But Lord Mansfield and Chief Justice Marshall were simply giving practical application to those venerable maxims cherished in America as in England. It is not necessary to repeat them at length. They are substantially embodied in the words, _Angliæ jura in omni casu Libertati dant favorem_,--“The Laws of England, _in every case_, show favor to Liberty”; and also in those other vigorous words of Fortescue, _Impius et crudelis judicandus est qui Libertati non favet_,--“He is to be adjudged impious and cruel who does not favor Liberty.”[319] By such lessons have all who administer justice been warned for centuries against the sacrifice of human rights. Even Blackstone, whose personal sympathies were with power, was led to declare, in most suggestive words, worthy of a commentator on English Law, that “the law is always ready to catch at anything in favor of Liberty.”[320] And Hallam, whose instincts were always for Freedom, has adopted and vindicated this rule of interpretation as a pole-star of Constitutional Liberty. “It was,” says this great author, “by dwelling on all authorities in favor of Liberty, _and by setting aside those which made against it_, that our ancestors overthrew the claims of unbounded prerogative.”[321] Nor can it be doubted that this conduct helped to build those great English safeguards of Freedom which have been an example to mankind. This rule has never received plainer illustration than in the writings of Dr. Webster, the eminent lexicographer. In a tract bearing date 1795, long before the heats engendered by the Fugitive Slave Act, he used language which, if applied to our Constitution, must defeat every interpretation favorable to Slavery. “Where there are two constructions,” he says, “the one favorable, the other odious, _that which is odious is always to be rejected_.”[322] This principle, thus sententiously expressed by the American lexicographer, may be found also in the judgments of courts and the writings of civilians without number. It is one of the commonplaces of interpretation. Lord Coke, our master in English law, tells us, that, where words “may have a double intendment, and the one standeth with law and right, and the other is wrongful and against law, the intendment that standeth with law shall be taken.”[323] And Vattel, a master in International Law, says that “we should particularly regard the famous distinction of things _favorable_ and things _odious_,” and then he assumes that we must “consider as _odious_ everything that in its own nature is rather hurtful than of use to the human race.”[324] But the clause of the Constitution which has been made the apology of the Fugitive Slave Act is clearly open to “two constructions,” according to the language of Dr. Webster, or “a double intendment,” according to the language of Lord Coke, or one “favorable” and the other “odious,” according to Vattel. Thus far in our history, under the malignant influence of