The right of freedom is a natural right. It is a positive existence. It is a moral entity. Like the right to life, it pertains, by the law of nature and of God, to every human being. This moral right continues to exist until it is abolished. Some act abolishing this freedom, then, must be proved; it must be proved affirmatively, or else the fact of freedom remains. This is the solid and indestructible ground of the maxim, that slavery can exist only by positive law; that it is a _local_ institution; that the right of freedom must first be abolished before slavery can exist. 2. My second position is this: _That a man’s legal condition may be changed by a change in the government over him, while he remains in the same place, just as effectually as it can be changed by his removal to another place, and putting himself under another government._ The inhabitants of the North American colonies did not change their place of residence when they passed from under the government of Great Britain, and came under the government of the confederation. The Mexicans, inhabiting the then states of California and New Mexico, did not change their place of residence, when, on the thirtieth day of May last, they ceased to be citizens of the Mexican republic, and became citizens, or _quasi_ citizens of the United States. Their political relations were changed, not by their removal from under the canopy of one government and placing themselves under the canopy of another government, but by the withdrawal of one government from over them, and by the extension to them of certain _political_ rights and capacities under another government. Before this thirtieth day of May, they could have committed treason against Mexico, but not after it. Before it, they could not commit treason against the United States; but when they shall be citizens of the Union, they can. These vital changes in their relations are without any change in their residence. Within my recollection, an old gentleman died in Massachusetts, who had lived in five different towns, but still remained where he was born, like one of the old oak trees on the homestead. The part of the original town where he was born had been set off and incorporated into a new town; and that part of the second town where he lived, into a third; and so on, until he died in the fifth town without any change of domicile. Now, this man lived under the jurisdiction and by-laws of five towns, as they were successively incorporated over him, just as much as though he had struck his tent five times, and placed himself, by successive migrations, under five different municipal jurisdictions.