http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/art1.html
Page 344
POWERS DENIED TO CONGRESS
General Purpose of Section 9
This section of the Constitution (containing eight clauses restricting or prohibiting legislation affecting the importation ofslaves, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the enactment of bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, the levying of taxes on
exports, the granting of preference to ports of one State over another, the granting of titles of nobility, et cetera) is devoted to restraints upon the power of Congress and of the National Government, and in no respect affects the States in the regulation of their domestic affairs.
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The Central Law Journal. Vol. IV, 1877.
The remaining objection, to wit, that the statute in its present form is repugnant to section 9, article I., of the Constitution of the United States, because it gives preference to the ports of one state over those of another, may be disposed of by the single remark that this provision operates only as a limitation of the powers of Congress, and in no respect affects the states in the regulation of their domestic affairs.
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http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/45.html
U.S. Constitution: Article I
Section 9. Powers Denied to Congress
Clause 1. Importation of Slaves
General Purpose of Section 9
This section of the Constitution (containing eight clauses restricting or prohibiting legislation affecting the importation of slaves, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the enactment of bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, the levying of taxes on exports, the granting of preference to ports of one State over another, the granting of titles of nobility, et cetera) is devoted to restraints upon the power of Congress and of the National Govern ment, 1683 and in no respect affects the States in the regulation of their domestic affairs. 1684
The above clause, which sanctioned the importation of slaves by the States for twenty years after the adoption of the Constitution, when considered with the section requiring escaped slaves to be returned to their masters, Art. IV, Sec. 1, cl. 3, was held by Chief Justice Taney in Scott v. Sandford, 1685 to show conclusively that such persons and their descendants were not embraced within the term ''citizen'' as used in the Constitution. Today, this ruling is interesting only as an historical curiosity.
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David Upton