ORIGIN OF SLAVERY IN PATERNAL AUTHORITY.
Antiquity of Slavery--Anterior to Legal Institution--Examples
cited from Ancient History--Arose from Patriarchal
Government--Despotic Power of Head of Family--Marriage
Custom of Purchase--Aristocratic Governments favourable to
Development--Decadence under Republics.
In the preceding chapter we have shown how the modern working classes
sprang from the ancient Proletarians; how the Proletarians arose out
of the downfall of the ancient system of _direct_ slavery; and how
Christianity was mainly instrumental in bringing about the manumission
of slaves in the Roman empire, and thence throughout western Europe.
The Proletarians, past and present, are but the descendants and
successors of the manumitted slaves, and of decayed families of the
ancient master-class; and, as observed in our last chapter, the modern
classification of them by writers of the Guizot school is--WORKPEOPLE,
ROBBERS, BEGGARS, and PROSTITUTES.
All who have escaped this classification are such descendants or
successors of the ancient freedmen as have found their way into
the class of burgesses, consisting of merchants, manufacturers,
professionals, and money-dealers of all sorts. Of the remainder, by
far the greater number fall within the description of work-people:
these are the wages-slaves of modern civilization. Direct slavery was,
then, the parent of Proletarianism; and Proletarianism the parent
of wages-slavery. But how did direct slavery itself originate--the
personal slavery of man to man? Was it instituted? Was it the creature
of law, or of conventional compact? Upon this point the concurrent
testimony of history and of philosophy is unanimous: it goes to show
that slavery was not a public institution originally framed by human
laws, but that it was what the Americans call a _domestic_ institution
originating in the despotic authority of parents over their offspring
in the very infancy of society. This origin necessarily supposes
slavery to have been amongst the earliest, if not the very earliest,
of human institutions--to have been coeval with the institution of
society itself. In point of fact, it appears to have been so. Tracing
history back to its fountain-heads, before systems came to disturb
them, we discover a countless variety of unmistakable signs to show
that two distinct classes, not to say races, made up the aggregate of
souls in every ancient community of which history makes mention. One
is the master-class; the other, the slave-class. The first possesses;
the second is possessed. This aboriginal condition of humanity appears,
as an historical fact, universal. There is no ancient tradition, there
is no authentic record purporting to be history, that does not make
mention of masters and slaves.
There were masters and slaves amongst the ancient Hebrews, the proofs
of which are abundantly scattered throughout the Old Testament and
in Josephus’s “History of the Antiquities of the Jews.” There were
masters and slaves amongst the Greeks in the remotest periods of
their annals. This is shown by numerous passages in Homer’s “Iliad”
and “Odyssey;”--as, for instance, in book xxi. of the “Iliad,” where
Achilles boasts to Lycaon of the captives he had taken, and sold into
slavery; and in book xxii. of the “Odyssey,” where Euryclea, the
governess of Ulysses’ household, says to him, “You have in your house
fifty female slaves, whom I have taught to work in wool-spinning, and
to support their servitude.” That masters and slaves existed at every
epoch of the Roman republic and empire is evident from the testimony of
every ancient classic whose writings or recorded sayings are extant.
The Institutes of Justinian make slavery expressly a subject of
legislation. That the relation of master and slave obtained in ancient
Gaul and in ancient Germany we have abundant evidences in Cæsar’s
Commentaries and in several passages to be found in Tacitus’s treatise
“De Moribus Germanorum.” Indeed, masters and slaves are known to have
existed in France as late as the twelfth century, and in Prussia as
late as one hundred years ago, as may be seen by the General Code of
the Prussian States, published in 1794. Masters and slaves are still
to be found in all Mahomedan countries, throughout the kingdoms of the
East generally, and (tell it not in Gath!), until lately, in several of
the republics of the United States of America.
