“With respect to the decisions of courts of justice, I am far from denying them their due weight and authority; yet, placing them in the most respectable view, I still consider them, not as law, but as an evidence of the law; and before they can arrive even at that degree of authority, it must appear that they are founded in and confirmed by reason,--that they are supported by precedents taken from good and moderate times,--that they do not contradict any positive law,--that they are submitted to without reluctance by the people,--that they are unquestioned by the legislature (which is equivalent to a tacit confirmation),--_and, what in my judgment is by far the most important, that they do not violate the spirit of the Constitution_.”[291] Or let them go back to that early Spanish testimony against the Slave-Trade and Slavery, when De Soto, in lectures at Salamanca, thus spoke:-- “It is affirmed that the unhappy Ethiopians are by fraud or force carried away and sold as slaves. If this is true, neither those who have taken them, nor those who purchased them, nor those who hold them in bondage can ever have a quiet conscience till they emancipate them, _even if no compensation should be obtained_.”[292] Or, let them accept the unanswerable judgment of that acute moralist, the late Archbishop Whately, who in simple words shows the superior title of the slave:-- “A slave cannot fairly be called a thief for taking anything from his master, or for stealing his own liberty. He may be considered as in an enemy’s country, in the midst of those who recognize no rights of his as against them, and who therefore have no rights as against him.”[293] If courts were thus inspired, it is easy to see that Slavery would disappear under righteous judgment. * * * * * 2. Unhappily, courts will not perform the duty of the hour, and we turn elsewhere. Appeal must be made to Congress; and here, as has been fully developed, the powers are ample, unless in their interpretation you surrender in advance to Slavery. By a single brief statute, Congress may sweep Slavery out of existence. Patrick Henry saw and declared, that, under the influence of a growing detestation of Slavery and the increasing “urbanity” of the people, this must be expected, while all the capacious war powers proclaim trumpet-tongued that it can be done constitutionally, and the peace powers echo back the war powers.