What is this idea?
We can express it most generally thus: a slave is one who [[5]]is not free. There are never slaves without there being freemen too; and nobody can be at the same time a slave and a freeman. We must, however, be careful to remember that, man being a “social animal”, no man is literally free; all members of a community are restricted in their behaviour towards each other by social rules and customs[3]. But freemen at any rate are relatively free; so a slave must be one who does not share in the common amount of liberty, compatible with the social connection.
The condition of the slave as opposed to that of the freeman presents itself to us under the three following aspects.
First, every slave has his master to whom he is subjected. And this subjection is of a peculiar kind. Unlike the authority one freeman sometimes has over another, the master’s power over his slave is unlimited, at least in principle; any restriction put upon the master’s free exercise of his power is a mitigation of slavery, not belonging to its nature, just as in Roman law the proprietor may do with his property whatever he is not by special laws forbidden to do. The relation between master and slave is therefore properly expressed by the slave being called the master’s “possession” or “property”, expressions we frequently meet with.
Secondly, slaves are in a lower condition as compared with freemen. The slave has no political rights; he does not choose his government, he does not attend the public councils. Socially he is despised.
In the third place, we always connect with slavery the idea of compulsory labour. The slave is compelled to work; the free labourer may leave off working if he likes, be it at the cost of starving. All compulsory labour, however, is not slave labour; the latter requires that peculiar kind of compulsion, that is expressed by the word “possession” or “property”, as has been said before.
Recapitulating, we may define a slave in the ordinary sense of the word as a man who is the property of another, politically and socially at a lower level than the mass of the people, and performing compulsory labour. [[6]]
We shall inquire next, whether this notion is a practical one for the purpose of our investigation, or whether it requires any improvement. But it may be convenient first to examine, what our theoretical authors have to say on the subject.