thousands of them, though, except in respect to the servile wars, almost constantly raging within some portion of the empire, the government seems to have had nothing to do with slaves or slavery. It was wont, however, to resort to terrible punishments to keep them in subjection, and it was not uncommon to line the highways leading into the city for forty miles with crosses, on which these wretched beings were suspended, and left in sight and hearing of each other, until death relieved them from their sufferings. Such was Roman slavery, as it has been described by historians of the time—a condition not at all involving what we call freedom or rights of any kind, but simply that of a forfeited existence, and which, if given back by the owner, the man was restored to life, to a legal existence, to his normal condition, and, without the slightest interference of the government, was at once absorbed in the general citizenship. Of course there is no resemblance or even approximation to the social order of the South; indeed, as observed, it is difficult to conceive of conditions more utterly opposed or unlike each other. As has been shown elsewhere, the labor, the service, the industrial forces of the negro were essential to the cultivation of the soil and the growth of the indigenous products that belong to the great intertropical regions of the American continent. Ships, therefore, were fitted out for this purpose to bring negroes to the New World, not to make slaves of them, or to transform them into things, but to make their labor available for the common good of mankind. Much wrong, cruelty, and inhumanity, it is quite likely, have been practiced, but the motive and the object were right, of course, for these had their origin in human necessities and human welfare. The abuses we have nothing more to do with; the object and the essential fact—the service—remains, and will remain forever, if the great tropical centre of the continent remains civilized, instead of being transformed into a barren waste. The service of the negro, his industrial capacity, his labor, is a thing that may be estimated as easily and accurately as any other species of property, and therefore is property, and to the precise extent necessary to enforce this labor or this service the owner of it has absolute control over the person of the negro. There is not, nor should there be, any difference between this property and other property, and to this extent it may be called chattelism, for, as observed, it may be as easily and precisely fixed or defined as any other property. The master takes care of him in childhood and in sickness, clothes, feeds, and provides for his old age, or for the loss of health, etc., and estimating or comparing these things with his services, he is able to fix a positive value to the labor of the negro, and this, like any other property, he may dispose of to any one else, if he chooses to do so. This property he must have absolute