Undoubtedly, it was in the first instance, to the first
man, supernaturally promulgated, as it is republished and
confirmed by Christianity, as an integral part of the Christian
code itself. Man needs even yet instruction in relation to
matters lying within the range of natural reason, or else secular
schools, colleges, and universities would be superfluous, and
manifestly the instructor of the first man could have been only
the Creator himself.
The knowledge of the natural law has been transmitted from Adam
to us through two channels--reason, which is in every man, and in
immediate relation with the Creator, and the traditions of the
primitive instruction embodied in language and what the Romans
call jus gentium, or law common to all civilized nations. Under
this law. whose prescriptions are promulgated through reason and
embodied in universal jurisprudence, nations are providentially
constituted, and invested with political sovereignty; and as they
are constituted under this law and hold from God through it, it
defines their respective rights and powers, their limitation and
their extent.
The political sovereignty, under the law of nature, attaches to
the people, not individually, but collectively, as civil or
political society. It is vested in the political community or
nation, not in an individual, or family, or a class, because,
under the natural law, all men are equal, as they are under the
Christian law, and one man has, in his own right, no authority
over another.
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