No man can delegate,... any right of arbitrary dominion over a 3rd person; for that would imply a right in the 1st person, not only to make the 3rd person his slave, but also a right to dispose of him as a slave to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily a criminal one...To call such a contract a constitution does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity.

A letter to Thomas F. Bayard (ed. 1882)