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Tuesday. February 15th. 1763. - Adam Smith, Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 5 Lectures On Jurisprudence [1762]

Edition used:

Lectures On Jurisprudence, ed. R.. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein, vol. V of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982).

Part of: The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 7 vols.

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Tuesday. February 15th. 1763.

The rights which arisex from the relations which may subsist in a family are as I observed before of 3 sorts: they belong either to a person as being husband or wife; 2dly, as father or son; and lastly, as master or servants. I have already considered the two former, and come now to consider the third relation which subsists in a family, viz that of master and servant.

| The same reasons which established the authority of the father of the family over the other members of it hold in a great measure with respect to the servants. The head of the family is the person on whom the others are all naturally in a great measure dependent for their support and defence. The government in most early periods of society, when it is in a very weakly condition, is necessitated to establish jurisdictions in the different parts of the country; they can find no other method which will be sufficient to keep the subjects in due subjection and in anyy tollerable order. The same thing will incline them to commit great authority over the other membersz of the family into the hands of the head of it, and to strengthen his power over them, as they can discover no other method of bringing them under the authority of any sort of government. This gives the head of the family always a very great power over the other members of it in all early times. | The other members however have somea connections which may probably mitigate this authority considerably. When one takes a wife, she is generally connected with a father or a brother or some other near relation of equall power and authority in the state; she has these to complain to if she be hardly used by her husband; and they will take care that he inflicts no punishment upon her greater than her deserts. The husband therefore, when he sat in judgement on his wife, took her relations into council with him, and the punishment which was inflicted was agreeed on by the joint consent of the whole. The children were in like manner guarded against the too great severity of the father by the interposition of the other relations who thought themselves concerned for their safety and honour. But the servants had no such persons who would or could have any influence with their masters to mitigate their punishment. They had either no relations near them, or none who were of power and consequence any way equall to that of their master. No | restraint therefore was ever put to the authority of the masters overb their servants, who became therefore slavesc under the absolute and arbitrary power of their master.— Their condition was therefore very grievous in many different ways.

1st, with regard to their lives, they were at the mercy of the master, who might do with them as he pleased. His authority was not like that of a father over his children, whichd only executed by the private will of the father the sentence which the laws of the country would have given, but was altogether arbitrary; he might put a slave to death on the smallest transgression, or the slightest neglect of his commands, and no fault was to be found with him. 2dly, as his life, so was his liberty at the sole disposall of his master; and indeed properly speaking he had no liberty at all, as his master might employ him at the most severe and insupportable work without his having any resource. But as the master had the sole right to his work and labour, so had he the power of disposing of it and transferring him to another master perhaps still more severe than himself. He underwent | in this manner the most severe and grievous tasks imaginable, without having the prospect or even the possibility of being freed from it but by the great good will or the caprice of his master.— — —

3dly, he was incapable ofe having any property. The fruit of all his labours, which were exacted in the most rigorous manner, went to his master. He was allowed nothing more than was barely necessary for his maintenance, as a horse or other work animall. And if by the most parsimonious life he had saved anything from this scrimp allowance, this could be called in by the master at pleasure. Not only the fruits of his labour, but whatever came any how to him, was immediately the property of his master. He might indeed make any lucrative agreement, as the stipulating for himself a summ of money to be paid against such a day, but this money did not belong to himself but to his master; whatever money was left him in a legacy all wasf claimed by his master. He could enter into no contract without either the express or the tacit consent of his | master. If he should engage to perform certain services or pay any money to one, these could not [bind] beg binding as illegible wordh would accrue to his master from hence. By the consent of his master however he could enter into any contract, which by that means became binding on his master; or if he had not expressed his consent, but had before acted in such a way as that his consent would be presumed. Thus if a master set up his slave in a shop, all contracts of sale or others which regarded the management of the business were binding on the master to the amount of the peculium he had entrusted him with.97 The condition of the slaves was therefore in all these respects most miserable. Their masters had no restraint put on their cruelty, and the hardest usage was commonly practised on them; their lives were taken away on the slightest occasion. We are told that Augustus once manumitted all the slaves of V Blank in MS.98 Pollio with whom he supped. A slave bringing in a dish happened to break it. The slave fell at Augustus feet and requested him, not to get his pardon of his master, for | death he thought was inevitable, but that he would request his master that after he was crucified, which was the common punishment inflicted on slaves, he should not hack his body into pieces and throw it to feed the fish in his ponds, which was it seems his common way of treating them. Augustus was so shocked at the story that he ordered him to manumitt not only that slave but all the others he had about his house; which though it was not perhaps a punishment adequate to the crime, yet would be a very considerable fine. A man who would entertain Augustus at that time would have at least 800099 or 1000 slaves, and if we estimate these at the ordinary price of a slave in the American colonies or on the coast of Africa[n], that is, about 50 or 40£ each, this would amount to a fine of £40000 or 50000.— They were used in every shape with the greatest severity. They had nothing which could bind them to have any affection for their master, and the most severe discipline was necessary to keep them to their work.

