Of course, a barbarism like Slavery, having its origin in force and nothing else, can have no legal or constitutional support except from positive sanction. It can spring from no doubtful phrase. It must be declared by unambiguous words, incapable of a double sense. Here I repeat an argument which I have presented before, when on other occasions arraigning the pretensions of Slavery under the Constitution, but which, so long as Slavery claims immunity, cannot be allowed to drop out of sight. It begins with the great words of Lord Mansfield, who, in the memorable case of Somerset, said: “The state of Slavery 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.”[234] This principle has been adopted by tribunals even in slaveholding States.[235] But I do not stop to dwell on these authorities. Even the language, “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever,” cannot be made to sanction Slavery. It wants those positive words, leaving nothing to implication, which are obviously required, especially when we consider the professed object of the Constitution, as declared in its Preamble, to “establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty.” There is no power in the Constitution to make a king, or, thank God, to make a slave; and the absence of all such power is hardly more clear in one case than in the other. The word _king_ nowhere occurs in the Constitution, nor does the word _slave_. But if there be no such power, then all Acts of Congress sustaining Slavery at the national capital must be unconstitutional and void. The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain head; nay, more, _nothing can come out of nothing_; and if there be nothing in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make a slave, there can be nothing valid in any subordinate legislation. It is a pretension which has thus far prevailed simply because Slavery predominated over Congress and courts.