y and justice; and they may
think, or pretend to think that the words used in the instrument convey
that idea. The motives of another portion may be to establish the
slavery or subordination of one part of the people, and the superiority
or arbitrary power of the other part; and they may think, or pretend to
think, that the language agreed upon by the whole authorizes such a
government. In all these cases, unless there were some rules of law,
applicable alike to all instruments, and competent to settle their
meaning, their meaning could not be settled; and individuals would of
necessity lose their rights under them. _The law, therefore, fixes their
meaning_; and the rules by which it does so, are founded in the same
justice, reason, necessity and truth, as are other legal principles, and
are for that reason as inflexible as any other legal principles
whatever. They are also simple, intelligible, natural, obvious. Every
body are presumed to know them, as they are presumed to know any other
legal principles. No one is allowed to plead ignorance of them, any more
than of any other principle of law. All persons and people are presumed
to have framed their contracts, statutes and constitutions with
reference to them. And if they have not done so--if they have said black
when they meant white, and one thing when they meant another, they must
abide the consequences. The law will presume that they meant what they
said. No one, in a court of justice, can claim any rights founded on a
construction different from that which these rules would give to the
contract, statute, or constitution, under which he claims. The judiciary
cannot depart from these rules, for two reasons. First, because the
rules embody in themselves principles of justice, reason and truth; and
are therefore as necessarily law as any other principles of justice,
reason and truth; and, secondly, because if they could lawfully depart
from them in one case, they might in another, at their own caprice.
Courts could thus at pleasure become despotic; all certainty as to the
legal meaning of instruments would be destroyed; and the administration
of justice, according to the true meaning of contracts, statutes and
constitutions, would be rendered impossible.

What, then, are some of these rules of interpretation?

One of them, (as has been before stated,) is, that where words are
susceptible of two meanings, one consistent, and the other inconsistent,
with justice and n