soners of war become slaves. But this so-called national right is now allowed on all hands to have been a national wrong; and from the right of putting to death, which is founded only on imminent peril, no right of reducing to servitude can be deduced after the danger is past.

b. By the jus civile. According to the civil law, he becomes a slave who sells himself to me as a slave. But for freedom and life there is, in the first place, no suitable price; and every transaction of this sort involves an enormous wrong (læsio enormis). Secondly, the purchase-money, according to the notions of slavery, usually goes at once to the master; so that in fact no compensation whatever is made. Thirdly, a man has even still less right to grant to another a despotic power over his life than he has to kill himself. Fourthly, none but a person can make a contract; but slavery destroys personality, and consequently it cannot proceed from a contract.

c. By the jus naturale. It is said, Some are born slaves. If the two preceding props of slavery are unsound, this falls away of itself, and there is left no mode of origin but through force and injustice.

To objection 3d. Aristotle says: "Wholesome as it is that the soul should rule the body, so wholesome is it that the master should rule the slave; for the difference between the two is almost like that between the soul and the body. The master stands by nature pre-eminent in excellence, mental powers, and virtue; while the slave uses only his body, and has merely sufficient intellect to comprehend that it is good for him to be governed."* I reply:

The soul's dominion over the body is by no means an unlimited one; on the contrary, there exists a reciprocity, a mutual influence exerted by the one upon the other. Neither is there an immeasurable difference as regards excellence between man and man. But even granting this to be the case, it would then be necessary to keep up a constant valuation of these differences, the results of which would to-day transport the slave into a master, and to-morrow the master into a slave.

Aristotle goes on to say, that he is by no means a defender of despotism and tyranny; that where dissension exists between master and servant, the natural slavery maintained by him (which can manifest only friendship) does not exist; and moreover, that a man of worth taken prisoner of war is not in his opinion a true slave at all.

Now as this presupposed friendship scarcely ever exists, Aristotle's theory of slavery falls wholly to the ground. Nay, he in fact admits as much himself, when he says in another place: "If *Politica, i. 4.

there be virtue among slaves, wherein consists the fundamental distinction between them and the free? And how can there be no virtue among slaves, seeing that they are still men and reasonable creatures ?"

This dilemma should have revealed to Aristotle in the first place the unnaturalness of slavery; moreover, he was by no means blind to the actual evils that arise from it.

Plato also makes mention of these evils and of the unnaturalness and danger of this relation; but he calls for no abolition of it, but merely for a mild treatment of slaves.*

It has been maintained that the Bible and the Christian religion nowhere prescribe the abolition of slavery. But the existence of slavery among the Jews furnishes no model whatever for imitation in our times; and if the New Testament contains none of the doctrines of the violent abolitionists, still less does it advocate the cause of the slave-dealers. How the command," Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," is to be reconciled with slaveholding, it is not easy to conceive.

It was the common opinion of the ancient world, that the greater the freedom possessed by some, the less must be that enjoyed by others. But with Christianity, the right and the recognition of personal freedom in the state, and of equality in the sight of God, were brought forward in so decisive a manner, that slavery can only continue to exist in opposition to the new doctrine that claims a release from it.

Hence, too, the pretended arguments in favor of slavery brought forward by modern philosophers, are less consistent and appropriate than those of the ancients. Thus Hobbes makes slavery originate in a contract, but allows to the master only, and never to the slave, a right to dissolve it. He contends that an injury can never be done to the slave by the master, since he has voluntarily subjected himself to the latter, and volenti non fit injuria. And along with this sophistry he has a large chapter on born slaves. Again, he maintains that if men should imprison and fetter their slaves, so as to show that they were not slaves willingly and by agreement, the latter would have a natural right not only to escape, but even to slay their masters!

Many other doctrines of modern law-teachers go no deeper into the subject: as for instance that virtue in slaves is indeed more difficult, but then it is so much the more meritorious ;— consequently in order to produce such virtue, all the other institutions of the state should be so adapted as to render virtue difficult. So, too, the maxim, that it is good to have slaves and so keep them out of war, because war is thus made less sanguinary, would lead us rather to turn all the citizens into slaves, * De Legibus, vi. 177. † De Cive, viii. 4-8.

and thus after a novel fashion introduce perpetual peace into the world. Lastly, they say that the slave is better off than the freeman, inasmuch as he is released from many of the duties of citizens; but then cattle are better off still, and why not tie men up to the ox-crib at once?

It is not a subject of the slightest doubt for the philosopher, statesman, historian, and Christian of our day, that slavery and serfdom (the tyranny of the minority over the majority) are to be condemned, and that a quiet and suitable dissolution of these relations is possible. This assertion, however, holds good in the first place only for men of the same stock, of the same race. But now arises the very important and very difficult question, whether it is also applicable to men of a different stock, of different races, or whether in this case other principles and another mode of proceeding can be justified.

The view of some theologians, who connect the diversity of human races with the doctrine of original sin and a greater or less declension from God, can be of no practical use to us, inasmuch as the speculative questions respecting the how and the wherefore of this condition always remain unanswered. There is somewhat more precision in the question, whether or not all mankind descend from a single pair. The affirmative, which accords with the biblical narration, is usually held to be the most pious and religious. Naturalists, however, have very properly not allowed themselves to be deterred by this supposition from independent investigations. But while Rudolphi opposes the idea of a single Adam, and denies the degeneration of one race into others,* Prichard and Johannes Müller assert that all men are only varieties of one and the same stock, and that differences of color, size, &c. are never of so much weight and influence as to form separate species either among men or animals.

