But this is an illusion. For if masters are entitled to
use the powers of such subjects at will, they may exhaust these
powers- as has been done in the case of Negroes in the Sugar Island-
and they may thus reduce their servants to despair and death. But this
would imply that they had actually given themselves away to their
masters as property; which, in the case of persons, is impossible. A
person can, therefore, only contract to perform work that is defined
both in quality and quantity, either as a day-labourer or as a
domiciled subject. In the latter case he may enter into a contract
of lease for the use of the land of a superior, giving a definite rent
or annual return for its utilization by himself, or he may contract
for his service as a labourer upon the land. But he does not thereby
make himself a slave, or a bondsman, or a serf attached to the soil
(glebae adscriptus), as he would thus divest himself of his
personality; he can only enter into a temporary or at most a heritable
lease. And even if by committing a crime he has personally become
subjected to another, this subject-condition does not become
hereditary; for he has only brought it upon himself by his own
wrongdoing. Neither can one who has been begotten by a slave be
claimed as property on the ground of the cost of his rearing,
because such rearing is an absolute duty naturally incumbent upon
parents; and in case the parents be slaves, it devolves upon their
masters or owners, who, in undertaking the possession of such
subjects, have also made themselves responsible for the performance of
their duties.
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