thereof, _for the aforesaid freedom_, the said person shall be admitted on the conditions herein expressed, paying at his admission twenty shillings sterling, and no more, any thing in this law, or any other law, act or thing in this province, to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding." "Given at Chester," &c., "under the hand and broad seal of William Penn, proprietary and governor of this province and territories thereunto belonging, in the second year of his government, by the king's authority. W. PENN."[16] Up to the time of our revolution, the _only_ meaning which the words "free" and "freemen" had, in the English law, _in the charters granted to the colonies_, and in the important documents of a political character, when used to designate one person as distinguished from another, was to designate a person enjoying some franchise or privilege, as distinguished from aliens or persons not enjoying a similar franchise. They were never used to designate a free person as distinguished from a slave--for the very sufficient reason that all these _fundamental_ laws presumed that there were no slaves. Was such the meaning of the words "free" and "freemen," as used in the constitutions adopted prior to 1789, in the States of Georgia, North and South Carolina, Maryland, Delaware and New York? The legal rule of interpretation before mentioned, viz: that an innocent meaning must be given to all words that are susceptible of it--would compel us to give the words this meaning, instead of a meaning merely correlative with slavery, even if we had no other ground than the rule alone, for so doing. But we have other grounds. For instance:--Several of these constitutions have themselves explicitly given to the words this meaning. While not one of them have given them a meaning correlative with slaves, inasmuch as none of them purport either to establish, authorize, or even to know of the existence of slavery. The constitution of Georgia (adopted in 1777) evidently uses the word "free" in this sense, in the following article: "Art. 11. No person shall be entitled to more than one vote, which shall be given in the county where such person resides, except as before excepted; _nor shall any person who holds any title of nobility, be entitled to a vote, or be capable of serving as a representative, or hold any post of honor, profit, or trust, in this State, while such person claims his title of nobility; but if the person shall give up such distinction_, in the manner as may be directed by any future legislature, _then, and in such case_, he shall be entitled to a _vote, and represent_, as before directed, and enjoy all the other benefits of a FREE citizen." The constitution of North Carolina, (adopted in 1776), used the word in a similar sense, as follows: