Page:The Barbarism of Slavery.djvu/77

 render this pretension impossible. Partisans, taking counsel of their desires, find in the Constitution, as in the Scriptures, what they incline to find; and never was this more apparent than when Slave-masters deceive themselves so far as to find in the Constitution a pretension which exists only in their own souls.

Looking juridically for one moment at this question, we shall be brought to the conclusion, according to the admission of courts and jurists, first in Europe, and then in our own country, that Slavery can be derived from no doubtful word or mere pretension, but only from clear and special recognition. "The state of Slavery," said Lord Mansfield, pronouncing judgment in the great case of Somerset, "is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but " — that is, express words of a written text; and this principle, which commends itself to the enlightened reason, has been adopted by several courts in the Slave States. Of course, every leaning must be against Slavery.-A pretension so peculiar and offensive — so hostile to reason — so repugnant to the laws of nature and the inborn Rights of Man; which, in all its five-fold wrong, has no other object than to compel fellow-men to work without wages; such a pretension, so tyrannical, so unjust, so mean, so barbarous, can find no place in any system of Government, unless by virtue of positive sanction. It can spring from no doubtful phrases. It must be declared by unambiguous words, incapable of a double sense.

At the adoption of the Constitution, this rule, promulgated in the Court of King's Bench, by the voice of the most finished magistrate in English history, was as well known in our country as any principle of the common law; especially was it known to the eminent lawyers in the Convention; nor is it too much to say that the Constitution was framed with this rule on Slavery as a guide. And the Supreme Court of the United States at a later day, in the case of United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 390, by the voice of Chief-Justice Marshall, promulgated this same rule, in words stronger even tha those of Lord Mansfield, saying: "Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are overthrown, where the general system of the laws is departed from, the legislative intention must be