The slave argument, drawn from this clause, is, that the word "importation" applies only to property, and that it therefore implies, in this clause, that the persons to be imported are necessarily to be imported as property--that is, as slaves. But the idea that the word "importation" applies only to property, is erroneous. It applies correctly both to persons and things. The definition of the verb "import" is simply "to bring from a foreign country, or jurisdiction, or from another state, into one's own country, jurisdiction or state."--When we speak of "importing" things, it is true that we mentally associate with them the idea of property. But that is simply because _things_ are property, and not because the word "import" has any control, in that particular, over the character of the things imported. When we speak of importing "persons," we do not associate with them the idea of property, simply because "persons" are not property. We speak daily of the "importation of foreigners into the country;" but no one infers therefrom that they are brought in as slaves, but as passengers. A vessel imports, or brings in, five hundred passengers. Every vessel, or master of a vessel, that "brings in" passengers, "imports" them. But such passengers are not therefore slaves. A man imports his wife and children--but they are not therefore his slaves, or capable of being owned or sold as his property. A man imports a gang of laborers, to clear lands, cut canals, or construct railroads; but not therefore to be held as slaves. An innocent meaning must be given to the word, if it will bear one. Such is the legal rule. Even the popular understanding of the word "import," when applied to "persons," does not convey the idea of property. It is only when it is applied distinctly to "slaves," that any such idea is conveyed; and then it is the word "slaves," and not the word "import," that suggests the idea of property. Even slave traders and slave holders attach no such meaning to the word "import," when it is connected with the word "persons;" but only when it is connected with the word "slaves." In the case of Ogden _vs._ Saunders, (12 Wheaton, 332,) Chief Justice Marshall said, that in construing the constitution, "the intention of the instrument must prevail; that this intention must be collected from its words; that its words are to be understood in that sense in which they are _generally used_ by those for whom the instrument was intended." On this principle of construction, there is not the least authority for saying that this provision for "the importation of persons," authorized the importation of them as slaves. To give it this meaning, requires the same stretching of words _towards the wrong_, that is applied, by the advocates of slavery, to the words "service or labor," and the words "free" and "all other persons."