Part 11 (1/2)

To renounce one's liberty is to renounce one's manhood, and the rights of humanity, even one's duties. There is no reparation possible for him that renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man, and is depriving his actions of all morality, and his will of all liberty.

2. Such a contract is contradictory, for the slave giving himself wholly and without reserve, can receive nothing in return.

It is a vain and contradictory agreement to stipulate an absolute authority on one side, and on the other unlimited obedience. Is it not clear that one can be under no obligation towards him of whom one has a right to demand everything? and does not this single condition, without equivalent, without exchange, carry with it the nullity of the act? For what right could my slave have against me, since all he has belongs to me, and that his right being my own, this my right against myself is a word without any sense.

3. Even if one had the right to sell one's self, one has not the right to sell one's children. Slavery at least should not be hereditary.

Admitting that one could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children; they are born men and free; their liberty is their own; no one has a right to dispose of it but themselves.

Before they have reached the age of reason, their father may, in their name, stipulate conditions for their welfare, but not give them irrevocably and unconditionally over to another; for such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and pa.s.ses the rights of paternity.

4. Slavery, furthermore, comes not from the right of killing in war; for this right does not exist.

The conqueror, according to Grotius, having the right to kill the conquered enemy, the latter may ransom his life at the expense of his liberty: an agreement all the more legitimate, as it turns to the profit of both.

But it is clear that this pretended right to kill the conquered adversary does not result in any way from the state of war.... One has a right to kill the defenders of the enemy's State as long as they hold to their arms; but when they lay these down and surrender, and cease to be enemies, they become simply men again, and one has no longer a right on their life.

If war does not give the conqueror the right of ma.s.sacring the conquered, it does not give him the right of reducing them to slavery.... The right of making of the enemy a slave, does not then follow the right of killing him; it is then an iniquitous exchange to make him buy his life at the price of his liberty, over which one has no right whatsoever.

Montesquieu has also combated slavery; but he has done it under a form of irony, which gives still greater force to his eloquence.

”If I had to defend the right we have had to make slaves of the negroes, this is what I should say:

”The peoples of Europe having exterminated those of America, they were obliged to reduce to slavery those of Africa in order to use them to clear the lands.

”Sugar would be too dear if the plant that produces it were not cultivated by slaves.

”The people in question are black from head to foot, and they have so flat a nose that it is almost impossible to pity them.

”One cannot conceive that G.o.d, who is a being most wise, could have put a soul, and above all a good soul, in so black a body.

”It is impossible for us to suppose that these people are men; because if we supposed them to be men, one might begin to think we are not Christians ourselves.

”Narrow minds exaggerate too much the injustice done to Africans. For if it were as they say, would it not have come to the minds of the princes of Europe, who make so many useless contracts among each other, to make a general one in favor of mercy and of pity?”[38]

=54. Servitude--Restrictions of the liberty to work--Oppression of children under age, etc.=--Absolute slavery existed in antiquity, and has particularly reappeared since the discovery of America, owing to the difference of the races: the black race being, seemingly, particularly adapted to the cultivation of the torrid zones, and endowed with great physical vitality, became the serving-race _par excellence_: it has even been hunted down for purposes of procreation; hence that infamous traffic, called slave trade, and which is to-day interdicted by all civilized countries.

But there existed in the Middle Ages, and has subsisted even to these days, in Russia, for example, a relative slavery, less rigorous and odious, but which, though circ.u.mscribed within certain limits, was not the less a grave outrage to liberty. The serf was allowed a family, and even a certain amount of money; but the ground which he cultivated could never belong to him; and above all he could not leave this ground, nor make of his work and services the use he wished. It was certainly less of an injustice than slavery; but it was still an injustice. However, this injustice exists to-day no longer than as an historical memory. Morality has no longer anything to do with it.

It is the same with the restrictions formerly imposed on the freedom of work under the old administration (_ancien regime_), the organization of _maitrises_ and _jurandes_,[39] namely, and that of corporations; the work was under regulations: each trade had its corporation, which no one could enter or leave without permission. No one was allowed to encroach upon his neighbor's trade; the barbers defended themselves against the wig-makers; the bakers against the pastry-cooks; hence much that was wrong, and which those who regret this administration have forgotten.

But here again, it is the object of history to inquire into the good or the evil of these inst.i.tutions; and these questions belong rather to political economy than to morals.

It is not the same regarding the abuse made of the work of children and minors, or the work of women. Severe laws have forbidden such; but it is always to be feared that manners get the better of the laws. The work of children and women being naturally cheaper than the work of men and adults, one is tempted to make use of it; but the work of children is improper because it is taking advantage of and using up beforehand a const.i.tution not yet established, and also because it is thus depriving children of the means of being educated. As to girls and women, in abusing their strength, one compromises their health, and contributes thereby to the impoverishment of the race.

Among the violations the liberty of work may suffer, we must not forget the threats and violences exercised by the workers themselves and inflicted upon each other. It is not rare, in fact, in times of strikes, to see the workmen who do not work try to impose, by main force, their will on those that are at work. Such violences, which have their source in false ideas of brotherhood (a mistaken _esprit de corps_), and in a false sense of honor, const.i.tute, nevertheless, even when free from the coa.r.s.e enmity of laziness and vice, waging war with work and honesty--a grave violation of liberty; and it may be considered a sort of slavery and servitude to suffer them.

It is the same with the attempts by which men try to forbid to women factory work, under pretext that it brings the wages down.

This reason, in the first place, is a bad one, because the woman's earnings come in the end all back to the family, increasing by that much more the share of each. But by what right should work be prohibited to woman more than to man? Certainly it would be desirable if the woman could stay at home, and busy herself exclusively with the cares of the household; but in the present state of things such an ideal is not possible. It is then necessary that woman, who has, like man, her rights as a moral personality, should be allowed by her every-day work to make a living, under the protection of the laws, and at her own risks and perils.

=55. Moral oppression--Inward liberty and responsibility.=--The question is not only one of corporal liberty, the liberty to work; the laws in a certain measure provide for that, and one can appeal to their authority for self-protection. But there may exist a sort of _moral bondage_, which consists in the subordination of one will to another. It is here that the respect we owe to others calls for a more delicate and a more strict sense of justice: for this sort of slavery is not so obvious, and the love we bear to others may be the very thing to lead us into error.