that one State has not the right to make a mere pro forma decision upon a given subject matter, for the pur

"1. The question arising in the case, as to the constitutionality of the statute of Pennsylvania, has been most elaborately argued at [610] the bar. The counsel for the plaintiff in error have contended that the statute of Pennsylvania is unconstitutional; first, because Congress has the exclusive power of legislation upon the subject-matter under the Constitution of the United States, and under the act of the 12th of February, 1793, ch. 51 (7), which was passed in pursuance thereof; secondly, that if this power is not exclusive in Congress, still the concurrent power of the State legislatures is suspended by the actual exercise of the power by Congress; and thirdly, that if not suspended, still the statute of Pennsylvania, in all its provisions applicable to this case, is in direct collision with the act of Congress, and therefore is unconstitutional and void. The counsel for Pennsylvania maintain the negative of all these points.

"Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve more delicate and important considerations; and few upon which the public at large may be presumed to feel a more profound and pervading interest. We have accordingly given them our most deliberate examination; and it has become my duty to state the result to which we have arrived, and the reasoning by which it is supported.

"Before, however, we proceed to the points more immediately before us, it may be well-in order to clear the case of difficulty to say, that in the exposition of this part of the Constitution, we shall limit ourselves to those considerations which appropriately and exclusively belong to it, without laying down any rules of interpretation of a more general nature. It will, indeed, probably, be found, when we look to the character of the Constitution itself, the objects which it seeks to attain, the powers which it confers, the duties which it enjoins, and the rights which it secures, as well as the known historical

pose of conferring jurisdiction upon the Supreme Court of the United States, and by such process to bind every other State. If one State chooses voluntarily to relinquish its own sovereignty, it by no means follows that the other States have thereby relinquished theirs. If the consent of Pennsylvania could give jurisdiction in that case, hers was not the consent of all. If there was no jurisdiction, the decision is without legal effect for any purpose."

fact that many of its provisions were matters of compromise of opposing interests and opinions; that no uniform rule of interpretation can be applied to it which may not allow, even if it does not positively demand, many modifications in its actual application to particular clauses. And, perhaps, the safest rule of interpretation after all will be found to be to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties, and rights, with all the lights and aids of contemporary history; and to give to the words of each just such operation [611] and force, consistent with their legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends proposed.'

"There are two clauses in the Constitution upon the subject of fugitives, which stand in juxtaposition with each other, and have been thought mutually to illustrate each other. They are both contained in the second section of the fourth article, and are in the following words," &c., giving the words of the two provisions. Judge Story then says:

"The last clause is that, the true interpretation whereof is directly in judgment before us. Historically, it is well known, that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding States the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every State in the Union into which they might escape from the State where they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding States; and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that it constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent in the non-slaveholding States, by

1 This paragraph (containing a general canon of constitutional interpretation remarkable for flexibility in application, if not, rather, chargeable with vagueness) was afterwards introduced among the rules for such interpretation given in the second edition of Story's Comm. (§ 405, a.) Its insertion may suggest the existence of a doubt in the mind of the editor whether the rules given by the commentator in the first edition were broad enough to include the judge's practical interpretation in Prigg's case. See Judge Sutliff's observations on this passage,

9 Ohio, 270.

preventing them from intermeddling with, or obstructing, or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves.'

"By the general law of nations, no nation is bound to recognize the state of slavery, as to foreign slaves found within its territorial dominions, when it is in opposition to its own policy and institutions, in favor of the subjects of other nations where slavery is recognized. If it does it, it is as a matter of comity, and not as a matter of international right. The state of slavery is deemed to be a mere municipal regulation, founded upon and limited to the range of the territorial laws. This was fully recognized in Somerset's Case, [612] Lofft's Rep. 1; S. C., 11 State Trials by Harg. 340; S. C., 20 Howell's State Trials, 79; which was decided before the American Revolution. It is manifest from this consideration, that if the Constitution had not contained this clause, every non-slaveholding State in the Union would have been at liberty to have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits, and to have given them entire immunity and protection against the claims of their masters; a course which would have created the most bitter animosities, and engendered perpetual strife between the different States. The clause was, therefore, of the last importance to the safety and security of the southern States; and could not have been surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted into the Constitution by the unanimous consent of the framers of it; a proof at once of its intrinsic and practical necessity.

"How, then, are we to interpret the language of the clause! The true answer is, in such a manner, as, consistently with the words, shall fully and completely effectuate the whole objects of it. If by one mode of interpretation the right must become shadowy and unsubstantial, and without any remedial power adequate to the end, and by another mode it will attain its just end and secure its manifest purpose, it would seem, upon

Like Ch. J. Nelson, in 12 Wend. 311 (ante, p. 447, note), Judge Story here speaks of the provision as intended to secure a legal right of the owner, while in the very next paragraph he admits that the right would not exist in the absence of the provision.