Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[438] Providence Plantations, or North Carolina, into any other port or place within the limits of the United States as settled by the late treaty of peace,¹ shall be subject to the like duties, seizures and forfeitures as goods, wares or merchandize imported from any State or country without the said limits.

Some reader of that act who may not be overmuch skilled in the interpretation of legal phraseology, might possibly here say to me in perfect sincerity and honesty, “But, Mr. H., the phrase * * * ‘imported from either of the said two States of North Carolina and Rhode Island, into any other port or place within the limits of the United State,’ &c., plainly indicates, from its grammatical construction, that Congress meant to assert and did assert by their use of that phraseology that North Carolina and Rhode Island were, on the 31st July, 1789, “within the limits of the United States.””

In reply to such reader, who would most probably be a Storyite, with his mind so befogged by the sophistries of his Magnus Apollo as to be unable to perceive the force of any point or argument that might militate against the judge's theory, I should say, “if the phraseology you quote from the act of July 31st had not been followed by the next eight words. that are in that act, viz.: ‘as settled by the late Treaty of Peace,’ there would, at first blush, appear to be some force in your remark, if we should regard only the words you quote isolated from what precedes and follows them.” But when we take the words you quote in connection with their whole context, the meaning is very clear, although not what you suppose it to be; but if we suppress the above-mentioned eight important words, we then convert sections 38 and 39 into a jumble of ridiculous contradictions and arrant nonsense. If Congress meant to assert what you say it does assert in section 39, then the collection of duties by United States Custom-House officers in the ports of North. Carolina and Rhode Island from foreign goods imported from across the ocean into those two States in August would have been perfectly legal and proper, but Congress, in section 38, denies this legality and divests. itself of all authority in the premises when it declares in that section that United States' duties cannot be collected “ within either of the, two States,” and in section 39 declares North Carolina and Rhode Island not to be within the limits of the then United States when it directs that goods not of their own growth or manufacture, which “shall be imported from either the said two States” shall pay duties on arrival in United States ports. This provision of the act in question shows, by