preserved, and hence the name.”  Such then was the right of capture.  It was a right, which the circumstance of taking the vanquished, that is, of preserving them alive, gave the conquerors to their persons.  By this right, as always including the idea of a previous preservation from death, the vanquished were said to be slaves[045]; and, “as all slaves,” says Justinian, “are themselves in the power of others, and of course can have nothing of their own, so their effects followed the condition of their persons, and became the property of the captors.”

To examine this right, by which the vanquished were said to be slaves, we shall use the words of a celebrated Roman author, and apply them to the present case[046].  “If it is lawful,” says he, “to deprive a man of his life, it is certainly not inconsistent with nature to rob him;” to rob him of his liberty.  We admit the conclusion to be just, if the supposition be the same:  we allow, if men have a right to commit that, which is considered as a greater crime, that they have a right, at the same instant, to commit that, which is considered as a less.  But what shall we say to the hypothesis?  We deny it to be true.  The voice of nature is against it.  It is not lawful to kill, but on necessity.  Had there been a necessity, where had the wretched captive survived to be broken with chains and servitude?  The very act of saving his life is an argument to prove, that no such necessity existed.  The conclusion is therefore false.  The captors had no right to the lives of the captured, and of course none to their liberty:  they had no right to their blood, and of course none to their service.  Their right therefore had no foundation in justice.  It was founded on a principle, contrary to the law of nature, and of course contrary to that law, which people, under different governments, are bound to observe to one another.

It is scarce necessary to observe, as a farther testimony of the injustice of the measure, that the Europeans, after the introduction of Christianity, exploded this principle of the ancients, as frivolous and false; that they spared the lives of the vanquished, not from the sordid motives of avarice, but from a conscientiousness, that homicide could only be justified by necessity; that they introduced an exchange of prisoners, and, by many and wise regulations, deprived war of many of its former horrours.

But the advocates for slavery, unable to defend themselves against these arguments, have fled to other resources, and, ignorant of history, have denied that the right of capture was the true principle, on which slavery subsisted among the ancients.  They reason thus.  “The learned Grotius, and others, have considered slavery as the just consequence of a private war, (supposing the war to be just and the opponents in a state of nature), upon the principles of reparation and punishment.  Now as the law of nature, which is the rule of conduct to individuals in such a situation, is applicable to members of a different community, there is reason to presume, that these principles were applied by the ancients to their prisoners of war; that their effects were confiscated by the right of reparation, and their persons by the right of punishment.”—­