Whatever the real meaning of the clause in other respects, plainly it is a _compact_, with a _prohibition_ on the States, _conferring no power on the nation_. In natural signification it is a compact. According to examples of other countries and principles of jurisprudence, it is a compact. All arrangements for surrender of fugitives are customarily compacts. Except under express obligations of treaty, no nation is bound to surrender fugitives. Especially has this been the case with fugitives for Freedom. Bodin asserted the freedom of all foreign slaves just so soon as they crossed into France.[349] In mediæval Europe cities set up the same immunity, even against claimants under the same national government. In 1531, while the Netherlands and Spain were united under Charles the Fifth, the supreme council of Mechlin rejected an application from Spain for the surrender of a fugitive slave. By express compact alone could this be secured. But the provision of the Constitution was borrowed from the Ordinance of the Northwestern Territory, which is expressly declared to be a “compact,”[350] and this Ordinance, finally drawn by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, was again borrowed, in some of its distinctive features, from the early institutions of Massachusetts, among which, as far back as 1643, was a compact of like nature with other New England States. Thus this provision is a compact in language, a compact in nature, and a compact in its whole history; as we have already seen, it is a compact according to the intentions of our fathers and the genius of our institutions. There are two instances in history of compacts which illustrate the present words. The first is found in a treaty of peace between Leo the Sixth, Greek Emperor of Constantinople, and Oleg, Regent of Russia, in the year of the Christian era 906, as follows:-- “If a Russian slave take flight, or even if he is carried away under pretence of having been bought, his master can pursue him and take him wherever he shall find him, and any man who shall oppose him in his search _shall be deemed guilty_.”[351] This compact, made in the unequivocal language of a barbarous age, has long since ceased to exist; and now, in our own day, Russia disdains to own a slave. The other instance is the compact between the New England colonies in 1643, being one of the “Articles of Confederation between the Plantations under the Government of the Massachusetts, the Plantations under the Government of New Plymouth, the Plantations under the Government of Connecticut and the Government of New Haven, with the Plantations in combination therewith.” Here it is:--