THE

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

WE, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

General Principles.

The Constitution did not commence to operate until the first Wednesday in March, A. D. 1789. Owings v. Speed, 5 Wheat. 420.

The Constitution should be so construed as best to promote the great objects for which it was made. This end will be best accomplished by avoiding either extreme of the rules of construction, and keeping steadily in view the purposes for which it was instituted. Steamboat Co. v. Livingston, 3 Cow. 713; S. C. 1 Hopk. 150; Hague v. Powers, 39 Barb. 427.

The Constitution, like every other grant, is to have a reasonable construction according to the import of its terms, and where a power is expressly given in general terms, it is not to be restrained to particular cases, unless that construction grows out of the context expressly or by necessary implication. The words are to be taken in their natural and obvious sense, and not in a sense unreasonably restricted or enlarged. Martin v. Hunter, I Wheat. 304.

It is manifest that the Constitution has proceeded upon a theory of its own, and given or withheld powers according to the judgment of the American people by whom it was adopted. The courts can only construe its powers, and can not inquire into the policy or principles which induced the grant of them. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304.

The Constitution unavoidably deals in general language. It did not suit the purposes of the people in framing this great charter of their liber

ties to provide for minute specifications of its powers, or to declare the means by which those powers should be carried into execution. It was foreseen that this would be a perilous and difficult, if not an impracticable task. The instrument was not intended to provide merely for the exigencies of a few years, but was to endure through a long lapse of ages, the events of which were locked up in the inscrutable purposes of Providence. It could not be foreseen what new changes and modifications of power might be indispensable to effectuate the general objects of the charter, and restrictions and specifications which at present might seem salutary might in the end prove the overthrow of the system itself. Hence the powers are expressed in general terms, leaving to the legislature from time to time to adopt its own means to effectuate legitimate objects, and to mould and model the exercise of its powers as its own wisdom and the public interests should require. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304.

No uniform rule of interpretation can be applied to the Constitution, which may not allow, even if it does not positively demand, many modifications in its actual application to particular clauses. Perhaps the safest rule of interpretation will be found to be to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties and rights with all the lights and aids of contemporary history, and to give to the words of each just such operation and force, consistent with their legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends proposed. Prigg v. Comm. 16 Pet. 539.

No court of justice can be authorized so to construe any clause of the Constitution as to defeat its obvious ends, when another construction, equally accordant with the words and sense thereof, will enforce and protect them. Prigg v. Comm. 16 Pet. 539.

The Constitution and the powers confided by it to the general government to be exercised for the benefit of all the States, ought not to be nullified or evaded by astute verbal criticism without regard to the grand aim and object of the instrument and the principles on which it is based. Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283; s. C. 45 Mass. 282.

In expounding the Constitution, every word must have its due force and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument that no word was unnecessarily used or needlessly added. Every word appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation, and its force and effect to have been fully understood. No word in the instrument therefore can be rejected as superfluous or unmeaning. Holmes v. Jennison, 14 Pet. 540.

The framers of the Constitution spoke through a permanent law to a great nation from the vocabulary of that nation. When they use a term defined in that vocabulary they must be understood accordingly. Kunzler v. Kohaus, 5 Hill, 317.

The same words have not necessarily the same meaning attached to them when found in different parts of the same instrument; their meaning

is controlled by the context. In common language the same word has various meanings, and the peculiar sense in which it is used in any sentence is to be determined by the context. Cherokee Nation v. State, 5

Pet. I.

Where the words admit of different intendments, that must be selected which is most consonant to the object in view. Aldrich v. Kinney, 4 Conn. 380.

Care should be taken to reconcile words apparently discordant, and in such a manner as to give, if possible, meaning to every word. Curtis v.

Gibbs, 2 N. J. 399.

Adherence must not be had to the letter, in opposition to the reason and spirit of the enactment; and hence to effectuate the object intended it is even proper to deviate from the usual sense of the words. Aldrich v. Kinney, 4 Conn. 380.

Every interpretation which leads to an absurdity ought to be avoided, and that is properly denominated absurd which is morally impossible or so contrary to reason that it can not be attributed to a man in his right senses. Aldrich v. Kinney, 4 Conn. 380.

Where the object of an instrument admits of no doubt, the expressions should not be rejected as inadequate or incompetent. If they will bear the sense which they were intended to convey without too much constraining their meaning, they should be interpreted accordingly. Hitchcock v. Aicken, 1 Caines, 460.

So far as the meaning of any terms is completely ascertained, those by whom they are employed must be considered as employing them in that ascertained meaning, unless the contrary is proved by the context. U. S. v. Burr, 2 Burr's Trial, 401.

Affirmative words are often in their operation negative of other objects than those affirmed. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137.

A constitution is an instrument of government made and adopted by the people for practical purposes connected with the commerce, business and wants of human life. For this reason, every word should be expounded in its plain, obvious and common sense. Metropolitan Bank v. Van Dyck, 27 N. Y. 400.

