American Eloquence, Volume 2: Studies In American Political History (1896)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 2: Studies In American Political History (1896)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
Whatever may be the latitude in which the word "persons" is capable of
being received, it is not denied that the word "importation" indicates
a bringing in from a jurisdiction foreign to the United States. The two
termini of the importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and
the American Union--the first the _terminus a quo_, the second the
_terminus ad quem_. The word migration stands in simple connexion with
it, and of course is left to the full influence of that connection.
The natural conclusion is, that the same termini belong to each, or, in
other words, that if the importation must be abroad, so also must be
the migration--no other termini being assigned to the one which are not
manifestly characteristic of the other. This conclusion is so obvious,
that to repel it, the word migration requires, as an appendage,
explanatory phraseology, giving to it a different beginning from that
of importation. To justify the conclusion that it was intended to mean a
removal from State to State, each within the sphere of the constitution
in which it is used, the addition of the words from one to another State
in this Union, were indispensable. By the omission of these words, the
word "migration" is compelled to take every sense of which it is fairly
susceptible from its immediate neighbor, "importation." In this view
it means a coming, as "importation" means a bringing, from a foreign
jurisdiction into the United States. That it is susceptible of this
meaning, nobody doubts. I go further. It can have no other meaning in
the place in which it is found. It is found in the Constitution of this
Union--which, when it speaks of migration as of a general concern, must
be supposed to have in view a migration into the domain which itself
embraces as a general government.
Migration, then, even if it comprehends slaves, does not mean the
removal of them from State to State, but means the coming of slaves
from places beyond their limits and their power. And if this be so, the
gentlemen gain nothing for their argument by showing that slaves were
the objects of this term.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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