Book XV. In What Manner the Laws of Civil Slavery Relate to the Nature of the Climate

　　1. Of civil Slavery. Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune. The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. It is neither useful to the master nor to the slave; not to the slave, because he can do nothing through a motive of virtue; nor to the master, because by having an limited" title="a.无限的；过渡的">unlimited authority over his slaves he insensibly accustoms himself to the want of all moral virtues, and thence becomes fierce, hasty, severe, choleric, voluptuous, and cruel.

　　In despotic countries, where they are already in a state of political servitude, civil slavery is more tolerable than in other governments. Every one ought to be satisfied in those countries with necessaries and life. Hence the condition of a slave is hardly more burdensome than that of a subject.

　　But in a monarchical government, where it is of the utmost importance that human nature should not be debased or dispirited, there ought to be no slavery. In democracies, where they are all upon equality; and in aristocracies, where the laws ought to use their utmost endeavours to procure as great an equality as the nature of the government will permit, slavery is contrary to the spirit of the constitution: it only contributes to give a power and luxury to the citizens which they ought not to have.

　　2. Origin of the Right of Slavery among the Roman Civilians. One would never have imagined that slavery should owe its birth to pity, and that this should have been excited in three different ways.1

　　The law of nations to prevent prisoners from being put to death has allowed them to be made slaves. The civil law of the Romans empowered debtors, who were subject to be ill-used by their creditors, to sell themselves. And the law of nature requires that children whom a father in a state of servitude is no longer able to maintain should be reduced to the same state as the father.

　　These reasons of the civilians are all false. It is false that killing in war is lawful, unless in a case of absolute necessity: but when a man has made another his slave, he cannot be said to have been under a necessity of taking away his life, since he actually did not take it away. War gives no other right over prisoners than to disable them from doing any further harm by securing their persons. All nations2 concur in detesting the murdering of prisoners in cold blood.

　　Neither is it true that a freeman can sell himself. Sale implies a price; now when a person sells himself, his whole substance immediately devolves to his master; the master, therefore, in that case, gives nothing, and the slave receives nothing. You will say he has a peculium. But this peculium goes along with his person. If it is not lawful for a man to kill himself because he robs his country of his person, for the same reason he is not allowed to barter his freedom. The freedom of every citizen constitutes a part of the public liberty, and in a democratic state is even a part of the sovereignty. To sell one's freedom3 is so repugnant to all reason as can scarcely be supposed in any man. If liberty may be rated with respect to the buyer, it is beyond all price to the seller. The civil law, which authorises a division of goods among men, cannot be thought to rank among such goods a part of the men who were to make this division. The same law annuls all iniquitous contracts; surely then it affords redress in a contract where the grievance is most enormous.

　　The third way is birth, which falls with the two former; for if a man could not sell himself, much less could he sell an unborn infant. If a prisoner of war is not to be reduced to slavery, much less are his children.

　　The lawfulness of putting a malefactor to death arises from this circumstance: the law by which he is punished was made for his security. A murderer, for instance, has enjoyed the benefit of the very law which condemns him; it has been a continual protection to him; he cannot, therefore, object to it. But it is not so with the slave. The law of slavery can never be beneficial to him; it is in all cases against him, without ever being for his advantage; and therefore this law is contrary to the fundamental principle of all societies.

　　If it be pretended that it has been beneficial to him, as his master has provided for his subsistence, slavery, at this rate, should be limited to those who are incapable of earning their livelihood. But who will take up with such slaves? As to infants, nature, who has supplied their mothers with milk, had provided for their sustenance; and the remainder of their childhood approaches so near the age in which they are most capable of being of service that he who supports them cannot be said to give them an equivalent which can entitle him to be their master.

　　Nor is slavery less opposed to the civil law than to that of nature. What civil law can restrain a slave from running away, since he is not a member of society, and consequently has no interest in any civil institutions? He can be retained only by a family law, that is, by the master's authority.

　　3. Another Origin of the Right of Slavery. I would as soon say that the right of slavery proceeds from the contempt of one nation for another, founded on a difference in customs.

　　Lopez de Gama4 relates that the Spaniards found near St. Martha several basketsful of crabs, snails, grasshoppers, and locusts, which proved to be the ordinary provision of the natives. This the conquerors turned to a heavy charge against the conquered. The author owns that this, with their smoking and trimming their beards in a different manner, gave rise to the law by which the Americans became slaves to the Spaniards.

　　Knowledge humanises mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

　　4. Another Origin of the Right of Slavery. I would as soon say that religion gives its professors a right to enslave those who dissent from it, in order to render its propagation more easy.

　　This was the notion that encouraged the ravagers of America in their iniquity.5 Under the influence of this idea they founded their right of enslaving so many nations; for these robbers, who would absolutely be both robbers and Christians, were superlatively devout.

　　Louis XII6 was extremely uneasy at a law by which all the negroes of his colonies were to be made slaves; but it being strongly urged to him as the readiest means for their conversion, he acquiesced without further scruple.

　　5. Of the Slavery of the Negroes. Were I to vindicate our right to make slaves of the negroes, these should be my arguments:

　　The Europeans, having extirpated the Americans, were obliged to make slaves of the Africans, for clearing such vast tracts of land.

　　Sugar would be too dear if the plants which produce it were cultivated by any other than slaves.

　　These creatures are all over black, and with such a flat nose that they can scarcely be pitied.

　　It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise Being, should place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black ugly body.

　　It is so natural to look upon colour as the criterion of human nature, that the Asiatics, among whom eunuchs are employed, always deprive the blacks of their resemblance to us by a more opprobrious distinction.

　　The colour of the skin may be determined by that of the hair, which, among the Egyptians, the best philosophers in the world, was of such importance that they put to death all the red-haired men who fell into their hands.

