The Spirit of the Laws :: :: University of Virginia Library

It is easy to perceive that many slaves in a republican government create a necessity of making many free. The evil is, if they have too great a number of slaves they cannot keep them in due bounds; if they have too many freedmen, they cannot live, and must become a burden to the republic: besides, it may be as much in danger from the multitude of freedmen as from that of slaves. It is necessary, therefore, that the law should have an eye to these two inconveniences.

The several laws and decrees of the senate made at Rome, both for and against slaves, sometimes to limit, and at other times to facilitate, their enfranchisement, plainly show the embarrassment in which they found themselves in this respect. There were even times in which they durst not make laws. When, under Nero, [36] they demanded of the senate permission for the masters to reduce again to slavery the ungrateful freedmen, the emperor declared that it was their duty to decide the affairs of individuals, and to make no general decree.

Much less can I determine what ought to be the regulations of a good republic in such an affair; this depends on too many circumstances. Let us, however, make some reflections.

A considerable number of freedmen ought not suddenly to be made by a general law. We known that among the Volsinienses [37] the freedmen, becoming masters of the suffrages, enacted an abominable law, which gave them the right of lying the first night with the young women married to the free-born.

There are several ways of insensibly introducing new citizens into a republic. The laws may favour the acquiring a peculium, and put slaves into a condition of buying their liberty: they may prescribe a term to servitude, like those of Moses, which limited that of the Hebrew slaves to six years. [38] It is easy to enfranchise every year a certain number of those slaves who, by their age, health, or industry, are capable of getting a subsistence. The evil may be even cured in its root, as a great number of slaves are connected with the several employments which are given them; to divide among the free-born a part of these employments, for example, commerce or navigation, is diminishing the number of slaves.

When there are many freedmen, it is necessary that the civil laws should determine what they owe to their patron, or that these duties should be fixed by the contract of enfranchisement.

It is certain that their condition should be more favoured in the civil than in the political state; because, even in a popular government, the power ought not to fall into the hands of the vulgar.

At Rome, where they had so many freedmen, the political laws with regard to them were admirable. They gave them very little, and excluded them almost from nothing: they had even a share in the legislature, but the resolutions they were capable of taking were almost of no weight. They might bear a part in the public offices, and even in the dignity of the priesthood; [39] but this privilege was in some sort rendered useless by the disadvantages they had to encounter in the elections. They had a right to enter into the army; but they were to be registered in a certain class of the census before they could be soldiers. Nothing hindered the [40] freedmen from being united by marriage with the families of the free-born; but they were not permitted to mix with those of the senator. In short, their children were free-born, though they were not so themselves.