344. What is a slave?  For, let us not be amused by a name; but look well into the matter.  A slave is, in the first place, a man who has no property; and property means something that he has, and that nobody can take from him without his leave, or consent.  Whatever man, no matter what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his money or his goods taken from him by force, by virtue of an order, or ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he has not given his assent, has no property, and is merely a depositary of the goods of his master.  A slave has no property in his labour; and any man who is compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another, at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his labour, and is, therefore, a slave, whether the fruit of his labour be taken from him directly or indirectly.  If it be said, that he gives up this fruit of his labour by his own will, and that it is not forced from him.  I answer, To be sure he may avoid eating and drinking and may go naked; but, then he must die; and on this condition, and this condition only, can he refuse to give up the fruit of his labour; ’Die, wretch, or surrender as much of your income, or the fruit of your labour as your masters choose to take.’  This is, in fact, the language of the rulers to every man who is refused to have a share in the making of the laws to which he is forced to submit.

345.  But, some one may say, slaves are private property, and may be bought and sold, out and out, like cattle.  And, what is it to the slave, whether he be property of one or of many; or, what matters it to him, whether he pass from master to master by a sale for an indefinite term, or be let to hire by the year, month, or week?  It is, in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the labour; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, is not that man a slave, though you sell it for only a short time at once?  And, as to the principle, so ostentatiously displayed in the case of the black slave-trade, that ‘man ought not to have a property in man,’ it is even an advantage to the slave to be private property, because the owner has then a clear and powerful interest in the preservation of his life, health and strength, and will, therefore, furnish him amply with the food and raiment necessary for these ends.  Every one knows, that public property is never so well taken care of as private property; and this, too, on the maxim, that ’that which is every body’s business is nobody’s business.’  Every one knows that a rented farm is not so well kept in heart, as a farm in the hands of the owner.  And as to punishments and restraints, what difference is there, whether these be inflicted and imposed by a private owner, or his overseer, or by the agents and overseers of