　　The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations so highly value. Can there be a greater proof of their wanting common sense?

　　It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.

　　Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans. For were the case as they state it, would the European powers, who make so many needless conventions among themselves, have failed to enter into a general one, in behalf of humanity and compassion?

　　6. The true Origin of the Right of Slavery. It is time to inquire into the true origin of the right of slavery. It ought to be founded on the nature of things; let us see if there be any cases where it can be derived thence.

　　In all despotic governments people make no difficulty in selling themselves; the political slavery in some measure annihilates the civil liberty.

　　According to Mr. Perry,7 the Muscovites sell themselves very readily: their reason for it is evident; their liberty is not worth keeping.

　　At Achim every one is for selling himself. Some of the chief lords8 have not less than a thousand slaves, all principal merchants, who have a great number of slaves themselves, and these also are not without their slaves. Their masters are their heirs, and put them into trade. In those states, the freemen being overpowered by the government, have no better resource than that of making themselves slaves to the tyrants in office.

　　This is the true and rational origin of that mild law of slavery which obtains in some countries: and mild it ought to be, as founded on the free choice a man makes of a master, for his own benefit; which forms a mutual convention between the two parties.

　　7. Another Origin of the Right of Slavery. There is another origin of the right of slavery, and even of the most cruel slavery which is to be seen among men.

　　There are countries where the excess of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and dispirited that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them to perform any laborious duty: slavery is there more reconcilable to reason; and the master being as lazy with respect to his sovereign as his slave is with regard to him, this adds a political to a civil slavery.

　　Aristotle9 endeavours to prove that there are natural slaves; but what he says is far from proving it. If there be any such, I believe they are those of whom I have been speaking.

　　But as all men are born equal, slavery must be accounted unnatural, though in some countries it be founded on natural reason; and a wide difference ought to be made between such countries, and those in which even natural reason rejects it, as in Europe, where it has been so happily abolished.

　　Plutarch, in the Life of Numa, says that in Saturn's time there was neither slave nor master. Christianity has restored that age in our climates.

　　8. Inutility of Slavery among us. Natural slavery, then, is to be limited to some particular parts of the world. In all other countries, even the most servile drudgeries may be performed by freemen. Experience verifies my assertion. Before Christianity had abolished civil slavery in Europe, working in the mines was judged too toilsome for any but slaves or malefactors: at present there are men employed in them who are known to live comfortably.10 The magistrates have, by some small privileges, encouraged this profession: to an increase of labour they have joined an increase of gain; and have gone so far as to make those people better pleased with their condition than with any other which they could have embraced.

　　No labour is so heavy but it may be brought to a level with the workman's strength, when regulated by equity, and not by avarice. The violent fatigues which slaves are made to undergo in other parts may be supplied by a skilful use of ingenious machines. The Turkish mines in the Bannat of Temesw?r, though richer than those of Hungary, did not yield so much; because the working of them depended entirely on the strength of their slaves.

　　I know not whether this article be dictated by my understanding or by my heart. Possibly there is not that climate upon earth where the most laborious services might not with proper encouragement be performed by freemen. Bad laws having made lazy men, they have been reduced to slavery because of their laziness.

　　9. Several Kinds of Slavery. Slavery is of two kinds, real and personal. The real annexes the slave to the land, which Tacitus makes11 the condition of slaves among the Germans. They were not employed in the family: a stated tribute of corn, cattle, or other movables, paid to their master, was the whole of their servitude. And such a servitude still continues in Hungary, Bohemia, and several parts of Lower Germany.

　　Personal slavery consists in domestic services, and relates more to the master's person.

　　The worst degree of slavery is when it is at once both real and personal, as that of the Helotes among the Laced?monians. They underwent the fatigues of the field, and suffered all manner of insults at home. This helotism is contrary to the nature of things. Real slavery is to be found only among nations remarkable for their simplicity of life:12 all family business being done by the wives and children. Personal slavery is peculiar to voluptuous nations; luxury requiring the service of slaves in the house. But helotism joins in the same person the slavery established by voluptuous nations and that of the most simple.

　　10. Regulations necessary in respect to Slavery. But of whatsoever kind the slavery be, the civil laws should endeavour on the one hand to abolish the abuses of it, and on the other to guard against its dangers.

　　11. Abuses of Slavery. In Mahometan states,13 not only the life and goods of female slaves, but also what is called their virtue or honour, are at their master's disposal. One of the misfortunes of those countries is that the greatest part of the nation are born only to be subservient to the pleasures of the other. This servitude is alleviated by the laziness in which such slaves spend their days; which is an additional disadvantage to the state.

　　It is this indolence which renders the eastern seraglios so delightful to those very persons whom they were made to confine.14 People who dread nothing but labour may imagine themselves happy in those places of indolence and ease. But this shows how contrary they are to the very intent of the institution of slavery.

　　Reason requires that the master's power should not extend to what does not appertain to his service: slavery should be calculated for utility, and not for pleasure. The laws of chastity arise from those of nature, and ought in all nations to be respected.

　　If a law which preserves the chastity of slaves be good in those states where an arbitrary power bears down all before it, how much more will it be so in monarchies, and how much more still in republics?

　　The law of the Lombards15 has a regulation which ought to be adopted by all governments. "If a master debauches his slave's wife, the slave and his wife shall be restored to their freedom." An admirableexpedient, which, without severity, lays a powerful restraint on the incontinence of masters!

　　The Romans seem to have erred on this head. They allowed an limited" title="a.无限的；过渡的">unlimited scope to the master's lusts, and, in some measure, denied their slaves the privilege of marrying. It is true, they were the lowest part of the nation; yet there should have been some care taken of their morals, especially as in prohibiting their marriage they corrupted the morals of the citizens.
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