There is a triple alternative in the case: to kill, to enslave, or to set at large. It may be practicable to do either of the two first; and yet dangerous in the extreme to do the last. With a savage and treacherous foe it is always so, unless his power of annoyance be completely annihilated. And how can this be between two tribes of nearly equal force? Among such is one victory an assured pledge of future and _bloodless_ victory to the end of time? May it not, must it not, often be, that the victorious party can have no security against future and fatal mischief, but in the destruction, or something equivalent to the destruction, of the vanquished? This is obtained by deportation to distant lands, by which alone, or by incarceration, or something equivalent, or by extermination, or a near approach to extermination, the enmity of a savage neighbor ever can be rendered harmless. The necessity of the case, so long as it exists, justifies the choice of these alternatives. Among these, no argument is necessary to prove that foreign slavery is the mildest. But were this not so, the laws even of civilized war do not peremptorily dictate to the victor the choice he shall make among these remedies. He may kill; he may incarcerate; or he may enlarge on parol, clogged with such conditions as he may please to prescribe, according to the nature and measure of a necessity, of which he is the only judge.[1] [Footnote 1: It may be said that the laws of civilized war do not permit that prisoners be slain or incarcerated; for that if this be done, _the other party may retaliate_. This will prove, that he who is cruel to his prisoners, _does a wrong to his own people who may happen to be in his enemy's hands_; but that is all. The laws of civilized warfare acknowledge the right to retaliate, and therefore _make a case_, if there was no other, where slavery by conquest would be lawful. Even though he who first enslaves his prisoners be wrong; yet _ex concessis_ he who retaliates is right. Can Mr. Blackstone tell us which of the savage African chiefs began the game?]