The various provisions of the Constitution should receive such a construction as will most effectually subserve the great purposes of its formation, and best promote the general welfare of the grantors of the powers contained in it. Metropolitan Bank v. Van Dyck, 27 N. Y. 400.

A written constitution, framed by men chosen for the work by reason of their peculiar fitness, and adopted by the people upon mature deliberation,

implies a degree of carefulness of expression proportioned to the importance of the transaction, and the words employed are to be presumed to have been used with the greatest possible discrimination. Metropolitan Bank v. Van Dyck, 27 N. Y. 400.

The Federal Constitution is not to be construed technically. It was meant to subserve great and beneficial ends, and any narrow and technical construction that makes it defeat those ends and work mischief is obviously a perversion of its real meaning. People v. Dawell, 25 Mich. 247.

The Constitution must receive a practical construction. Its limitations and its implied prohibitions must not be extended so far as to destroy the necessary powers of the States, or prevent their efficient exercise. Railroad. Co. v. Peniston, 18 Wall. 5.

The Constitution should be so construed as to give effect to its different clauses, so far as it is possible to reconcile them, and not let their seeming repugnancy destroy one another. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264; Marbury v. Madison, I Cranch, 137.

Although the spirit of the Constitution is to be respected not less than its letter, yet the spirit is to be collected chiefly from its words. It would be dangerous in the extreme to infer from extrinsic circumstances that a case for which the words of an instrument expressly provide shall be exempted from its operation. Where words conflict with each other; where the different clauses of an instrument bear upon each other, and would be inconsistent unless the natural and common import of words be varied, construction becomes necessary, and a departure from the obvious meaning of words justifiable. But if in any case the plain meaning of a provision, not contradicted by any other provision in the same instrument, is to be disregarded because the court believes the framers of that instrument could not intend what they say, it must be one in which the absurdity and injustice of applying the provision to the case would be so monstrous that all mankind would without hesitation unite in rejecting the application. Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122.

Great attention is properly paid to the argument from inconvenience. This argument can not prevail over plain words or clear reason. But on the other hand, a construction which must necessarily occasion great public and private mischief must never be preferred to a construction which will occasion neither, or neither in so great degree, unless the terms of the instrument absolutely require such preference. Ex parte Cæsar Griffin, Chase, 364; S. C. 25 Tex. Supp. 623.

A case which is within the words of the rule, must be within it operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction so obviously absurd or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument as to justify those who expound the Constitution in making it an exception. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518.

The exception of a particular thing from general words, proves that in the opinion of the lawgiver the thing excepted would be within the general clause had the exception not been made. Brown v. State, 12 Wheat. 419.

Affirmative words are often, in their operation, negative of other objects than those affirmed, and where a negative or exclusive sense must be given to them, or they have no operation at all, they must receive that negative or exclusive sense. But where they have full operation without it, where it would destroy some of the most important objects for which the power was created, affirmative words ought not to be construed negatively. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264.

A transposition of words or sentences can never be admitted in those cases where consistent meaning can be given to the whole clause as its authors thought proper to arrange it, and where the only doubt is whether the construction which the transposition countenances, or that which results from the reading which the legislature has thought proper to adopt, is most likely to fulfill the supposed intention of the legislature. Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213.

The derangement of words and even sentences of a law, may sometimes be tolerated, in order to arrive at the apparent meaning of the legislators to be gathered from other parts or from the entire scope of the law; but this is a hazardous rule to adopt in the construction of an instrument so maturely considered as the Constitution was by the enlightened statesmen who framed it, and so severely criticised by its opponents in the different State conventions which finally adopted it. Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213.

There is no mode by which the meaning affixed to any word or sentence by a deliberative body can be so well ascertained as by comparing it with the words and sentences with which it stands connected. Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591.

Where a construction has been long carried into practice, though unsanctioned by judicial authority, it is worthy of great consideration because it can not be overturned without great inconvenience. Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. I; S. C. 3 S. & R. 169; Hicks v. Hotchkiss, 7 Johns. Ch. 297; Adams v. Storey, 1 Paine, 79; M'Culloch v. State, 4 Wheat. 316; Martin v. Hunter, Wheat. 304; Briscoe v. Bank, 11 Pet. 257; s. c. 7 J. J. Marsh. 349; Cooley v. Philadelphia, 12 How. 299; Metropolitan Bank v. Van Dyck, 27 N. Y. 400.

Where the commencement of the practice was almost coeval with the Constitution, there is great reason to suppose that it was in conformity to the sentiments of those by whom the true intent of the Constitution was best known. Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. I; s. c. 3 S. & R. 169; Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213; Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304; Prigg v. Comm. 16 Pet. 539; Jack v. Martin, 12 Wend. 311; S. C. 14 Wend. 509.