Natural law may be overborne by arbitrary institutions; but she will never aid, or perpetuate them. For her to do so, would be to resist, and even deny her own authority. It would present the case of a principle warring against and overcoming itself. Instead of this, she asserts her own authority on the first opportunity. The moment the arbitrary law expires by its own limitation, natural law resumes her reign. If, therefore, the government declare A to be a slave, natural law may be practically overborne by this arbitrary authority; but she will not herself perpetuate it beyond the person of A--for that would be acting in contradiction to herself.--She will therefore suffer this arbitrary authority to expend itself on the person of A, according to the _letter_ of the arbitrary law; but she will assert her own authority in favor of the child of A, to whom the letter of the law enslaving A, does not apply. Slavery is a wrong to each individual enslaved; and not merely to the first of a series. Natural law, therefore, as much forbids the enslaving of the child, as if the wrong of enslaving the parent had never been perpetrated. Slavery, then, is an arbitrary institution throughout. It depends, from first to last, upon the letter of the arbitrary law. Natural law gives it no aid, no extension, no new application, under any circumstances whatever. Unless, therefore, the letter of the arbitrary law explicitly authorize the enslavement of the child, the child is born free, though the parent were a slave. If the views that have already been taken of our written constitutions, be correct, no parent has ever yet been legally enslaved in this country; and of course no child. If, however, any one thinks he can place his finger upon any _constitutional_ law, that has enslaved a parent, let him follow that law, and see whether it also expressly authorized the enslavement of the child. If it did not, then the child would be free. It is no new principle that the child of a slave would be born free, but for an express law to the contrary. Some of the slave codes admit the principle--for they have special provisions that the child shall follow the condition of the mother; thus virtually admitting that, but for such a provision, the child would be free, though the mother were a slave.