Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/20

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6
A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

of slavery is still older. The wrath of Achilles grew out of the quarrel for a slave; the Grecian dames had crowds of servile attendants; the heroes before Troy made incursions into the neighboring villages and towns, to enslave the inhabitants. Greek pirates, roving, like the corsairs of Barbary, in quest of men, laid the foundations of Greek commerce; each commercial town was a slave-mart; and every cottage near the sea-side was in danger from the kidnapper. Greeks enslaved each other. The Grecian city, that made war on its neighbor city, exulted in its captives as a source of profit; the hero of Macedon sold men of his own kindred and language into hopeless slavery. The idea of universal free labor had not been generated. Aristotle had written that all mankind were brothers; yet the thought of equal enfranchisement never presented itself to his sagacious understanding. In every Grecian republic slavery was an indispensable element.

"The wide diffusion of bondage throughout the dominions of Rome, and the extreme severities of the Roman law towards the slave, contributed to hasten the fall of the Roman commonwealth. The power of the father to sell his children, of the creditor to sell his insolvent debtor, of the warrior to sell his captive, carried the influence of the institution into the bosom of every Roman family, into the conditions of every contract, into the heart of every unhappy land that was invaded by the Roman eagle. The slave-markets of Rome were filled with men of every complexion and of every clime.

"When the freedom of savage life succeeded in