If Slavery be national, if there be any power in the National Government to uphold this institution,--as in the recent Slave Act,--it must be by virtue of the Constitution. Nor can it be by mere inference, implication, or conjecture. According to the uniform admission of courts and jurists in Europe, again and again promulgated in our country, Slavery can be derived only from clear and special recognition. "The state of Slavery," said Lord Mansfield, pronouncing judgment in the great case of Sommersett, "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 POSITIVE LAW."[106] And a slaveholding tribunal,--the Supreme Court of Mississippi,--adopting the same principle, has said:-- "Slavery is condemned by reason and the Laws of Nature. It exists, and can _only_ exist, through municipal regulations."[107] And another slaveholding tribunal--the Court of Appeals of Kentucky--has said:-- "We view this as a right existing by _positive law_ of a municipal character, without foundation in the Law of Nature or the unwritten and Common Law."[108] Of course every power to uphold Slavery must have an origin as distinct as that of Slavery itself. Every presumption must be as strong against such a power as against Slavery. A power so peculiar and offensive, so hostile to reason, so repugnant to the Law of Nature and the inborn Rights of Man,--which despoils its victim of the fruits of labor,--which substitutes concubinage for marriage,--which abrogates the relation of parent and child,--which, by denial of education, abases the intellect, prevents a true knowledge of God, and murders the very soul,--which, amidst a plausible physical comfort, degrades man, created in the divine image, to the state of a beast,--such a power, so eminent, so transcendent, so tyrannical, so unjust, can find no place in any system of Government, unless by virtue of _positive sanction_. It can spring from no doubtful phrase. It must be declared by unambiguous words, incapable of a double sense. [106] Howell's State Trials, Vol. XX. col. 82. [107] Harry et al. _v._ Decker et al., Walker, 42. [108] Rankin _v._ Lydia, 2 Marshall, 470. Slavery, I repeat, is not mentioned in the Constitution. The name Slave does not pollute this Charter of our Liberties. No "positive" language gives to Congress any _power_ to make a slave or to hunt a slave. To find even any seeming sanction for either, we must travel, with doubtful footstep, beyond express letter, into the region of interpretation. But here are rules which cannot be disobeyed. With electric might for Freedom, they send a pervasive influence through every provision, clause, and word of the Constitution. Each and all make Slavery impossible as a national institution. They shut off from the Constitution every fountain out of which it can be derived.