280 



SLAVERY. 



ritiy.en of a body politic. In fact, whilst we found 

 the whole idea of the state on the prior idea of the 

 individual, the state with them was the primitive 

 idea, from which the individual received his signifi- 

 cance and worth, for they did not consider the 

 individual as a being placed on earth for the pur- 

 pose of self-improvement, to promote which poli- 

 tical societies are formed. To foreigners they gave 

 the names of barbarians, enemies, slaves. Aristotle, 

 one of the most powerful minds of antiquity, says, 

 in lii>> politics, " With barbarians, the family con- 

 sists of male and female slaves; but to the Greeks 

 belongs dominion over the barbarians, because the 

 former have the understanding requisite to rule, 

 the latter the body only to obey." He calls the 

 slave a living instrument, as the instrument is an 

 inanimate slave. Yet he adds, " For the slave, 

 considered simply as such, no friendship can be 

 entertained ; but it may be felt for him, as he is a 

 man." We perceive here the nobleness of his 

 nature struggling with the limited ideas of his age. 

 We find several traces of a similar feeling among 

 men of elevated character. Plutarch, for instance 

 in his life of Numa), expresses his belief in an 

 early golden age, when there were neither masters 

 nor slaves. Notwithstanding the injustice of the 

 state of slavery, yet, when we come to the question 

 of its abolition, the subject is often attended with 

 numerous difficulties, of which the dangers that 

 may accrue from the removal of restraint from men 

 wholly unaccustomed to self-control, are among 

 the chief; but, on the other hand, cupidity and 

 prejudice often unnecessarily magnify the real dif- 

 ficulties. The abolition of slavery, and its kindred 

 institution, villenage, and the improvement in the 

 condition of women, are among the most important 

 services which Western Europe has rendered to 

 the world. The abolition of slavery in Europe 

 was the consequence, and, in its turn, the cause of 

 its civilization; for slavery is the greatest bar to 

 the progress of society. Look at Asia, so far, at 

 one time, in advance of Europe, and now so far 

 behind it, struggling under the burden of slavery. 

 It is a melancholy reflection that Europe re-esta- 

 blished in her colonies the hateful institution which 

 she had overthrown at home, thereby furnishing 

 another proof that man is capable of committing 

 the most appalling inconsistencies, provided he 

 finds his interest in so doing, and is at a distance 

 from the voice of reproof. We should add, that 

 the villenage which still exists in some parts of 

 Europe, is still more absurd than slavery, because 

 it attempts to treat the human individual as a person 

 and as a thing at the same time, a contradiction 

 which appears, indeed, to some extent in all laws 

 respecting slaves, because the rights of man cannot 

 be altogether overlooked. 



Slavery having once originated, many circum- 

 stances favoured its continuance. From the heads 

 of families who, in the infancy of society in Asia, 

 regarded their domestic dependents in the light of 

 property, as much as they did their flocks, origi- 

 nated the chiefs of the nomadic tribes, who became 

 conquerors or priests ; and from these two classes 

 all the political institutions in Asia seem to have 

 sprung. The conquerors established absolute des- 

 potisms, in which the persons and property of the 

 subjects were completely at the disposal of the 

 ruler. This is political slavery, i. e. the total 

 absence of legal relations (i. e. mutual obligation) 

 between sovereign and subject. Rules may, indeed, 

 sometimes be laid down by the sovereign for the 



regulation of these relations; but the continuance 

 of them depends entirely on his pleasure.* This 

 state of political slavery furnished a great support 

 to domestic slavery by the analogy between the 

 rule of a king and that of a head of a family. The 

 priests secured their power by the establishment of 

 castes, by which society was made to form a sort 

 of pyramid, at the top of which the priests strove 

 to place themselves. The Greeks and Romans, by 

 freeing themselves from the debasing institution of 

 castes, made a great advance in civilization; but 

 they could not elevate themselves to the idea of 

 liberty in the domestic connexions, which lies at 

 the basis of the political institutions of all modern 

 civilized nations, so that the social institutions of 

 our times are founded upon principles essentially 

 differing from those of the ancients a circumstance 

 which is often overlooked. The circumscribed 

 views of the ancients, respecting the rights and 

 relations of men, was the reason why, in spite of 

 their progress in civilization, they continued to 

 treat the prisoner of war as a slave. Had they 

 considered their enemies as equals, and not as mere 

 barbarians, this custom would probably have been 

 sooner abolished. If Christian nations, at later 

 periods, also reduced prisoners of war, in some 

 cases, to slavery, as the Spaniards did with the 

 Indians in America, it was owing to the contempt 

 which they felt for them as heathens. This made 

 the Spaniards look upon the Indians much in the 

 same light as the Romans did upon barbarians. 

 Fanaticism varnished over this measure, and the 

 disciples of the religion of love and truth pretended 

 that the savages could be more easily converted to 

 Christianity in slavery than in freedom.f It was 

 this idea, also, which, as Montesquieu states, induced 

 his most Christian majesty, Louis XIII., to sign a 

 law, declaring the negroes in his colonies slaves. 

 The true motive, however, in both cases, undoubted- 

 ly was cupidity ; and this motive, in other instances, 

 is proclaimed without disguise. J The Europeans 

 and their descendants, in fact, have been pre-emi- 

 nent for cupidity. Whether their greater civiliza- 

 tion has made them more sensible of the value of 

 money, or their superior intellectual cultivation has 

 furnished them with more means of satisfying the 

 universal thirst for acquisition, or whether they are 

 naturally more prone than other races to avarice 

 and the vices which flow from it, they are notori- 

 ous for the violation of every moral and religious 

 principle, and the commission of the most enormous 



* Here we may be allowed a romark respecting the differ- 

 ence of absolute governments in Europe and Asia. Even the 

 supporters of the divine right of kings in Kurope, who main- 

 tain that a monarch is answerable to none but God, neverthe- 

 less admit that he is bound to rule conscientiously, and to 

 administer justice ; whilst the despotism of Asia rests simply 

 on the idea of power, without the supposition of a higher 

 origin. Hence the vizier, who murders the reigning monarch 

 and his family, and usurps the government, is looked upon as 

 the lawful master of the lives of his subjects, as much as his 

 predecessor was, while he possesses power to enforce his will. 



t Arguments readily accommodate themselves to circum- 

 stances. At that time, men were to be enslaved for the good 

 of their souls; and now, the security of the masters, as well 

 as the happiness of the slaves themselves, require that they 

 should be kept from all means of moral and intellectual im- 

 provement. 



t By an act passed in Virginia in the year 1679, it was, for 

 the better encouragement of soldiers, 'declared, that what 

 Indian prisoners should be taken in a war in which the colony 

 was then engaged, should be free purchase to the soldiers tak- 

 ing them. In 1682, it was declared, that all servants brought 

 into this country (Virginia), by sea or land, not being Chris- 

 tians, whether negroes, Moors, Mulattoes or Indians (except 

 Turks and Moors in amity with Great Britain), and all Indians 

 which should thereafter be sold by neighbouring Indians, or 

 any other trafficking with us, as slaves, should be slaves to all 

 intents and purposes. Per judge Tucker, in the case of Hudgr- 

 ins r. Wright. (Henning and Munsford't Iteporti, 139.) 



