THE CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO THE EXPOSITION OF ITS FINAL INTERPRETER.
"The judicial department of the United States is, in the last
resort, the final expositor of the Constitution as to all questions
of a judicial nature. Were there no power to interpret, pronounce,
and execute the law, the government would either perish through its
own imbecility, as was the case with the articles of confederation,
or other powers must be assumed by the legislative body, to the
destruction of liberty."--_Chancellor Kent._
The people of the United States, in adopting the Constitution, made
_one_ standard, _one_ fundamental law, and _only one_. They gave to the
government of the United States certain powers. They restricted it as to
others. They placed certain prohibitions on the States. The Constitution
was to be the one fundamental law of the land, to which all, as well
States as people, should submit. Art. 6, sec. 2, provides that the
"Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under
the authority of the United States, shall be _the supreme law of the
land_; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing
in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding."
Who now is to tell us what this one standard is, to which all must
submit, and which is thus to override all State Constitutions and all
State laws? Is it the province of each individual to do it? Then we may
have at this moment seventeen million different interpretations, and
hence as many different Constitutions, each of which, however, is the
supreme law of the land! Are the executive or judicial departments of
the States the proper expounders? Then, at this moment, we may have
only thirty different interpretations, twenty-nine of which must be
wrong, because the supreme law can be but one.
In order, therefore, that the end of the Constitution may be
accomplished, that it may really be the supreme law of the land, it must
have provided a way in which its only true meaning may be ascertained
and definitively settled. Unless it has provided a final interpreter of
its meaning, it is the merest folly to style it the supreme law of the
land, or to call on us to obey its requirement. Is the Constitution thus
deficient? Does it demand uniformity, and at the same time deny the use
of those means which are absolutely necessary to produce such
uniformity? Does it present a variable, ever-changing standard of duty,
and yet demand complete uniformity in practice?
There are three departments in the Government, namely, the Executive,
the Legislative, and the Judicial. The first two of these are each, to
some extent, supreme in its own sphere; and its acts are incapable of
revision elsewhere. "Thus, in measures exclusively of a political,
legislative, or executive character, it is plain, that, as the supreme
authority as to these questions belongs to the legislative and executive
departments, they cannot be re-examined elsewhere. Thus, Congress having
the power to declare war, to levy taxes, to appropriate money, to
regulate intercourse and commerce with foreign nations, their mode of
executing these powers can never become the subject of re-examination in
any other tribunal. So, the power to make treaties being confided to the
President and Senate, when a treaty is properly ratified, it becomes the
law of the land, and no other tribunal can gainsay its stipulations. Yet
cases may readily be imagined, in which a tax may be laid, or a treaty
made, upon motions and grounds wholly beside the intention of the
Constitution. The remedy, however, in such cases is solely by an appeal
to the people at the elections, or by the salutary power of amendment
provided by the Constitution itself.
"But, where the question is of a different nature, and capable of
judicial inquiry and decision, there it admits of a very different
consideration. The decision then made, whether in favor or against the
constitutionality of the Act, by the State or by national authority, by
the legislature or by the executive, being capable in its own nature of
being brought to the test of the Constitution, is subject to judicial
revision. It is in such cases, as we conceive, that there is a final and
common arbiter provided by the Constitution itself, to whose decisions
all others are subordinate; and that arbiter is the supreme judicial
authority of the courts of the Union" (Story, Comm. Const. sec. 374,
375); for the Constitution declares, Art. 3, sec. 2, that "the judicial
power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this
Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which
shall be made, under their authority," &c. And Art. 3, sec. 1: "The
judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme
court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time
ordain and establish."
These constitutional provisions are clear. The Constitution and laws and
treaties of the United States are declared to be the supreme law of the
land. To expound what the law is, is a judicial act. The judicial power
extends to all cases arising under the Constitution, laws, and treaties
of the United States. It therefore extends to the exposition of the
Constitution, laws, and treaties, when the case before the court
properly calls for such exposition. This judicial power, and
consequently this power of exposition, it is declared, shall be vested
in one supreme court, &c. Most obviously, the exposition given by this
one supreme court cannot be overruled by any other constitutional power;
else the court is not supreme, else the Constitution is nullified. The
decision of the supreme court is the decision of the _only
constitutionally authorized expounder of the meaning of the
Constitution_; and such exposition, to be supreme, must be final.
What, then, has this final interpreter declared the meaning of these
clauses of the Constitution to be?
APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 2.)
On the 5th of June, 1794 (Stat. 1794, c. 45), was approved an Act of
Congress, "laying duties upon carriages for the conveyance of persons."
The duty was uniform throughout the States. One Hylton, in Virginia,
refused to pay the duty; alleging that the Act was unconstitutional,
because the tax was a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution,
and therefore should have been apportioned among the States according to
their federal numbers. He was sued by the United States, and finally the
case came before the supreme court of the United States for decision.
