he words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous
terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body
who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty,
and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their
representatives. They are what we familiarly call the "sovereign
people," and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent
member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the
class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion
of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We
think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not
intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the
Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and
privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens
of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time
considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had
been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not,
yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or
privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government
might choose to grant them.

It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or
injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision of that
question belonged to the political or law-making power; to those who
formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution. The duty of the
court is, to interpret the instrument they have framed, with the best
lights we can obtain on the subject, and to administer it as we find
it, according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted.

In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of
citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the
rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any
means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a
citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He
may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State,
and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in
any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of
the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on
whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with
all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the
boundaries of t