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 recognised 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 meaning, and delegates the
same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same
rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to
exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but
with the same meaning and