Much depends, in the first place, on what is meant by species. If the power of inter-reproduction is sufficient to determine this idea, then doubtless all men belong to one species; but this again does not establish à priori that God 'might not have created several pairs, whose posterity would be capable of reproduction with one another.

The doctrine of mankind's descent from several original pairs does not by any means deny the unity of the human race; any more than the descent from a single pair can disprove the exist ing diversity between men, or demonstrate their perfect corporeal, mental, moral, civil, and political equality. Many, especially theological writers, have sought to find a blasphemy, an impeachment of the goodness and justice of God, in the assumption of a great and essential diversity in the races of men. But when they * Physiologie, i. 50–53.

assume, on less satisfactory testimony, that God has created I know not how many classes of angels, why should there not be several classes of men? Swans are different from geese; cats cannot be trained like dogs; by the noblest charger stands a wretched hack;-and all without detriment to the wisdom and justice of God.

Let us then leave the mazes of intangible and unfounded hypothesis, to seek for aid and instruction in historical facts. In so doing we find that only the white race of men, and not the black and red, who here come under consideration, possess a history in the higher sense of the term; and that, although among individual white men and white nations great differences prevail, yet far greater ones are discovered between whites, negroes, and Indians. These latter have never formed a leading, dominant state, that filled and enlarged the history of the world; only in a few solitary cases have negroes reached that height to which, as a general rule, every white man is capable of being raised. The physical difference, moreover, by no means consists in the color merely (when a white man paints himself black, it does not make him a negro); but also in the essentially different conformation of the head and of several other parts of the body; so that a nobility graduated according to the color and form of the body has a far more natural foundation than the separating and opposing of men of the same stock on the mere ground of ancestry. Again, this diversity of race is shown no less in the mind than in the body. The negro, along with an uncontrollable sensuality, has less memory, foresight, and understanding than the white man, and single exceptions do not destroy the rule.

If now we consider the physical and moral nature of the colored people, i. e. the mulattoes, &c.,* this mixture of two races cannot in the first place be termed wholly unnatural; the horror naturalis, or natural aversion, cannot be said to be wholly unconquerable. On the contrary the question suggests itself, whether a sort of men inferior in body and mind is actually produced by this mixture of races, and whether the new variety thus arisen may not also have its own peculiar value. By combining together the various characteristics of each race, might not a truly perfect whole be produced, and thus their several defects be obviated? Did perhaps Adam occupy a middle place between

*The several gradations of color are: 1. Whites; 2. Negroes; 3. Indians; 4. Mulattoes, from whites and negroes; 5. Mestizoes, from whites and Indians; 6. Samboes, from negroes and Indians; 7. Terzeroons, from a white man and mulatto woman; 8. Quarteroons, from a white man and a terzeroon; 9. Quinteroons, from a white man and a quarteroon.-In Mexico the law places all classes on an equal footing; but in fact almost all the power is in the hands of the creoles, or American descendants of Southern Europeans. Mühlenpfordt's Mexico, i. 200-204. Encyclopædia Americana, art. Mexico.

† Almost all travellers praise the corporeal beauty and mental amiability of the

white and black, and did that which was united in him afterwards become separated among his posterity into harsh contrarieties?

It is certain that the mulattoes, although by reason of their white fathers they possess a mental superiority over the blacks (being squeezed in as it were between the two races), hold an unnatural and far from satisfactory position, which impels them to discontentedness and vice. Above all, experience shows that it is a delusion to think of ennobling the races by mixing and crossing them; for the white race loses at least as much as the black gains. The mixture of races, too, which is common in Central America, where it is considered a mere matter of taste, has not produced the slightest improvement.*

The aversion between negroes and mulattoes is in general not less than that between blacks and whitest Mulattoes also seldom have children. That there are fewer lunatics and deaf and dumb among the slaves than among the free negroes is far from well attested, inasmuch as slaves who suffer from these infirmities are seldom placed in public institutions. Neither is it satisfactorily proved that slaves live longer than white men; for the year of their birth is often uncertain, and they purposely make themselves out to be older than they are, in order to escape hard labor and excite compassion. Still, moderate labor, want of care, and simple food, contribute to keep them in good health; while so many whites perish from dyspepsia, which prevails in America to a greater extent than in any other country.

With respect to this asserted difference of races, it is objected: "If it be possible for the negro to be as moral as the white man, he can also make equal advances in knowledge. Somewhat more or less cannot decide on this possibility and on the general position which should be granted according to reason and equity." To this it is replied: "Negroes can certainly attain to the morality (or at least it should be required of them) which the laws prescribe for private life; but of the grand morality of public political life they have no conception, and in this respect they stand even much more in need of guardianship than women and children. The greatest gain for them, on the contrary, is their

quarteroons, especially in Louisiana. Other writers testify, on the contrary, that they are neither as handsome nor as well bred as the whites. But as custom and prejudice exclude them from honorable marriage, many of them (at least those of the poorer sort) are driven to a course of life which seeks to throw the appearance of mental culture over their levity in other respects, and usually charms the ennuyeed traveller. The social connection into which many quarteroons enter with the whites is very defective and blameable from the very fact that it can be dissolved at pleasure on the part of the man, and the children are always regarded as illegitimate.

*Stephens, i. 12.

† Poussin, Richesses Américaines, ii. 412.