| i By this we may see what a miserable life the slaves must have led; their life and their property intirely at the mercy of another, and their liberty, if they could be said to have any, at his disposall also. But besides these hardships which are commonly taken notice of by writers, they laboured under severall others which are not so generally attended to. They were, in the 1st place, reckoned incapable of marriage. We are told that the male and female slaves lived together in contubernium, which is generally supposed to denote the same thing with regard to the slaves as matrimonium with regard to the free persons. But <it> is very plain that there must have been a great difference. For no union betwixt them could have been of a long continuance from the very nature of their condition.—First of all, that which creates the obligation to fidelity in the wife was altogether wantingj when a male and female slave cohabited together. When a man takes a wife she comes to be altogether under his protection; she owes her safety and maintenance {especially in the lower ranks} intirely to her husband, and from this dependance it is that she is thought to be bound to be faithfull and | constant to him. But a female slave who cohabits with the male one has no such obligation; she is not maintaind by his labour, nor defended by him, nor any way supported; all this, as far as she enjoys it, she has from her master, who will take care of every thing which may enable her to perform her work the better. As therefore she has no particular obligation to him, so she was not conceivd to be bound to fidelity to him. For this reason we see that the corrupting a female slave who lived in contubernio with a male one was not looked on as any way reprehensible or injurious. It was no injury to the master, nor was it any to the slave as he had no claim to her fidelity. The female slaves will therefore always live in a state of prostitution, which we see is the case in the West Indian colonies; and this alone may shew how destructive it is to population, as a state of prostitution is always detrimentall to population. Many other things render their cohabitation precarious. The duration of it does not depend on themselves but on their master. If he thinks that they do not labour so well together, he may send <them> to different parts of his farm, or he | may sell either of them at his pleasure. Or if he thinks he has not the profit he might have by the slaves the female would bear him, he may take her from her present mate and give her to another. The slave is in this manner deprived of all the comforts and can have but very little of the parentall affections of a parent. Tho he be satisfied that they were begotten by him, he knows too that they were not supported nor maintained by him, nor any way protected, which as I said before1 is that which alone constitutes the parentall and filial affections. The slaves at Rome were likewise under an other hardship which is not known by our legall slaves at this time. They are indeed otherwise in much the same condition. The slaves were then not only altogether dependent on others for their lives and property and deprived of their liberty and cut out of the consolations of marriage, for we may justly say they had no wives, but had as we may say no god. Slaves were admitted to no religious society and were reckond profane.k I observed before2 that superstitious fears and terrors increase | always with the precariousness and uncertainty of thel manner of life people are engaged in, and that without any regard to their religion. Gamesters,m who are generally a most profligate, irreligious, and profane set of men and almost entirely devoid ofn religion, are generally most remarkably superstitious; they have a great opinion of a run of luck, etc. Jesters,o who are generally not the most religious, are more superstitious than any other set of men whatever; the continuall uncertainty they are in necessarily occasions this. Slaves were of all others the most dependent and uncertain of their subsistence. Their lives, their liberty, and property were intirely at the mercy of the caprice and whim of another.— It was therefore very hard that they who stood most in need of some consolation in this way should be intirely debarred from all religious societies, {which might at least sooth their superstitious dreads}. The gods then were alltogether locall or tutelary; they did not conceive any god that was equally favourable to the prayers of all. Each city had its peculiar deities. Minerva presided over Athens; Rome was under the protection of Mars and Jupiter who dwelt | in the Capitoll. These were supposed to favour only their particular people. What had Jupiter who dwelt in the Capitoll to do with a slave who came from Syria or Cappadocia. Besides, the deities then could never be addressed empty handed; who ever had any request to ask of them must introduce it with a present. This also intirely debarred the slaves from religious offices as they had nothing of their own to offer; all they possessed was their masters.— Their masters prayed for their thriving and multiplying in the same manner as for their cattle. Blank in MS.pteneris sic aequies alumnis.3 The only slaves who were supposed to be under the protection of any god were those which belonged to the priests and ministered in the temples; these were esteemed to be under the countenance and favour of the god whom they thus served. This it was which made all religions which taught the being of one supreme and universall god, who presided over all, be so greedily receivd by this order of men. Even the Jewish religion, which is of all others least adapted to make conquests, was | greedily receivd by them. This religion is not at all calculated for conquest, but by those very reasons is admirably adapted for defence. The proselytes, as they are not of the seed of Abraham, can never be, nor their posterity, entitled to the same promises as the seed of Abraham, of whom they say the Messiah is to be born. They have many other hindrances, as the restrictions from eating certain foods which men generally do it,4 as strangled,5 pork, etc.; these inconveniences make it that we never here now of any converts to Judaism, but at the same time there are very few who desert the Jewish faith. Notwithstanding of these obstructions, as the proselytes of the gate and of the temple, etc. were admitted to some part of the religious worship, and the religion was that of one supreme god common to slaves and freemen, the progress it made at Rome was very rapid. Tacitus6 and Blank in MS.q tells us that a great part hominum servilis et libertinae conditionis were greatly addicted to the Jewish religion. When the Christian religion was spread abroad, which put all men on an equality without any of these foolish restrictions with regard to meats, the progress | it made amongst these folks was most astonishing. The case was the same with respect to all those who taught the being of one supreme god, as that of Zoroaster and of Mahomet. As the slaves were in this manner in such a subjected condition, we find they were treated with the greatest harshness and their labour exacted with the utmost rigour. And this without being reckoned contradictory to good moralls.—The slave who was used for the porter w[h]as chained in his cell near the gate, as we would chain a great dog.r Catullus7 mentions in some of his elegies how happy he was when he heard the rattling of the chains of the porter of his mistresses house. If the slave was a runnaway, but his work requird that he should go about, he had a great log of wood chain’d to him. The slaves who wrought in the country were kept all night in cells underground, but a few in each that they might not break loose, and when they were carried to work they were coupled two and two together, and in that manner they wrought. Nothing was more common thens to turn out the old or diseased slaves to die, as we would a dying | horse. Cato, who was a man of the most severe virtue and the strictest observer of the morall rules then in fashion, used frequently to do this and confessed it without any shame; and this he would not have done if it had been contrary to the practise of the times.8 In the same man<n>er as it is common near a great city to have a place where they put dying cattle, so there was an island in the Tiber into which theyt used to turn the slaves who were about to dye, and we are told it was white all over with their bones.

