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In the same paper he says: "There ought to always to be constitutional method to give efficacy to constitutional provisions. It will be remembered that to ogive effect to this very provision, and to secure the invaded rights of her citizens, the legislature of Massachusetts many years ago sent an eminent jurist, Judge Hoar, to the State of South Carolina with an appeal to the Courts of Justice. His appeal was rudely rejected, and himself and daughter by mob violence driven from that State of lawless madmen, who were then just beginning their wild rush from the crime of slavery to the kindred crimes of treason and rebellion against the best government that ever blessed the world. Noris is to much to assert that the neglect to give Practical effect to this constitutional provision has been an efficient cause of the war not desolating the country.
In support of these views the case of Corfield vs. Coryell, 4th volume Washington Circuit Court Reports, pages 380 and 381, is directly in point, and would seem conclusive. Mr. Justice Washington in his opinion says oof the cause in question:
"The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in their nature fundamental. They may all comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the Government; the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; the right of a citizen of one State to pass through or reside in any other Stae, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise, to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, to institute and maintain actions of any kinda in the Courts of the State, to take hold and dispose of property, real and personal, and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State. These and many others which might be mentioned are strictly privileges and immunities, and the enjoyment of them by the citizens of each State in every other State are manifestly calculated (to use the expressions of the preamble of the corresponding provision in the old articles of confederation) the better to secure the perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States of the Union."
The right to testify must be included in the foregoing enumeration as a part of the right to use the Courts, and several of the rights enumerated are certainly less vital and fundamental than the right in question.
No one who has read the able opinion of Attorney General Bates, utterly demolishing the unfortunate obiter dicta in the Dred Scott case, can doubt that colored men may be citizens of the United States and of the several States; and, indeed, all the counsel in this case seem to admit that the petitioner is a citizen of Massachusetts.
This Court has no doubt that a citizen of Massachusetts has a right to demand the protection of his oath, and the use of the Courts of Virginia or any other State of this Union, in virtue of the above quoted constitutional provision, which, like a treaty stipulation between independent States, abrogates every State law which may attempt to defeat its wise and benevolent and truly national operation.