Adopt this definition, and law becomes simple, intelligible, scientific;
always consistent with itself; always harmonizing with morals, reason
and truth. Reject this definition, and law is no longer a science: but a
chaos of crude, conflicting and arbitrary edicts, unknown perchance to
either morals, justice, reason or truth, and fleeting and capricious as
the impulses of will, interest and power.

If, then, law really be nothing other than the rule, principle,
obligation or requirement of natural justice, it follows that government
can have no powers except such as individuals may _rightfully_ delegate
to it: that no law, inconsistent with men's natural rights, can arise
out of any contract or compact of government: _that constitutional law,
under any form of government, consists only of those principles of the
written constitution, that are consistent with natural law, and man's
natural rights_; and that any other principles, that may be expressed by
the letter of any constitution, are void and not law, and all judicial
tribunals are bound to declare them so.

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