We are apt to imagine that slavery is entirely abolished at this time, without considering that this is the case in only a small part of Europe; not remembering that all over Moscovy and all the eastern parts of Europe, and the whole of Asia, that is, from Bohemia to the Indian Ocean, all over Africa, and the greatest part of America, it is still in use. It is indeed allmost impossible that it should ever be totally or generally abolished. In a republican government it will scarcely ever happen that it should be abolished. The persons who make all the laws | in that country are persons who have slaves themselves. These will never make any laws mitigating their usage; whatever laws are made with regard to slaves areu intended to strengthen the authority of the masters and reduce the slaves to a more absolute subjection. The profit of the masters was increased when they got greater power over their slaves. The authority of the masters over the slaves is therefore unbounded in all republican governments. And as the service which is exacted of them is so great, and their masters so rigorous, they require the strictest discipline to keep them in order. In all countries where slavery takes place <?we see> that the number of free men is very inconsiderable in comparison of that of the slaves. A Roman of a middling fortune would have 500 or 600 slaves in the house about him, and in the country some thousands under the direction of 5 or 6 freemen who exercised the most tyrannicall authority over them, in the same manner as the negroe slaves are in the sugar colonies. The greatest rigour is necessary to make them be in safety. | They were therefore used with the utmost severity. It was a customary thing for the master to give the slaves a whipping every evening, as they do in the West Indies in the morning. Seneca complains (in his De Beneficiis),9 when declaiming on the vices of the times, that he was waked at midnight by the cries of the slaves, whom the master chastised then instead of in the evening; it is not the thing, but the bad hours, of which he complains. The state was in continuall hazard from their insurrections; the servile war was chiefly owing to them, and requ<i>red the skill of the ablest generalls to quell it. This made still greater severity necessary. The freedom of the free was the cause of the great oppression of the slaves. No country ever gave greater freedom to the freemen than Rome; so that a free man could not be put to death for any crime whereas a slave could for the smallest. The slaves who were in the house or on the road with their master, whether they had fled or not, where he was murthered were frequently all put to death.10Blank in MS.11 tells us that a manv being murtherd in his house, all his | slaves to the number of 400 were carrying to execution; on which the mob rose. The Senate was called, and one of the severerw senators who adhered to the old principles stood up and told them that there could be no safety for any one if this example was not made, that the slaves might see that the greatest attention was to be paid to their master, etc. In the same manner Carthage, Tyre, Lacedemon, etc. were all in danger from their slaves. In a monarchicall government there is some greater probability of the hardships being taken off. The king can not be injured by this; the subjects are his slaves whatever happen; on the contrary it may tend to strengthen his authority by weakening that of his nobles. He is as it were somewhat more of an impartiall judge, and by this means his compassion may move him to slacken the rigour of the authority of the masters. We see accordingly that no absolute monarchy was ever in danger from the <?slaves>, | neither the Mogulls country, Persia modern or ancient, nor Turky, etc. ever were.

