That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be denied.  Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal power, and the pater familias was necessarily a tyrant.  It was unjust that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also his wife.  Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed, so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more authority than was perhaps expedient.

The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot, and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice without possibility of redress.  But here the Romans were not sinners beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a parallel.  It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made.  The laws pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a debtor to the absolute power of a creditor.  To subject men of the same race to slavery for trifling debts which they could not discharge, was the great defect of the Roman laws.  But even these cruel regulations were modified, so that in the corrupt times of the empire there was no greater practical severity than was common in England as late as one hundred years ago.  The temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked state of society, and demanded a severe remedy.  It is possible that our modern laws may show too great leniency to debtors who are not merely unfortunate, but dishonest.  The problem is not yet solved, whether men should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and unprincipled speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they should be allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful courses.

Moreover, the penal code of the Romans in reference to breaches of trust or carelessness or ignorance, by which property was lost or squandered, may have been too severe, as is still the case in England in reference to hunting game on another’s grounds.  It was hard to doom a man to death who drove away his neighbor’s cattle, or even entered in the night his neighbor’s house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient protection to property.  Society was never more secure and happy in England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies were visited with certain retribution.  Every traveller in France and England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those older countries, restricted as are their political privileges, are in most questions of secure and comfortable living vastly superior to our own.  The Romans lost under the emperors their political rights, but gained protection and safety