attel, in the preliminary chapter to his Treatise on the Law of
Nations, says: "Nations or States are bodies politic; societies of men
united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and
advantage, by the joint efforts of their mutual strength. Such a
society has her affairs and her interests; she deliberates and takes
resolutions _in common_; thus becoming a moral person, who possesses
an understanding and a will peculiar to herself." Again, in the first
chapter of the first book of the Treatise just quoted, the same
writer, after repeating his definition of a State, proceeds to remark,
that, "from the very design that induces a number of men to form a
society, which has its common interests and which is to act in
concert, it is necessary that there should be established a public
authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each, in relation
to the end of the association. This political authority is the
_sovereignty_." Again this writer remarks: "The authority of _all_
over each member essentially belongs to the body politic or the
State."

By this same writer it is also said: "The citizens are the members of
the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and
subject to its authority; they _equally_ participate in its
advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in
the country, of parents who are citizens. As society cannot
perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens,
those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and
succeed to all their rights." Again: "I say, to be _of the country_,
it is necessary to be born of a person who is a _citizen_; for if he
be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his
_birth_, and not his _country_. The inhabitants, as distinguished from
citizens, are foreigners who are permitted to settle and stay in the
country." (Vattel, Book 1, cap. 19, p. 101.)

From the views here expressed, and they seem to be unexceptionable, it
must follow, that with the _slave_, with one devoid of rights or
capacities, _civil or political_, there could be no pact; that one
thus situated could be no party to, or actor in, the association of
those possessing free will, power, discretion. He could form no part
of the design, no constituent ingredient or portion of a society based
upon _common_, that is, upon _equal_ interests and powers. He could
not at the same time be the sovereign and the slave.