Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/20

 Hurd, the ablet writer on this ubject, ays: "The involuntary ervitude of Indians and negroes in the everal colonies originated under a law not promulgated by legilation, and reted upon prevalent views of univeral juriprudence, or the law of nations, upported by the expres or implied authority of the home Government." Law of Freedom and Bondage, § 216,, 225.

Under this anction lavery may very properly be aid to have originated in all the colonies, but it was not long before it made its appearance on the tatute-book in Maachuetts. The firt tatute etablithing lavery in America is to be found in the famous, or —the firt code of laws of that colony, adopted in December, 1641. Thee liberties had been, after a long truggle between the magitrates and the people, extracted from the reluctant grap of the former. "The people had [1639] long deired a body of laws, and thought their condition very unafe, while o much power reted in the dicretion of magitrates." Winthrop,, 322. Never were the demands of a free people eluded by their public ervants with more of the contortions as well as widom of the erpent. Compare Gray in M. H. S.,, viii., 208.

The cantines of the materials for the particular hitory of this renowned code is uch as to forbid the attempt to trace with certainty to its origin the law in quetion. It is, however, obvious that it was made to provide for lavery as an exiting, subtantial fact, if not to retrain the application of thoe higher