Search the Constitution, and you will find no grant, general or special, conferring upon Congress power to legislate with regard to fugitives from service or labor. In the general catalogue of powers this is not mentioned; nor does it appear in any special grant. There is nothing in the clause itself, there is nothing in any other clause, applicable to this pretended power. The whole subject is left to stand on a clause which, whatever its meaning otherwise, plainly on its face is only a _compact_, and not a grant of power. And in this respect it differs on its face from other provisions of the Constitution. For instance, 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 grant, these two important subjects would have fallen within the control of the States, the nation having no power _to establish a uniform rule_ thereupon. Now, instead of the existing compact on fugitives from service or labor, it would have been easy, had any such desire prevailed, to add this case to the provision on naturalization and bankruptcy, and empowered Congress _to establish a uniform rule for the surrender of fugitives from service or labor throughout the United States_. Then would Congress have had unquestionable jurisdiction. But nobody in the Convention, not one of the hardiest partisans of Slavery, presumed to make this proposition. Had it been made, it is easy to see that it must have been most unceremoniously dismissed. The genius of the Common Law, to which our ancestors were devoted, cried out against any such concession. If we refer to its great master, Lord Coke, from whose teachings in that day there was no appeal, we find its living voice. In the Third Institute he thus expresses himself: “It is holden, and so it hath been resolved, _that divided kingdoms, under several kings in league one with another, are sanctuaries for servants_ or subjects flying for safety from one kingdom to another, and, upon demand made by them, are not, _by the laws and liberties of kingdoms_, to be delivered.”[348] Unquestionably, if such “sanctuaries” may be overturned, it can be only in a manner consistent with “laws and liberties” of the States where the fugitive is found, and not through the exercise of a domineering prerogative by Congress.