on 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]

Those charters were the fundamental constitutions of the colonies, with
some immaterial exceptions, up to the time of the revolution; as much so
as our national and state constitutions are now the fundamental laws of
our governments.

The authority of these charters, during their continuance, and the
general authority of the common law, prior to the revolution, have been
recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States.[5]

No one of all these charters that I have examined--and I have examined
nearly all of them--contained the least intimation that slavery had, or
could have, any legal existence under them. Slavery was therefore as
much unconstitutional in the colonies, as it was in England.

It was decided by the Court of King's Bench in England--Lord Mansfield
being Chief Justice--before our revolution, and while the English
Charters were the fundamental law of the colonies--that the principles
of English liberty were so plainly incompatible with slavery, that even
if a slaveholder, from another part of the world, brought his slave into
England--though only for a temporary purpose, and with no intention of
remaining--he nevertheless the