All such States must therefore be forisfamiliated with Virginia and the rest, or change their system.  For the Constitution being absolutely silent on those subjects, will afford them no protection.  The Union might thus be reduced from an Union to an unit.  Who does not see that such conclusions flow from false notions—­that the true theory of a republican government is mistaken—­and that in such a government rights, political and civil, may be qualified by the fundamental law, upon such inducements as the freemen of the country deem sufficient?  That civil rights may be qualified as well as political, is proved by a thousand examples.  Minors, resident aliens, who are in a course of naturalization—­the other sex, whether maids, or wives, or widows, furnish sufficient practical proofs of this.

* * * * *

We are next invited to study that clause of the Constitution which relates to the migration or importation, before the year 1808, of such persons as any of the States then existing should think proper to admit.  It runs thus:  “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”

It is said that this clause empowers Congress, after the year 1808, to prohibit the passage of slaves from State to State, and the word “migration” is relied upon for that purpose.

* * * * *

Whatever may be the latitude in which the word “persons” is capable of being received, it is not denied that the word “importation” indicates a bringing in from a jurisdiction foreign to the United States.  The two termini of the importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and the American Union—­the first the terminus a quo, the second the terminus ad quem.  The word migration stands in simple connexion with it, and of course is left to the full influence of that connection.  The natural conclusion is, that the same termini belong to each, or, in other words, that if the importation must be abroad, so also must be the migration—­no other termini being assigned to the one which are not manifestly characteristic of the other.  This conclusion is so obvious, that to repel it, the word migration requires, as an appendage, explanatory phraseology, giving to it a different beginning from that of importation.  To justify the conclusion that it was intended to mean a removal from State to State, each within the sphere of the constitution in which it is used, the addition of the words from one to another State in this Union, were indispensable.  By the omission of these words, the word “migration” is compelled to take every sense of which it is fairly susceptible from its immediate neighbor, “importation.”  In this view it means a coming, as “importation”