HORACE GRAY. 635 



allegiance to his State or his country ; and warrant the conjecture that 

 he would have been well pleased to have the fund applied in a manner 

 inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States. But 

 he has used no words to limit its use to illegal methods, and has left 

 his trustees untrammelled as to the mode of its application. . . . 



" A bequest for the benefit of fugitive slaves is not necessarily unlaw- 

 ful. The words 'relief or redemption of prisoners and captives' have 

 always been held in England to include those in prison under condemna- 

 tion for crime, as well as persons confined for debt ; and to support 

 gifts for distributing bread and meat among them annually, or for 

 enabling poor imprisoned debtors to compound with their creditors. 

 Duke, 131, 156; Attorney General v. Ironmongers' Co., C. P. Coop. 

 Pract. Cas. 285, 290 ; Attorney General v. Painterstainers' Co., 2 Cox 

 Ch. 51; Attorney General v. Drapers' Co., Tudor, 591, 592; s. c. 

 4 Beav. 67 ; 36th Report of Charity Commissioners to Parliament, pt. vi. 

 856-868. It would be hardly consistent with charity or justice to favor 

 the relief of those undergoing punishment for crimes of their own com- 

 mitting, or imprisonment for not paying debts of their own contracting ; 

 and yet prohibit a like relief to those who were in equal need, because 

 they had withdrawn themselves from a service imposed upon them by 

 local laws without their fault or consent. . . . 



" To supply sick or destitute fugitive slaves with food and clothing, 

 medicine and shelter, or to extinguish by purchase the claims of those 

 asserting a right to their service and labor, would in no wise have tended 

 to impair the claim of the latter or the operation of the Constitution and 

 laws of the United States; and would clearly have been within the terms 

 of this bequest. If, for example, the trustees named in the will had re- 

 ceived this fund from the executor without question, and had seen fit to 

 apply it for the benefit of fugitive slaves in such a manner, they could 

 not have been held liable as for a breach of trust. 



'• This bequest, therefore, as well as the previous one, being capable 

 of being applied according to its terms in a lawful manner at the time of 

 the testator's death, must, upon the settled principles of construction, be 

 held a valid charity." 



A like subordination of great historical learning and research to the 

 questions raised in a particular case is exemplified in United States v. 

 Wong Kim Ark, 169 II. S. 649, decided thirty years after Jackson 

 v. Phillips. The question there concerned the citizenship of a child of 

 Chinese parents living in the United States at the time of his birth. 

 After elaborate historical exposition covering some forty octavo pages, 

 the matter is thus summed up. 



