"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

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.

principles of reasoning absolutely irresistible, that the latter ought to prevail. No court of justice can be authorized so to construe any clause of the Constitution as to defeat its obvious ends, when another construction, equally accordant with the words and sense thereof, will enforce and protect them.

"The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor, in consequence of any State law or regulation. Now, certainly, without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it may fairly and reasonably be said, that any State law or State regulation, which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the right of the owner to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service and labor, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom. The question can never be, how much the slave is discharged from; but whether he is [613] discharged from any, by the natural or necessary operation of State laws or State regulations. The question is not one of quantity or degree, but of withholding, or controlling the incidents of a positive and absolute right.

"We have said that the clause contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right of the owner in the slave, unaffected by any State law or regulation whatsoever, because there is no qualification or restriction of it to be found therein; and we have no right to insert any which is not expressed, and cannot be fairly implied; especially are we estopped from so doing, when the clause puts the right to the service or labor upon the same ground and to the same extent in every other State as in the State from which the slave escaped, and in which he was held to the service or labor. If this be so, then all the incidents to that right attach also; the owner must, therefore, have the right to seize and repossess the slave, which the local laws of his own State confer upon him as property; and we all know that this right of seizure and recaption is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding States. Indeed, this is no more than a mere affirmance of the principles of the

common law applicable to this very subject. Mr. Justice Blackstone (3 Bl. Comm. 4) lays it down as unquestionable doctrine. Recaption or reprisal (says he) is another species of remedy by the mere act of the party injured. This happens when any one hath deprived another of his property in goods or chattels personal, or wrongfully detains one's wife, child, or servant; in which case the owner of the goods, and the husband, parent, or master may lawfully claim and retake them, wherever he happens to find them, so it be not in a riotous manner, or attended with a breach of the peace.' Upon this ground we have not the slightest hesitation in holding, that, under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority, in every State in the Union, to seize and recapture his slave, whenever he can do it without any breach of the peace, or any illegal violence. In this sense and to this extent this clause of the Constitution may properly be said to execute itself; and to require no aid from legislation, State or national.

"But the clause of the Constitution does not stop here; nor, indeed, consistently with its professed objects, could it do So. Many [614] cases must arise in which, if the remedy of the owner were confined to the mere right of seizure and recaption, he would be utterly without any redress. He may not be able to lay his hands upon the slave. He may not be able to enforce his rights against persons who either secrete, or conceal, or withhold the slave. He may be restricted by local legislation as to the mode of proofs of his ownership; as to the courts in which he shall sue, and as to the actions which he may bring, or the process he may use to compel the delivery of the slave. Nay, the local legislation may be utterly inadequate to furnish the appropriate redress by authorizing no process in rem, or no specific mode of repossessing the slave, leaving the owner, at best, not that right which the Constitution designed to secure—a specific delivery and repossession of the slave, but a mere remedy in damages, and that perhaps against persons utterly insolvent or worthless. The State legislation may be entire ly silent on the whole subject, and its ordinary remedial process framed with different views and objects; and this may be in