Lord Coke[9] speaks thus of these clauses: “These are all words which should be carefully read over and over again, for as the gold-finer will not out of the dust, shreds, or shreds of gold let passe the least crum in respect of the excellency of the metal, so ought not the learned reader to passe any syllable of this law, in respect of the excellency of the matter.” “As to the extent of the applicability of the words of the charter,” Sir Edward Creasy says,[10] “it is not a piece of class legislation, but its benefits apply to all the freemen of the land, and all freemen are equal in the eye of this great law.” Lord Chatham speaks thus of the temper in which this great article of the charter was contended for by the Barons: “They did not confine it to themselves alone, but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole people; they did not say, these are the rights of the great Barons, or these are the rights of the great Prelates; no, but they said, in the simple Latin of the times, ‘Nullus liber Homo,’ and provided as carefully for the meanest subject as for the greatest. These are uncouth words, and sound but poorly in the ears of scholars, neither are they addressed to the criticism of scholars, but to the hearts of free men. These three words, ‘Nullus liber Homo,’ have a meaning which interests us all; they deserve to be remembered, they deserve to be inculcated on our minds, they are worth all the classics.” The words “Nullus liber Homo” did not originally apply to every person living in England, because a portion of the population was in a state of serfdom or villeinage, which was in effect slavery. But this slavery was in the course of time abolished, and the seeds of enfranchisement were sown by the Great Charter itself. “For[11] through the action of its principles, the villeins (or slaves) were constantly rising into freemen, so that the ultimate effect of this clause was to give and to guarantee full protection for person and property to every human being who breathes English air.” In a future portion of this Essay it will be shown how by the enactments which we deplore a portion of the community is continually passing from the state of freemen into the state of slavery, and is in effect by the action of the Contagious Diseases Acts put, with respect to the operation of the law, out of the pale of those denominated by the words “liber Homo.”