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is followed by others, and becomes the origin of usages and customs, which are generally in most respects in accordance with the laws of nature. Usages and customs grow up spontaneously among every people, and become laws by the general acquiescence. Rude customs and usages grow up among savages and barbarians, adapted to their condition and modes of life, and become laws, anterior to the organization of society, and before the establishment of any regular system of government.

Laws as a general rule are developed spontaneously among the people, and are not often originated by lawgivers and legislators. After the establishment of a government, the rude customs and usages of the people are reduced to some order and system by the chiefs, monarch, or legislative council, and some mode of administering justicǝ devised. As civilization advances, the incongruities of the rude laws customs and usages of the people are corrected from time to time by the courts of justice and by legislators, defects are occasionally supplied by legislative power, and the whole body of the laws more and more reduced to a system. Legislation moulds much law into form and consistency, but originates very little. As laws mostly originate in usage and custom, cotemporaneous usage is always the best exposition of statute laws and constitutions.

SEC. 4. ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENTS.

Usages and customs, as well as natural law having existed prior to human legislation, the first exercise of the powers of government was to determine the law, that is, the law of nature, the principles of natural justice, and the usages and customs of the country, to punish crime and offences, and to administer justice in accordance therewith. This was done during the primitive and middle ages, by patriarchs, military chieftains, and councils, who combined and exercised legislative, judicial, and executive powers.

The reason of the great mass of uncultivated minds is very weak, and their mental visions very limited and imperfect; and hence without law and government to guide, direct and restrain them, they are governed by the impulses of their own appetites and passions. Mankind should live in families and society. The mode of living in society as well as in families, is in accordance with the nature of man, and necessary to his happiness and general welfare.

Order can not exist without law and government; and man can not exist in society without order, law, and government. Hence govrenment has its origin in necessity; and though all free governments are established by, and derive their forms and division of powers from the assent and acquiescence of the people, yet the extent of their powers depends after all, mostly upon the laws of nature; upon the exigencies of society; upon the necessity of self-defence and self-preservation.

Another evidence that government is founded in necessity arising from the constitution and nature of man, is furnished by the fact that some degree and kind of government grows up spontaneously among every people, however savage or barbarous they may be. Those imperfect, self-developed governments are mostly of a patriarchal or ecclesiastical character, or the rule of chieftains elected by tribes. They are essentially modified and changed by successful military monarchs, by councils of military chieftains, councils of ecclesiastics, or conventions of representatives of the people.

SEC. 5. SOME NATURAL RIGHTS SURRENDERED TO THE GOVERNMENT

-OTHERS RETAINED.

In the establishment of civil governments men surrender some of their natural rights in order to secure and protect others more perfectly. They surrender,

1. The natural right to redress their own wrongs and injuries.

2. They grant power to control their persons to aid in the defence of the state, and to tax their property so far as is necessary to support the government and promote the general welfare.

3. They grant power to regulate, by general laws, trade and commercial intercourse, the sale transfer and transmission of property, contracts, marriages and the domestic relations, education, highways and bridges, crimes, misdemeanors and all matters of police, and the administration of justice. But they do not surrender to the government the right of self-defence; self-preservation and self-defence are instincts of nature, and the right to use the means and the power necessary to secure them, constitutes the first law of nature. This right is inherent in families, communities, states and nations, as well as in individuals. It is an inalienable right which is never surrendered.

Hence the power to maintain its legitimate authority, to punish

conspiracies, and to put down all opposition to its just and proper laws, is implied in the grants of power to every supreme government. Without such power it would be impossible to overcome revolutionary movements, and to guard against conspiracies and insidious attempts to undermine its authority.

SEC. 6. COLONIAL CHARTERS, GOVERNMENTS, AND LAWS.

All the American Colonies that united in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, were claimed by Great Britain by the right of discovery. With the exception of New York New Jersey and Delaware, they were all first settled by colonists from England, under charters for colonial governments granted by the Kings of England. The Dutch from Holland made settlements on Manhatten Island, where the City of New York now stands, and also at Albany, on the west bank of the Hudson River, established a colonial government, called the country New Netherlands, and held it as a colony of Holland, until the year 1664; when it was surrendered to the English, and became thereafter a British colony.