The following extracts are taken from the opinion of Justice Paterson
(Hylton _versus_ the United States, 3 Dallas's Reports, p. 177; 1796):--
"I never entertained a doubt that the principal, I will not say the
only, objects that the framers of the Constitution contemplated, as
falling within the rule of apportionment, were a capitation-tax and
a tax on land. Local considerations, and the particular
circumstances and relative situation of the States, naturally lead
to this view of the subject. _The provision was made in favor of the
Southern States._ They possessed a large number of _slaves_; they
had extensive tracts of territory, thinly settled, and not very
productive. A majority of the States had but few _slaves_; and
several of them, a limited territory, well-settled, and in a high
state of cultivation. The Southern States, if no provision had been
introduced in the Constitution, would have been wholly at the mercy
of the other States. _Congress, in such case, might tax slaves at
discretion or arbitrarily_, and land in every part of the Union.
After the same rate or measure, so much a head in the first
instance, and so much an acre in the second. _To guard them against
imposition in these particulars was the reason of introducing the
clause in the Constitution_ which directs that representatives and
direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States, according to
their respective numbers."
Page 178: "The rule of apportionment is of this nature: it is
radically wrong; it cannot be supported by any solid reasoning. Why
should slaves, who are a species of property, be represented more
than any other property? The rule, therefore, ought not to be
extended by construction."
PERMISSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 9.)
In the great case of Gibbons _vs._ Ogden, 9 Wheaton's Reports, pp. 206
and 207 (1824), Chief Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the
supreme court, makes use of the following language:--
"The Act passed in 1803 (Act Const. 1803, c. 63), prohibiting the
importation of slaves into any State which shall itself prohibit
their importation, implies, it is said, an admission that the States
possess the power to exclude or admit them; from which it is
inferred, that they possess the same power with respect to other
articles.
"If this inference were correct; if this power were exercised, not
under any particular clause in the Constitution, but in virtue of a
general right over the subject of commerce to exist as long as the
Constitution itself, it might now be exercised. Any State might now
import African slaves into its own territory. But it is obvious that
the power of the States over this subject, previous to the year
1808, constitutes an exception to the power of Congress to regulate
commerce; and the exception is expressed in such words as to
manifest clearly the intention to continue the pre-existing right of
the States to admit or exclude for a limited period. The words are,
'The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States
now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by
the Congress prior to 1808.' The whole object of the exception is to
preserve the power to those States which might be disposed to
exercise it, and its language seems to the court to convey this idea
unequivocally."
See also pp. 216, 217.
RESTORATION OF FUGITIVE SLAVES. (Const. Art. 4, sec. 2.)
The following extracts are taken from the opinion of the supreme court
in the well-known case, Prigg _vs._ the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (16
Pet. Rep. 609, &c.). Judge Story delivered the opinion:--
"Historically, it is well known, that the object of this clause was
to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding States the complete
right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every
State in the Union into which they might escape from the State where
they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and
title was indispensable to the security of this species of property
in all the slaveholding States; and, indeed, was so vital to the
preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it
cannot be doubted that it constituted a fundamental article, without
the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true
design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent
in the non-slaveholding States, by preventing them from
intermeddling with, or obstructing, or abolishing, the rights of the
owners of slaves."
Page 612: "If the Constitution had not contained this clause, every
non-slaveholding State in the Union would have been at liberty to
have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits, and
to have given them entire immunity and protection against the claims
of their masters;--a course which would have created the most bitter
animosities, and engendered perpetual strife, between the different
States. The clause was, therefore, of the last importance to the
safety and security of the Southern States, and could not have been
surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in
slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted into the Constitution by
the unanimous consent of the framers of it;--a proof at once of its
intrinsic and practical necessity."
Page 613: "Upon this ground, we have not the slightest hesitation in
holding, that, under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of
a slave is clothed with entire authority, in every State in the
Union, to seize and recapture his slave, whenever he can do it
without any breach of the peace or any illegal violence. In this
sense, and to this extent, this clause of the Constitution may
properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from
legislation, state or national."
Page 625: "Upon these grounds, we are of opinion, that the Act of
Pennsylvania upon which this indictment is founded is
unconstitutional and void. It purports to punish, as a public
offence against that State, the very act of seizing and removing a
slave by his master, which the Constitution of the United States was
designed to justify and uphold."
SUPPRESSION OF SLAVE INSURRECTIONS. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 8; Art. 4, sec.
4.)
We are not aware of any decision of the supreme court upon the meaning
of these clauses; but it seems difficult to conceive, that they would
hold that the word "insurrections" did not include all insurrections.
* * * * *
Such is the Constitution according to the plain, obvious, and common
meaning of its terms; such it was intended to be made by its framers;
such has been the interpretation constantly followed in the practice of
the government, from the time of its adoption until now; and such it is
according to the decision of the final interpreter of its meaning. As
reasonable men, seeking the truth, we cannot say that there is the
slightest doubt whatever on the subject. THE CONSTITUTION VERY
MATERIALLY SUPPORTS SLAVERY!