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to the same ‘privileges and immunities’ as in his own State.
If the
State to which he goes declines to respect this provision of the
Constitution, our Commonwealth should address a reclamation to it, in order to protect its citizen.
It is idle to reply that free blacks, natives of
South Carolina, are treated to imprisonment and bondage.
The
Constitution of the United States does not prohibit a State from inflicting injustice upon its own citizens.
As the
Duke of
Newcastle said, with regard to his rotten boroughs, ‘Shall we not do what we will with our own?’
But a State must not extend its injustice to the citizens of
another State.
Unfortunately, the poor slave of
South Carolina and the free blacks, natives of that State, are
citizens thereof: they owe it allegiance, if a slave can owe allegiance.
Of course, they have no other power under heaven, from whom to invoke protection.
But the free negro, born in
Massachusetts and still retaining his domicile there, wherever he finds himself, may invoke the protection of his native State.
I have been betrayed beyond my intention into this very hasty and discursive view of the question about which you inquire.
I cannot flatter myself that any thing of mine can aid your elaborate studies.
The matter does not seem to me to rise to the dignity of a debatable question.
All reasoning under the
Constitution is on our side, and all the instincts of justice, too.
All the learning on the subject of alienage is collected and arranged by
Kent in his ‘Lecture on Aliens,’ Vol.
II.; and
Mr. Wirt, in his masterly argument on the impeachment of
Judge Peck (the greatest published juridical argument in English or American history), has thrown great light upon the influence of the common law over the
Constitution and laws of the
United States,—a topic that may not be unimportant in determining the meaning of the word
citizen.
Believe me, my dear sir, very faithfully yours,
P. S. There was a company of blacks during our Revolution, and, I think, some of them have drawn pensions.
