=52. Slavery.=--The privation of all these rights, of all these liberties in an individual, is called _slavery_. Slavery is the suppression of the human personality. It consists in transforming man into a _thing_. It takes away from him the right of property and makes of himself a property. The slave is bought and sold as a thing. The fruits of his labor do not belong to him; he cannot come and go at will; he can neither think nor believe freely; in some countries he is interdicted the right of instructing himself; he has no family, or has one temporarily only, since his wife or children may be separately sold; and since the women belong to their masters as their property, there is no bridle against the license of passions. Although slavery is at the present day well-nigh abolished in the world, still as it is not yet wholly so, and as this abolition is quite recent, and tends constantly to be renewed under one form or another, it is important to sum up the principal reasons that show the immorality and iniquity of this institution. =53. Refutation of slavery--Opinion of J. J. Rousseau.=--J. J. Rousseau, in his _Contrat Social_ (I., iv.), combated slavery with as much profundity as eloquence. Let us sum up his arguments with a few citations: 1. Slavery cannot arise from a contract between the master and the slave; for to consent to slavery is to renounce one's manhood, of which no one can dispose at his will. To renounce one's liberty is to renounce one's manhood, and the rights of humanity, even one's duties. There is no reparation possible for him that renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man, and is depriving his actions of all morality, and his will of all liberty. 2. Such a contract is contradictory, for the slave giving himself wholly and without reserve, can receive nothing in return. It is a vain and contradictory agreement to stipulate an absolute authority on one side, and on the other unlimited obedience. Is it not clear that one can be under no obligation towards him of whom one has a right to demand everything? and does not this single condition, without equivalent, without exchange, carry with it the nullity of the act? For what right could my slave have against me, since all he has belongs to me, and that his right being my own, this my right against myself is a word without any sense. 3. Even if one had the right to sell one's self, one has not the right to sell one's children. Slavery at least should not be hereditary. Admitting that one could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children; they are born men and free; their liberty is their own; no one has a right to dispose of it but themselves.