n
have no application to the case now before the court.

This case, however, strikingly illustrates the consequences that would
follow the construction of the Constitution which would give the power
contended for to a State. It would in effect give it also to an
individual. For if the father of young Darnall had manumitted him in his
lifetime, and sent him to reside in a State which recognized him as a
citizen, he might have visited and sojourned in Maryland when he
pleased, and as long as he pleased, as a citizen of the United States;
and the State officers and tribunals would be compelled, by the
paramount authority of the Constitution, to receive him and treat him as
one of its citizens, exempt from the laws and police of the State in
relation to a person of that description, and allow him to enjoy all the
rights and privileges of citizenship without respect to the laws of
Maryland, although such laws were deemed by it absolutely essential to
its own safety.

The only two provisions which point to them and include them, treat them
as property, and make it the duty of the Government to protect it; no
other power, in relation to this race, is to be found in the
Constitution; and as it is a Government of special, delegated, powers,
no authority beyond these two provisions can be constitutionally
exercised. The Government of the United States had no right to interfere
for any other purpose but that of protecting the rights of the owner,
leaving it altogether with the several States to deal with this race,
whether emancipated or not, as each State may think justice, humanity,
and the interests and safety of society, require. The States evidently
intended to reserve this power exclusively to themselves.

No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or
feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations
of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the
words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor
than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and
adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any
tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed
unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself, by which it
may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now
as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the
same in words, but the same in me