Before they have reached the age of reason, their father may, in their name, stipulate conditions for their welfare, but not give them irrevocably and unconditionally over to another; for such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and passes the rights of paternity. 4. Slavery, furthermore, comes not from the right of killing in war; for this right does not exist. The conqueror, according to Grotius, having the right to kill the conquered enemy, the latter may ransom his life at the expense of his liberty: an agreement all the more legitimate, as it turns to the profit of both. But it is clear that this pretended right to kill the conquered adversary does not result in any way from the state of war.... One has a right to kill the defenders of the enemy's State as long as they hold to their arms; but when they lay these down and surrender, and cease to be enemies, they become simply men again, and one has no longer a right on their life. If war does not give the conqueror the right of massacring the conquered, it does not give him the right of reducing them to slavery.... The right of making of the enemy a slave, does not then follow the right of killing him; it is then an iniquitous exchange to make him buy his life at the price of his liberty, over which one has no right whatsoever. Montesquieu has also combated slavery; but he has done it under a form of irony, which gives still greater force to his eloquence. "If I had to defend the right we have had to make slaves of the negroes, this is what I should say: "The peoples of Europe having exterminated those of America, they were obliged to reduce to slavery those of Africa in order to use them to clear the lands. "Sugar would be too dear if the plant that produces it were not cultivated by slaves. "The people in question are black from head to foot, and they have so flat a nose that it is almost impossible to pity them. "One cannot conceive that God, who is a being most wise, could have put a soul, and above all a good soul, in so black a body. "It is impossible for us to suppose that these people are men; because if we supposed them to be men, one might begin to think we are not Christians ourselves. "Narrow minds exaggerate too much the injustice done to Africans. For if it were as they say, would it not have come to the minds of the princes of Europe, who make so many useless contracts among each other, to make a general one in favor of mercy and of pity?"[38]