Pinckney was then in the full flush of youthful egoism, but the oldest member of the Convention, even Franklin, could not have chosen his method of construction more wisely. Wherever constitutional material existed, Pinckney found it, and preferred it to his own. A single paragraph will give an effective object lesson of his careful composite work:
"The United States shall not grant any title of nobility" (Art. Confederation VI). "The Legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion" (Constitution of New York); "nor touching or abridging the liberty of the press" (Constitution Massachusetts); "nor shall the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus ever be suspended except in case of rebellion or invasion" (Constitution Mass.).
The resolution of March 21, 1787 is as follows:
"Resolved, That the legislatures of the several states cannot of right pass any act or acts, for interpreting, explaining, or construing a national treaty or any part or clause of it; nor for restraining, limiting or in any manner impeding, retarding or counteracting the operation and execution of the same, for that on being constitutionally made, ratified and published, they become in virtue of the confederation, part of the law of the land, and are not only independent of the will and power of such legislatures, but also binding and obligatory on them."
"All acts made by the Legislature of the United States, pursuant to this Constitution, and all Treaties made under the authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land; and all Judges shall be bound to consider them as such in their decisions."
I have spoken of the sentence, "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States" as the most felicitous sentence in the Constitution, which passed through the Committee of Detail, the Committee of Style, and the Convention without the change of a single word. But in the Articles of Confederation the provision stood in this prolix form:
"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from Justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and egress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restriction shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State of which the owner is an inhabitant."