CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



SLAVERY. 



That even' human being possesses, as against 

 every other 'human being, a free and inalienable 

 right of property in his own person, seems 

 an undeniable proposition; and yet it is one 

 which even till this day is by no means universally 

 recognised. In certain countries, there are indi- 

 vidualsmen, women, children who are not pro- 

 prietors of themselves ; they are bought and sold 

 treated as chattels ; and they possess no civil 

 rights whatsoever. A person in such circum- 

 stances is called a slave a word of modern 

 origin, supposed to be derived from the Slavi or 

 Slavonians, whom the Venetian merchant-state 

 had the cruelty to sell into bondage. 



Slavery, in one form or other, has existed in the 

 world from the most remote period of history. It 

 existed, as we know, among the patriarchs. Joseph 

 was sold by his brethren to a party of Midianite 

 merchants, who carried him to Egypt, and there 

 sold him to Potiphar (Genesis xxxvii.). A grievous 

 famine having occurred in Egypt, the people, after 

 disposing of all their property in exchange for corn, 

 came to Joseph and offered their own bodies and 

 their lands for food. Joseph complied with their 

 request. ' Behold, I have bought you this day and 

 your land for Pharaoh' (Genesis xlvii. 23). These 

 occurrences alone, mentioned without comment, 

 shew that selling and buying human beings was 

 customary in those early times. From other parts 

 of the Scriptures, we learn that a state of bondage, 

 which was nearly equivalent to modern slavery, 

 was a recognised institution among the Jews. So 

 also did slavery exist among the ancient pagan 

 nations the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans. 



Nothing is more certain than that, in all coun- 

 tries in ancient times, there was a mass of the 

 population in a state of compulsory and perpetual 

 servitude. Even in what are termed the freest 

 states of antiquity, a large proportion of the people 

 were slaves, and possessed no civil rights. At the 

 very time when Athens is spoken of as the model 

 republic of antiquity, it contained 400,000 slaves, 

 and only 20,000 freemen. The practice of slavery 

 arose out of the selfishness of barbarism, and did 

 not appear to its perpetrators either sinful or un- 

 just. Debtors were seized, and, in liquidation of 

 petty claims, sold like ordinary property by their 

 ruthless creditors. Gamblers, having lost every- 

 thing, staked their persons as a last chance ; 

 and being unsuccessful, became the bondsmen 

 of the winner. Men, for their crimes, are still 

 deprived of liberty, but in ancient times they were 

 publicly sold into bondage. In cases of famine, 

 parents disposed of their children, to relieve their 

 own wants. And lastly came war, the scourge of 

 mankind, and the fruitful cause of slavery in all 

 ancient nations. ' It was a law established from 

 time immemorial among the states of antiquity,' 

 says a Greek author, 'to oblige those to undergo 

 the severities of servitude whom victory had thrown 

 into their hands.' There was an exception, how- 

 ever, in the case of civil war, the prisoners taken 

 in which, like all prisoners of war originally, were 

 not made slaves, but generally massacred. Besides 

 the regular wars between nation and nation, it 

 sometimes happened that a vagrant population over- 

 ran an adjoining country, and made the peaceful 

 and dispossessed inhabitants their slaves. Thus. 



36 



the Spartans were served by a race of hereditary 

 bondsmen, the old inhabitants of the district, 

 called Helots a term afterwards used by the 

 Romans to designate men in a servile condition. 

 The unfortunate Helots of Sparta occasionally 

 rose in rebellion against their masters, and at- 

 tempted to gain their liberty ; but these efforts 

 were always suppressed with merciless slaughter. 



As Christianity spread over Europe, its bene- 

 ficent influences modified slavery ; and during the 

 middle ages, the institution took the form of serf- 

 dom. The children born on an estate remained 

 the thralls or bondsmen of the proprietor of the 

 soil, and were bought and sold along with it, but 

 could not legally be removed. In England and 

 Scotland, the greater portion of the peasantry were 

 serfs, or, in strict law-phrase, ascripti glebes that 

 is, attached to the soil. Their masters retained 

 them in perpetual servitude, fed them and cared 

 for them, punished them for faults, and in some 

 instances put metal collars round their necks, in- 

 scribed with their names and the names of their 

 owners. This species of slavery disappeared in 

 the progress of civilisation without direct legisla- 

 tive interference ; it being, in reality, a greater 

 burden to the land-proprietors than to their ser- 

 vants. The institution prevailed in Prussia till the 

 beneficent legislation of Stein, and in Russia till 

 the imperial decree of 1861, which came into full 

 operation in 1863. 



As is well known, slavery, in its more rigorous 

 forms, is banished from every European nation 

 except Turkey. In some parts of Asia and Africa, 

 it exists in its original force, and having, as regards 

 Negroes, been transferred to America, it flourished 

 even in many of the southern states of the union 

 up to the period of the late war, of which its aboli- 

 tion, whether it was the object or not, was cer- 

 tainly the result. Whether the inferior races of 

 mankind, if such there be, will succeed in availing 

 themselves of the liberty which has almost every- 

 where been bestowed on them, is a problem which 

 time and experience only can solve. But their 

 right to make the experiment cannot be ques- 

 tioned. 



INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY CIVIL SOCIETY. 



Civil society is constructed on a system of indi- 

 vidual efforts and interests. Each person is ex- 

 pected, so far as he is able, to act an independent 

 part, controlled only by law and usage. While 

 every one is free, therefore, he is at the same time 

 bound to contribute to the maintenance of the 

 society of which he forms a part, to give obedience 

 to all existing laws, and respect to all properly 

 constituted authorities. In consequence of the 

 general freedom which every one enjoys, and in 

 contradistinction to so-called socialist communi- 

 ties, society is said to be founded on the com- 

 petitive principle. No one being interfered with, 

 all are left to compete with each other in industrial 

 enterprise. This may, and does, have the effect 

 of causing a great disparity of condition men of 

 commanding abilities, steadiness, and persever- 

 ance usually attaining distinction and wealth, 

 while those of weaker capacity, or who are less for- 

 tunate, lapse into poverty. Such is the arrange- 

 ment of nature, and however mysterious or sad it 

 may appear to us in individual cases, it is not 

 difficult to see that, all things considered, freedom 



