In making this examination, however, I shall not insist upon the principle of the preceding chapter, that there can be no law contrary to natural right; but shall admit, for the sake of the argument, that there may be such laws. I shall only claim that in the interpretation of all statutes and constitutions, the ordinary legal rules of interpretation be observed. The most important of these rules, and the one to which it will be necessary constantly to refer, is the one that all language must be construed strictly in favor of natural right.--The rule is laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in these words, to wit: "Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are overthrown, where the general system of the law is departed from, the legislative intention must be expressed with _irresistible clearness_, to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect such objects."[3] It will probably appear from this examination of the written constitutions, that slavery neither has, _nor ever had_ any constitutional existence in this country; that it has always been a mere abuse, sustained, in the first instance, merely by the common consent of the strongest party, without any law on the subject, and, in the second place, by a few unconstitutional enactments, made in defiance of the plainest provisions of their fundamental law. For the more convenient consideration of this point, we will divide the constitutional history of the country into three periods; the first embracing the time from the first settlement of the country up to the Declaration of Independence; the second embracing the time from the Declaration of Independence to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 1789; and the third embracing all the time since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. Let us now consider the first period; that is, from the settlement of the country, to the Declaration of Independence. [Footnote 3: United States _vs._ Fisher, 2 Cranch, 390.] CHAPTER III. THE COLONIAL CHARTERS. When our ancestors came to this country, they brought with them the common law of England, including the writ of _habeas corpus_, (the essential principle of which, as will hereafter be shown, is to deny the right of property in man,) the trial by jury, and the other great principles of liberty, which prevailed in England, and which have made it impossible that her soil should be trod by the foot of a slave. These principles were incorporated into all the charters, granted to the colonies, (if all those charters were like those I have examined, and I have examined nearly all of them.)--The general provisions of those charters, as will be seen from the extracts given in the note, were, that the laws of the colonies should "not be repugnant or contrary, but as nearly as circumstances would allow, conformable to the laws, statutes and rights of our kingdom of England."[4]