any otherwise impaired.  The separate legislatures had so often abused that power, that the citizens themselves chose to trust it to the general, rather than to their own special authorities. 2.  On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.  Let us try Cohen’s case by these canons only, referring always however, for full argument, to the essays before cited.

1.  It was between a citizen and his own State, and under a law of his State.  It was a domestic case therefore, and not a foreign one.

2.  Can it be believed, that under the jealousies prevailing against the General Government, at the adoption of the constitution, the States meant to surrender the authority of preserving order, of enforcing moral duties, and restraining vice, within their own territory?  And this is the present case, that of Cohen being under the ancient and general law of gaming.  Can any good be effected, by taking from the States the moral rule of their citizens, and subordinating it to the general authority, or to one of their corporations, which may justify forcing the meaning of words, hunting after possible constructions, and hanging inference on inference, from heaven to earth, like Jacob’s ladder?  Such an intention was impossible, and such a licentiousness of construction and inference, if exercised by, both governments, as may be done with equal right, would equally authorize both to claim all powers, general and particular, and break up the foundations of the Union.  Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding, and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense.  Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties, which may make any thing mean every thing or nothing, at pleasure.  It should be left to the sophisms of advocates, whose trade it is, to prove that a defendant is a plaintiff, though dragged into court, torto collo, like Bonaparte’s volunteers into the field in chains, or that a power has been given, because it ought to have been given, et alia talia.  The States supposed, that, by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers.  They were not lessoned yet by Cohen’s case, nor aware of the slipperiness of the eels of the law.  I ask for no straining of words against the General Government nor yet against the States.  I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones.  I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers, established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold, as at market.