Though this doctrine may make sad havoc with constitutions and statute books, it is nevertheless law. It fixes and determines the real rights of all men; and its demands are as imperious as any that can exist under the name of law. It is possible, perhaps, that this doctrine would spare enough of our existing constitutions, to save our governments from the necessity of a new organization. But whatever else it might spare, one thing it would not spare. It would spare no vestige of that system of human slavery, which now claims to exist by authority of law.[2] [Footnote 1: It is obvious that legislation can have, in this country, no higher or other authority, than that which results from natural law, and the obligation of contracts: for our constitutions are but contracts, and the legislation they authorize can of course have no other or higher authority than the constitutions themselves. The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain. The idea, therefore, of any inherent authority or sovereignty in our governments, as governments, or of any _inherent_ right in the majority to restrain individuals, by arbitrary enactments, from the exercise of any of their natural rights, is as sheer an imposture as the idea of the divine right of kings to reign, or any other of the doctrines on which arbitrary governments have been founded. And the idea of any necessary or inherent authority in legislation, as such, is, of course, equally an imposture. If legislation be consistent with natural justice, and the natural or intrinsic obligation of the contract of government, it is obligatory: if not, not.] [Footnote 2: The mass of men are so much accustomed to regard law as an arbitrary command of those who administer political power, that the idea of its being a _natural_, fixed, and immutable principle, may perhaps want some other support than that of the reasoning already given, to commend it to their adoption. I therefore give them the following corroborations from sources of the highest authority. "Jurisprudence is the science of what is just and unjust."--_Justinian._ "The primary and principal objects of the law are rights and wrongs."--_Blackstone._ "Justice is the constant and perpetual disposition to render to every man his due."--_Justinian._ "The precepts of the law are to live honestly; to hurt no one; to give to every one his due."--_Justinian & Blackstone._ "LAW. The rule and bond of men's actions; or it is a rule for the well governing of civil society, to give to every man that which doth belong to him."--_Jacob's Law Dictionary._ "Laws are arbitrary or positive, and natural; the last of which are essentially just and good, and bind every where, and in all places where they are observed.* * * * Those which are natural laws, are from God; but those which are arbitrary, are properly human and positive institutions."--_Selden on Fortescue, C. 17, also Jacob's Law Dictionary._