The framers of the Constitution were wise and careful, having a reason for what they did, and understanding the language they employed. They did not, after discussion, incorporate into their work any superfluous provision; nor did they without design adopt the peculiar arrangement in which it appears. Adding to the record compact an express grant of power, they testified not only their desire for such power in Congress, but their conviction that without such express grant it would not exist. But if express grant was necessary in this case, it was equally necessary in all the other cases. _Expressum facit cessare tacitum._ Especially, in view of its odious character, was it necessary in the case of fugitives from service. Abstaining from any such grant, and then grouping the bare compact with other similar compacts, separate from every grant of power, they testified their purpose most significantly. Not only do they decline all addition to the compact of any such power, but, to render misapprehension impossible, to make assurance doubly sure, to exclude any contrary conclusion, they punctiliously arrange the clauses, on the principle of _noscitur a sociis_, so as to distinguish all the grants of power, but especially to make the new grant of power, in the case of public records, stand forth in the front by itself, severed from the naked compacts with which it was originally associated. Thus the proceedings of the Convention show that the founders understood the necessity of _powers_ in certain cases, and, on consideration, jealously granted them. A closing example will strengthen the argument. Congress is expressly empowered "_to establish an uniform rule of_ Naturalization, and _uniform laws_ on the subject of Bankruptcies, _throughout the United States_." Without this provision these two subjects would have fallen within the control of the States, leaving the Nation powerless _to establish a uniform rule_ thereupon. Now, instead of the existing compact on fugitives from service, it would have been easy, had any such desire prevailed, to add this case to the clause on Naturalization and Bankruptcies, and to empower Congress TO ESTABLISH A UNIFORM RULE FOR THE SURRENDER OF FUGITIVES FROM SERVICE THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES. Then, of course, whenever Congress undertook to exercise the power, all State control of the subject would be superseded. The National Government would have been constituted, like Nimrod, the mighty Hunter, with power to gather the huntsmen, to halloo the pack, and to direct the chase of men, ranging at will, without regard to boundaries or jurisdictions, throughout all the States. But no person in the Convention, not one of the reckless partisans of Slavery, was so audacious as to make this proposition. Had it been distinctly made, it would have been as distinctly denied.