"Every word employed in the Constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or juridical research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them; the people adopt them; the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common sense; and cannot be presumed to admit in them any recondite meaning, or any extraordinary gloss."—Sec. 212: "Where technical words are used, the technical meaning is to be applied to them, unless it is repelled by the context. But the same word often possesses a technical and a common sense. In such a case, the latter is to be preferred, unless some attendant circumstance points clearly to the former."
The Constitution was also framed and adopted with reference to the actual political, social, and local condition of the people. It grew out of their wants and wishes. The steps which finally led to its adoption grew out of one of the many defects in the articles of confederation. Consequently, to arrive at the true meaning of the Constitution, we must bear in mind the political, social, and local condition of the people at the time of its adoption, and, among many other similar facts, the very general existence of domestic slavery.[V]
Keeping in view these, the very simplest rules of interpretation, we will show what the Constitution is according to the common meaning of its terms; what its framers intended to make it; what, in point of fact, it has been considered to be in the practice of the government; and, finally, what it has been adjudged to mean by that body which it has itself pointed out as the final arbiter of its meaning. And, if all these unite in giving the Constitution but one character, we, as reasonable men, seeking the truth, cannot deny that such is its true character.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO THE COMMON MEANING OF ITS TERMS.
The people made it, the people adopted it, the people must be supposed to read it with the help of common sense, and cannot be presumed to admit in it any hidden or extraordinary meaning.
At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, slavery existed in all the States except Massachusetts. How far, if at all, does this instrument support or countenance the institution?
Art. 1, sec. 2: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."