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.
