CHAP. XVII.: Of Infranchisements.

IT is easy to perceive, that many slaves, in a republican government, create a necessity of making

many free. The evil is, if they have too great a number of slaves, they cannot keep them in due bounds; if they have too many freed-men, they cannot live, and must become a burthen to the republic: besides, it may be as much in danger from the multitude of freed-men as from that of slaves. It is necessary therefore that the law should have an eye to these two inconveniences.

The several laws and decrees of the senate, made at Rome both for and against slaves, sometimes to limit, and at other times to facilitate, their infranchisement, plainly shew the embarrassment in which they found themselves in this respect. There were even times in which they durst not make laws. When, under Nero Annals of Tacitus, lib. 13. ^†556, they demanded of the senate a permission for the masters to reduce again to slavery the ungrateful freed-men, the emperor declared, that it was their duty to decide the affairs of individuals, and to make no general decree.

Much less can I determine what ought to be the regulations of a good republic in such an affair; this depends on too many circumstances. Let us however make some reflections.

A considerable number of freed-men ought not suddenly to be made by a general law. We know, that, among the Volsinienses Freinshemius’s supplement, 2d decad. lib. 5. ^†557, the freed-men, becoming masters of the suffrages, enacted an abominable law, which gave them the right of lying the first night with the young women married to the free-born.

There are several ways of insensibly introducing new citizens into a republic. The laws may favour the acquiring a peculium, and put slaves into a condition of buying their liberty: they may prescribe a

term of servitude, like those of Moses, which limited that of the Exodus xxi. ^†558 Hebrew slaves to six years. It is easy to enfranchise, every year, a certain number of those slaves, who, by their age, health, or industry, are capable of getting a subsistence. The evil may be even cured in its root. As a great number of slaves are connected with the several employments which are given them, to divide amongst the free born a part of these employments, for example, commerce or navigation, is diminishing the number of slaves.

When there are many freed-men, it is necessary that the civil laws should determine what they owe to their patron, or that these duties should be fixed by the contract of infranchisement.

It is certain, that their condition should be more favoured in the civil than in the political state; because, even in a popular government, the power ought not to fall into the hands of the vulgar.

At Rome, where they had so many freed-men, the political laws, with regard to them, were admirable. They gave them very little, and excluded them almost from nothing: they had even a share in the legislature; but the resolutions they were capable of taking were almost of no weight. They might bear a part in the public offices, and even in the dignity of the priesthood Annals of Tacitus, lib. 3. ^†559; but this privilege was in some sort rendered useless, by the disadvantages they had to encounter in the elections. They had a right to enter into the army; but they were to be registered in a certain class of the census before they could be soldiers. Nothing hindered the Augustus’s speech, in Dio, l. 56. ^†560 freedmen from being united by marriage with the families of the free-born; but they were not permitted to

mix with those of the senators. In short, their children were free-born, though they were not so themselves.