s assembled. And no power was
thus delegated to the Government of the Confederation, to act on any
question of citizenship, or to make any rules in respect thereto. The
whole matter was left to stand upon the action of the several States,
and to the natural consequence of such action, that the citizens of
each State should be citizens of that Confederacy into which that
State had entered, the style whereof was, "The United States of
America."

To determine whether any free persons, descended from Africans held in
slavery, were citizens of the United States under the Confederation,
and consequently at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of
the United States, it is only necessary to know whether any such
persons were citizens of either of the States under the Confederation,
at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the
Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the
States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and
North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only
citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary
qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms
with other citizens.

The Supreme Court of North Carolina, in the case of the State _v._
Manuel, (4 Dev. and Bat., 20,) has declared the law of that State on
this subject, in terms which I believe to be as sound law in the other
States I have enumerated, as it was in North Carolina.

"According to the laws of this State," says Judge Gaston in delivering
the opinion of the court, "all human beings within it, who are not
slaves, fall within one of two classes. Whatever distinctions may have
existed in the Roman laws between citizens and free inhabitants, they
are unknown to our institutions. Before our Revolution, all free
persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain,
whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British
subjects--those born out of his allegiance were aliens. Slavery did
not exist in England, but it did in the British colonies. Slaves were
not in legal parlance persons, but property. The moment the
incapacity, the disqualification of slavery, was removed, they became
persons, and were then either British subjects, or not British
subjects, according as they were or were not born within the
allegiance of the British King. Upon the Revolution, no other