But it is superfluous to insist upon the existence of a fact, the
proofs of which are to be found in all ages and countries--in the
oldest codes as well as in the oldest books, in the most ancient
legends of poets as well as in the best accredited traditions of
history. Indeed, the institution of direct or personal slavery is so
ancient, that its origin is lost in the night of ages, and is nowhere
accounted for. It appears to have been coeval with the origin of
society itself. Wherever we find the beginning of civil institutions
recorded, there we find slavery already established. Moses founded the
institutions of the Jews; and slavery is found in the books of Moses.
Homer is prior, by many ages, to the historic times of Greece; and
slavery is found in the books of Homer. The “Twelve Tables” are the
basis of Roman institutions; and Romulus, long anterior to the “Twelve
Tables,” opened an asylum at Rome to receive the runaway slaves of
Laticum. At later epochs, the Salic law, the feudal and forest laws,
the common or traditionary law of the Saxons, Thuringians, Germans,
and Anglo-Saxons, are the starting points of the institutions of
most modern nations; and slavery is found in all the codes of the
invaders--it is expressly mentioned or tacitly assumed in all. Let us
note it here as an important consideration, that in all these monuments
of legislation, whether poetic or historic, slavery is not treated
as a thing instituted for the first time; it is only made incidental
mention of as a pre-existing thing, already acknowledged, accepted,
established; it was what the French call _un fait accompli_--a settled
fact. Moses, Homer, the “Twelve Tables,” the mediæval laws of
invasion, do not institute or found slavery; they but bear testimony
to its existence, either by incidental mention of it, or by imposing
new conditions to regulate the relation of master and slaves; in short,
they only go to show that slavery _was_ before they _were_, or, in
other words, that slavery was not (to use the language of jurists) the
work of positive law, but a “great fact” anterior to all law, and as
old as the origin of society itself.
The aboriginal character of slavery admitted, it remains to be
shown, wherefore did society, in its infancy, establish slavery; or,
rather, by what _modus operandi_ was slavery made to develop itself
in aboriginal society. History, reason, our very instincts, tell us
there is but one satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. It arose
from the unbounded power which fathers, or the heads of families,
exercised, in early days, over their households--wives, concubines,
and children. All history is unanimous as to the fact that fathers
exercised a supreme authority over their offspring in the early ages
of the world. The same fact is found still to obtain amongst races
retaining primitive customs. Evidences to this effect are to be
abundantly met with in the Bible, in the Greek tragedians, in the
legislation of the Romans, in Asiatic traditions. All go to prove
that parental authority was bounded only by parental will,--that it
extended even to the power of life and death over their offspring. The
old pagans, in order to give the highest idea of the power of Jupiter,
call him the “father of the gods.” For no other reason have Jews and
Christians, in like manner, named God the All-Powerful Father. Paternal
authority was so absolute and extensive in primitive times, that it
suffered no other, co-ordinate or paramount: it completely absorbed
the rights and the very existence of wife and children. Out of this
absolute paternal authority did personal slavery first arise. Sons,
daughters, and even wives were but slaves of the head of the family;
they were amongst his chattels--a part of his estate. Aristotle calls
children the “animated tools or instruments of their parents.” In the
days of the patriarchs, paternal authority over children was absolute
amongst the Jews. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac is one of many proofs
that might be cited. It is evident God would not have ordered a thing
contrary to the positive law--a law ordained by God himself. Moreover,
divers passages in Josephus show in the clearest and most explicit
terms that the absolute authority of fathers over their children
continued undisputed, and to be held sacred, down to the time of Herod
the Great, who was contemporary with the Emperor Augustus of Rome. The
strongest evidence of this is the prosecution of his own two sons,
Alexander and Aristobulus, before Augustus, wherein Herod took great
credit to himself for his moderation in referring the matter to the
emperor, “seeing that, in virtue of his rights as a father, he might
put them to death without any other warrant or authority.” The elder
son, Alexander, in his reply, frankly admitted his father’s right
to give him death as he had given him life. Some years later, this
same Herod exemplified the paternal power of the Jews in a still more
impressive manner. In a speech which he delivered against these same
rebellious sons before an assembly of the notables of his province,
he reminded them that, independently of the law of nature, which gave
him an absolute power of life and death over his offspring, there was
an express law of his nation on the subject, which ordained that when
a father and mother should accuse their children, and lay hands upon
their heads, all parties present should be held bound to _stone_ them;
and that, accordingly, he might, without consulting them, have put
his sons to death without any form of trial whatever, in virtue of
his parental rights. These facts are decisive enough as respects the
Jews. It is to be understood, however, that it was only aristocratic
fathers--fathers amongst the higher orders--that ordinarily exercised
this atrocious despotism over their own families.
