But there is another well-known fact, which gives pertinence and stringency to the above view. At common law, the writ _de homine replegiando_,--the writ of personal replevin, or for replevying a man,--was an original writ; a writ which the party could sue out of right; one to be granted on motion, without showing cause, and which the court of chancery could not supersede. It was, according to the very language of our supreme court, recognized by the common law “among its old and settled proceedings.” The form of it is found in that great arsenal of common law writs, the _Registrum Brevium_. A man, says Comyn, may have a _homine replegiando_ for a negro; or for an Indian brought by him into England and detained from him; or it may be brought by an infant against his testamentary guardian; _or by a villein against his lord_. (Dig., Title Imprisonment, L. 4.) If it could be brought by a villein against his lord, then it was the very writ for an alleged slave against an alleging owner. It was the mode provided by the common law for the determination of the _legal right_ asserted in a human being. I have always understood that, before the revolution, and before the framing of our constitution, Comyn’s Digest was a work of the highest authority. It must have been well known to all the lawyers in the convention. Did they expect, then, that when an alleged slave, or a known freeman, should be seized, that he should be hurried into bondage without any right to this ancient muniment of the subject’s liberties?