HOWELL COBB,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives_.
WILLIAM R. KING,
_President of the Senate, pro tempore_.
Approved September 18, 1850.
MILLARD FILLMORE.
The most prominent provisions of the Constitution of the United States,
and those which form the fundamental basis of personal security, are
they which provide, that every person shall be secure in their person
and property: that no person may be deprived of liberty without due
process of law, and that for crime or misdemeanor; that there may be no
process of law that shall work corruption of blood. By corruption of
blood is meant, that process, by which a person is _degraded_ and
deprived of rights common to the enfranchised citizen--of the rights of
an elector, and of eligibility to the office of a representative, of the
people; in a word, that no person nor their posterity, may ever be
debased beneath the level of the recognised basis of American
citizenship. This debasement and degradation is "corruption of blood";
politically understood--a legal acknowledgement of inferiority of birth.
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