The first settlements were made as follows: in Virginia at Jamestown in 1607; in New York at Albany in 1614; in Massachusetts at Plymouth in 1620; in New Hampshire at Dover in 1624; in New Jersey at Bergen in 1624; in Delaware at Cape Henlopen in 1630; in Connecticut at Windsor in 1633; in Maryland at St. Marys in 1634; in Rhode Island at Providence in 1636; in North Carolina at Albermarle in 1663; in South Carolinia at Port Royal in 1670; in Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1682; in Georgia at Savannah in 1733. New York as I have stated was first settled by the Dutch; New Jersey by the Dutch, Danes, and Swedes; Delaware by the Swedes and Finns. All the others colonies were first settled by the English.

The Dutch colony of New Netherlands extended their dominion over New Jersey, and in 1655 conquered the Swedes who had settled in Delaware, and extended their dominion over that colony also.

In 1665 New Jersey was granted to Lord Berkly and Sir George Carteret, and became a separate colony of England.

The title to Pennsylvania and Delaware was acquired by William Penn in 1682, and the two were united as one province or colony and

under one government, until 1703, when the people of Delaware were allowed to establish a separate colonial government of their

own.

The whole country forming the thirteen original colonies was subject to the dominion of England from the conquest of the New Netherlands (now New York and New Jersey) in 1664,-until the Declaration of Independence in 1776. After the conquest of 1664 nearly all the settlers to the colonies were from England. They brought with them the English language, English customs and opinions, the common law of England, veneration for English laws and institutions, and also the Protestant religion. All the colonies but one was first settled by Protestants-the Dutch and the Swedes were Protestants. Maryland alone was first settled by a colony of Roman Catholics from England, under Lord Baltimore; but he was more liberal and tolerant than the Puritans of New England, and established a system of government and laws more in accordance with the system of modern American protestantism and civil and religous liberty, than existed in any of the New England colonies except Rhode Island, previous to the American Revolution.

Each colony had its own colonial legislature elected by its own people, and a Royal Governor appointed by the King of England! Each colony legislated for itself on all municipal and local questions and matters, subject to the veto of the Royal Governor. The colonies were all pendant branches from the same British stem, and had no political connection whatever except through the mother country. They were in fact entirely independent of each other, and their intercolonial commeree was regulated by the British Parliament. Each colony had its laws, of which the common law of England, and so much of the statute laws as the Colonial Legislature saw fit to adopt, constituted the basis. The British system of law and jurisprudence rubstantially prevailed in all, slightly modified in each by Colonial legislation and by local customs and usages, which grew up spontaneously, and were adapted to their local situation wants and industry. Each colony had institutions and a system of laws and jurisprudence differing more or less from those of every other colony. Such was the condition of the thirteen colonies; each entirely independent of the others, at the time of the meeting of the first Continental Congress in 1774.

SEC. 7. ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY.

Slavery existed among all the most civilized nations of antiquity, from a period anterior to authentic history. It existed among the Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Phenicians, and also among the Israelites, centuries before they became an independent nation. Sarah the wife of the Patriarch Abraham, had a bond woman named Hagar, as we read in the scriptures.

In the early ages of the world, and also among savage and barbarous tribes in modern times, it was common for captors to sell their captives taken in war, as slaves. Is was also common for parents to sell their children, and particularly their female children; and some sell their daughters in this age of the world.

Slavery thus originated in power and violence;-in the power of the captor over his prisoner, and in the power of the parents over their children. Precedent begat practice; practice grew into usage; usage expanded into common custom, and thus ripened into law, by the general acquiescence of the people, and of the legislative power, among nearly all ancient nations. Gibbon estimated that half of the Roman world were slaves. At the time of the Christian era, the slaves in the Roman Empire are generally supposed to have numbered more than fifty millions.

SEC. 8. CHARACTER OF SLAVERY, AND HOW REGARDED IN THE

SCRIPTURES.

Slavery is clearly inconsistent with the natural rights of man and contrary to the laws of nature established by the Deity in the nature of things and of man, and yet he tolerated it among his chosen people, the ancient Israelites. It is contrary to the principles of christanity, and inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, and yet it is not inconsistent with the letter of the Gospel. Neither Christ nor any of his disciples in any instance denounced slavery, or preached against it. They made no efforts to operate upon their own followers, nor upon the opinions of the Roman world, to induce the people to emancipate their slaves, as inconsistent with the duties of christians. On the contrary, they frequently exhorted slaves to obedience to their masters. See Ephesians, VI: 5 to 9; Colossians, III: 22; I Tim., VI: 2 and 3; Titus, II: 9; Exodus, XXI: 20 and 21.

Those exhortations of the apostles to servants to obey their masters, must have been given upon grounds of expediency only, to

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