WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS.
Taking it for granted that it has now been shown that no rule of civil
conduct, that is inconsistent with the natural rights of men, can be
rightfully established by government, or consequently be made obligatory
as law, either upon the people, or upon judicial tribunals--let us now
proceed to test the legality of slavery by those written constitutions
of government, which judicial tribunals actually recognize as
authoritative.
In making this examination, however, I shall not insist upon the
principle of the preceding chapter, that there can be no law contrary to
natural right; but shall admit, for the sake of the argument, that there
may be such laws. I shall only claim that in the interpretation of all
statutes and constitutions, the ordinary legal rules of interpretation
be observed. The most important of these rules, and the one to which it
will be necessary constantly to refer, is the one that all language
must be construed strictly in favor of natural right.--The rule is laid
down by the Supreme Court of the United States in these words, to wit:
"Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are
overthrown, where the general system of the law is departed from, the
legislative intention must be expressed with _irresistible clearness_,
to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect such
objects."[3]
It will probably appear from this examination of the written
constitutions, that slavery neither has, _nor ever had_ any
constitutional existence in this country; that it has always been a mere
abuse, sustained, in the first instance, merely by the common consent of
the strongest party, without any law on the subject, and, in the second
place, by a few unconstitutional enactments, made in defiance of the
plainest provisions of their fundamental law.
For the more convenient consideration of this point, we will divide the
constitutional history of the country into three periods; the first
embracing the time from the first settlement of the country up to the
Declaration of Independence; the second embracing the time from the
Declaration of Independence to the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States in 1789; and the third embracing all the time since the
adoption of the Constitution of the United States.
Let us now consider the first period; that is, from the settlement of
the country, to the Declaration of Independence.
[Footnote 3: United States _vs._ Fisher, 2 Cranch, 390.]