[x]Reading doubtful

[y]Reading of last two words doubtful

[z]‘of the head’ deleted

[a]‘means’ deleted

[b]Replaces ‘of’

[c]Replaces ‘absolutely’

[d]Illegible word deleted

[e]Illegible word deleted

[f]Numbers written above the last two words indicate that their order was intended to be reversed

[g]Interlined

[h]Illegible word

[97 ]Inst. 4.7.1–4.

[98 ]Blank in MS. Vedius Pollio. Seneca, De Ira, III.40 and Dio Cassius, History, LIV.23 both have the story, but neither says that all the slaves were manumitted.

[99 ]Sic. No doubt ‘800’ was intended.

[i]‘But besides these mos’ deleted

[j]‘in the’ deleted

[1 ]4 above.

[k]‘and’ deleted

[2 ]Apparently not in the Report as we have it; 13 above refers to superstition as a consequence of ignorance. Cf. LJ(B) 133, below.

[l]‘subsistance’ deleted

[m]Replaces an illegible word

[n]‘superstition’ deleted

[o]Reading doubtful

[p]Blank in MS.

[3 ]Probably Horace, Odes, III.18.3,4: abeasque parvis aequus alumnis (‘look kindly on my little nurslings as you depart’).

[4 ]Sic. Probably ‘eat’ was intended.

[5 ]i.e. presumably the flesh of animals that have been strangled. Cf. Acts 15:20.

[6 ]Probably Annals, II.85, where 4,000 libertini generis are said to be ea superstitione infecta.

[q]Blank in MS.

[r]‘Juve’ deleted

[7 ]In fact Ovid, Amores, I.6, cited by Hume, ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations’, in Essays, I.386. Hume also quotes ‘the ancient poet, Janitoris tintinnire impedimenta audio’ (Afranius, Comicorum Romanorum fragm. 392).

[s]Sic. Probably ‘than’ was intended.

[8 ]Plutarch, Life of Cato, 4, cited by Hume, Essays, I.386.

[t]Replaces ‘wh’

[u]‘ad’ deleted

[9 ]In fact Seneca, Epistles, 122, cited by Hume, Essays, I.387.

[10 ]Senatusconsultum Silanianum, cited by Montesquieu, XV.15.

[11 ]Blank in MS. Tacitus, Annals, XIV.43, cited by Hume, Essays, I.392.

[v]Reading doubtful

[w]Reading doubtful