CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHILDREN OF SLAVES ARE BORN FREE.
The idea that the children of slaves are necessarily born slaves, or that they necessarily follow that natural law of property, which gives the natural increase of property to the owner of the original stock, is an erroneous one.
It is a principle of natural law in regard to property, that a calf belongs to the owner of the cow that bore it; fruit to the owner of the tree or vine on which it grew; and so on. But the principle of natural law, which makes a calf belong to the owner of the cow, does not make the child of a slave belong to the owner of the slave—and why? Simply because both cow and calf are naturally subjects of property; while neither men nor children are naturally subjects of property. The law of nature gives no aid to any thing inconsistent with itself. It therefore gives no aid to the transmission of property in man—while it does give aid to the transmission of property in other animals and in things.
Brute animals and things being naturally subjects of property, there are obvious reasons why the natural increase should belong to the owner of the original stock. But men, not being naturally subjects of property, the law of nature will not transmit any right of property acquired in violation of her own authority. The law of nature denies all rights not derived from herself. Of course she cannot perpetuate or transmit such rights—if rights they can be called.
One important reason why a calf belongs to the owner of the cow that bore it, is, that there is no principle of natural law that can be opposed to that ownership. For the calf is naturally a subject of property, and if it were not given to the owner of the cow, it would be lawful for any other person to assume the ownership. No wrong would be done to the animal by so doing. But as man is not naturally a subject of property, and as each separate individual is, on principles of natural law, entitled to the control of his own person, it is as much a wrong, and as much a violation of natural law, to make a slave of the child of a slave, as to make a slave of any other person. The natural rights of the child to the control of his own person, rise up, from the moment of his birth, in opposition to the transmission to him of any ownership, which, in violation of natural law, has been asserted to the parent.
Natural law may be overborne by arbitrary institutions; but she will never aid, or perpetuate them. For her to do so, would be to resist, and even deny her own authority. It would present the case of a principle warring against and overcoming itself. Instead of this, she asserts her own authority on the first opportunity. The moment the arbitrary law expires by its own limitation, natural law resumes her reign. If, therefore, the government declare A to be a slave, natural law may be practically overborne by this arbitrary authority; but she will not herself perpetuate it beyond the person of A—for that would be acting in contradiction to herself.—She will therefore suffer this arbitrary authority to expend itself on the person of A, according to the letter of the arbitrary law; but she will assert her own authority in favor of the child of A, to whom the letter of the law enslaving A, does not apply.
Slavery is a wrong to each individual enslaved; and not merely to the first of a series. Natural law, therefore, as much forbids the enslaving of the child, as if the wrong of enslaving the parent had never been perpetrated.
Slavery, then, is an arbitrary institution throughout. It depends, from first to last, upon the letter of the arbitrary law. Natural law gives it no aid, no extension, no new application, under any circumstances whatever. Unless, therefore, the letter of the arbitrary law explicitly authorize the enslavement of the child, the child is born free, though the parent were a slave.