o as to distinguish
all the grants of power, but especially to make the new grant of power,
in the case of public records, stand forth in the front by itself,
severed from the naked compacts with which it was originally associated.

Thus the proceedings of the Convention show that the founders understood
the necessity of powers in certain cases, and, on consideration,
jealously granted them. A closing example will strengthen the argument.
Congress is expressly empowered "to establish an uniform rule of
naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies,
throughout the United States." Without this provision these two subjects
would have fallen within the control of the States, leaving the nation
powerless to establish a uniform rule thereupon. Now, instead of the
existing compact on fugitives from service, it would have been easy,
had any such desire prevailed, to add this case to the clause on
naturalization and bankruptcies, and to empower Congress To ESTABLISH A
UNIFORM RULE FOR THE SURRENDER OF FUGITIVES FROM SERVICE THROUGHOUT THE
UNITED STATES. Then, of course, whenever Congress undertook to exercise
the power, all State control of the subject would be superseded. The
National Government would have been constistuted, like Nimrod, the
mighty Hunter, with power to gather the huntsmen, to halloo the pack,
and to direct the chase of men, ranging at will, without regard to
boundaries or jurisdictions, throughout all the States. But no person
in the Convention, not one of the reckless partisans of slavery, was so
audacious as to make this proposition. Had it been distinctly made, it
would have been as distinctly denied.

The fact that the provision on this subject was adopted unanimously,
while showing the little importance attached to it in the shape it
finally assumed, testifies also that it could not have been regarded as
a source of national power for Slavery. It will be remembered that among
the members of the Convention were Gouverneur Morris, who had said that
he "NEVER would concur in upholding domestic Slavery,"--Elbridge
Gerry, who thought we "ought to be careful NOT to give any sanction
to it,"--Roger Sherman, who "was OPPOSED to a tax on slaves imported,
because it implied they were property,"--James Madison, who "thought it
WRONG to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property
in men,"--and Benjamin Franklin, who likened American slaveholders to
Algerine corsairs. In the face