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Show 210 DESPOTISI\-f -for it was in the midst of the anti-slavery agitation in England, that this judgment was rendered .. Yet, if Grace had left England a free Bntlsh subject, as the decision in Somerset's case would seem to imply, by what process, on landing in ;Antigua, had ::;he been transformed into a slave? The case of Somerset was directly opposed to the decision which Stowell's antecedent and present associations and opinions had predetermined him to make; and, there· fore, it was necessary to explain that decision away. 'l'hat Somerset had been properly discharged, he did not venture to deny, but the reasons given by Lord Mansfield for that discharge he set aside altogether. Putting those reasons aside, that case, according to Lord Stowell, went no further than this: " 'l'he slave continues a slave, though the law of England re· lieves from the rigor of that code while he is in England, and that is all that it does." All that had been said about a slave not being able to breathe in England, was a mere flourish of rhetoric, and as soon as Grace returned to Antigua, her master, freed from the annoying interference of the English law, regained all his rights! But supposing that to be so, yet by what law of Antigua was Grace held as a slave? 'I' he legislature of Antigua had no power to make laws repugnant to those of England; and not only had they no power, but taking it for granted that slavery was recog111zed by the common law, they had allowed it to rest on that basis alone. Not only was there no statute of Antigua expressly authorizing the slavery of negroes, but by a statute passed in 1705, and never repealed,, the common law of England was declared to be the law of that colony, except when altered by written laws of the island, and "all customs and pretended customs and usage, contradictory thereto," were pro· nounced "illegal, null, and void." Here wa~ fre:-~h and urgent occasion for attacking the reasomng of Lord Mansfield in Somerset's case; for where, s~ [ar as Antigua was concerned, was that basis of pos1hve IN .AMERICA. 211 Ia\': which he had demanded as the only one upon wluch so "odious" an institution could be made to ~tand ?-an in~titt~tion which he had pronounced 1ncap~~le of being mtroduccd upon any reasons moral or political, but only by positive law. Lord IIardw.ickc, in his attempt to legalize slavery, had seemed disposed to represent it as a mere con. tinuation of the system of ville inage. Lord Stowell d1d ~ot ~ail. to perceive the weakness of that position; for 1f vdlemage was too odious a system to stand against the public sentiment even of the fifteenth century, how could any mere copy or imitation of it in the shape of negro slavery be expected to be tolerated in the. ninetecuth? . Alarmed apparently lest the. same stnct constructions and legal pr_inciples whJCh had operated to abolish villeinage might be brought to bea: ~gain.st the enslavement of negroes, he labored to dtstm!;utsh and ex_alt that "as part of a sy~tem cxtciH.hng mto foreign countries and trans· marine possessions," and therefore not to be subjected to the narrow constructions and local humanities of English jurisprudence. 'l'he Engli13h sailors have ~ proverb.'~' No Sunday off soundings," and exactly m the sp1nt of that proverb seem to be conceived many of the decisions of the English Admiralty Courts, and m~leed much of the foreig n policy o( Great Britain, of Wille~ the Chinese opium war may be cited as a flagrant mstance. Yet the Law of Nations a mantle wide enough, as it proved in LorcJ Stowell'; hands, to cover such a multitude of wrongs, could not by it:::elf alon.e sustain slavery in an English colony. In the particular cas~ of Antigua, it became necessary not ~nly to set. aside the reasons given by Lord 1\tanshcld for his decision in the Somerset case but to take issue on the very turning point of those ;casons. Lord Stowell therefore, under the form of modestly quest10nmg, proceeded to deny, point blank, the fun damental proposition of Lord J\lanslield, that to uphoi~ slavery some "positive law" must be shown for It. "Aucient custom," so he suggested, "is gen- |