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Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.

Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.

Approximate author period: c. 1847 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Lysander Spooner
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1847 AD · industrial
Approximate period for the recorded attribution to Lysander Spooner, based on documented lifetime 1808 to 1887. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q538091 (checked 2026-10-08). This is not a quotation composition date or independent authentication of its attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q538091 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 497281; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.