The power of fathers over their children was quite as absolute
amongst the early Greeks and Romans as amongst the Jews; and if it
did not descend to so late a period of their annals, it is only
because aristocratic forms gave place sooner to democratic, under
their government, than amongst the Jews. That it existed in full
force at the time of the Trojan war is forcibly demonstrated by the
sacrifice of Iphigenia, which, as an historical fact, is a tradition
corresponding exactly with the sacrifice by Abraham. In Sparta it
prevailed as completely, in the days of Lycurgus, as it did in Judæa
in the patriarchal times. Plutarch relates that, at that epoch, a
sort of family council was usually held upon the birth of a child, to
deliberate whether the newly born should be allowed to live or die.
Even at Athens, where the democratic element prevailed more than at
Sparta, and where humanity and refinement, the offspring of arts and
letters, had made greater progress, the absolute power of parents
was such that, even as late as the age of Solon, the Athenians were
in the habit of selling their children for slaves--a practice which,
Plutarch informs us, there was no law to prohibit. Let us here observe
generally, that it was in the Homeric period that the absoluteness of
parental authority displayed itself with the most vigour in Greece,
and that this period corresponds exactly, in the history of their
comparative legislation, with the patriarchal epoch of the Jews. For
example, daughters were so completely identified with the chattels
or property of their fathers, that their suitors had always to pay a
certain price for marrying and taking them away. Thus, Jacob served
Laban for seven years to obtain his daughter Rachel; and thus, among
the Greeks, Othryon engaged to serve Priam during the siege of Troy, to
obtain his daughter Cassandra without paying a dowry--that is, without
buying her otherwise than by his services. Instances of this kind might
be multiplied; but enough has been said to illustrate our position.
Let us observe, however, as a general rule, that paternal authority
was always greatest in the states most aristocratically constituted,
and always least in those most democratically constituted; and that
the period through which the absoluteness of paternal power prevailed
was longer or shorter, in different countries, just according to the
later or earlier development given to the democratic principle in their
institutions. Such a barbarous power being utterly irreconcilable with
liberty and justice, it could flourish only in times of ignorance and
brute force. As democracy arose, and civilization spread, the parental
despotism declined. It lasted longer in Judæa than in Sparta, and
longer in Sparta than in Athens; because the barbarism of oligarchy
pervaded longer in Judæa than in Sparta, and longer in Sparta than in
Athens.
Amongst the Romans paternal despotism was carried to a fearful height.
Roman legislation abounds in records of it; and her chronicles
confirm all that is revealed to us by her legislatures. Dionysius
of Halicarnassus tells us of an old law of the Papyrian Code which
authorised fathers to kill and to sell their children. The Code of
Justinian also makes mention of it. But the despotic authority of
Roman fathers over their children is an historical fact, sufficiently
familiar to most readers to dispense with the necessity of further
proofs. It was one of the darkest traits of their legislation and
national character, and it doubtless had no small share in imparting
to their republic those harsh and overbearing qualities which involved
them in perpetual broils amongst themselves and in endless wars of
aggression against their neighbours.
To this barbarous and despotic power of parents over their offspring--a
power extending over their whole lifetime--a power which applied to
both sexes, and which appears to be coeval with the first existence of
society itself--to this brutal, irrational, and inhuman power are we
doubtless indebted for the origin of all human slavery. In what manner
this despotic power manifested itself, and how the past and present
order of things grew out of it, we shall endeavour to show in future
chapters.
[Illustration: Decoration]