Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1868-07-03
The Antiquity and Unversality of Slavery

AAe duIlYluty anu OnVeiSallCy Oh olaVeEy
AS n matter of history VIC shall be pardon
cd for quoting from an essay by luto French
writcr-ADoLpH GRANIER DE CAssAdNAc-
the following extract, which, if it had cma>
mated from tho pen of a Southern writer,
would at once have been discrcdtcd AS
CAssAaNAc was, however, himself an aboli-
tionist, his testimony must be accepted. The
book was published in 1888, tho year of tho
abolition Of slavery in the British West In
dies
There were masters and slaves among the
Hebrews; among tho Greeks; among the
Romans; among the Guuls in France in Che
twelfth century; in Prussia in 1850; they
exist still in the United States of America
in all h1ahomctan countries, and in all the
kingdoms,o aud empires of India.
When the institutions of all peoples began,
slavery was already established. Moses foun-
dcd the institutions of the Hebrews, and
slavery is found in tho books of Noses Io-
mcr was many centuries anterior to tho, listo.
rio times Of Greece, and slavery is found in
the books of Homer. The Twelve Tables
were the basis Of Roman institutions, and
Romu!us, long anterior to tho Twelve Tables
opened at Rome an asylum for the fugitive
slaves of Latum. The Salc law, tho law Of
Che SaSohs, of the Thuringians, of tho Ger
mans and Of the Angles, arc tho prints of do.
parturc Of tie institutions of all modern peo.
pies, and slavery is found in all tho codes of
tho Invasion. We add another very impor-
tant consideration, which is, that in all tho
legislative, poetic and historical monuments,
which we have mentioned, slavery is not in
stituted for the first time, but is mentioned
as fact, existing, known, accepted, fiycd-
Neither Moses, nor Homer, nor tho Twelve
Tables, nor the laws of tho invasion founded
slavery. They mention and regulate it. 1t
was, before they existed.
Ncxt-and what We arc about to say is, as
1t were, the consequence Of what we have
said: it now here appears by the study of all
traditions that slavery was ever instituted,
founded, created, or that it was enacted by
statute, to use the expression Of the jurists
The statute law took hold of the fact Of sla-
very, as it did Of oil other social facts, when
it regulated society; it has taken it, in it's
turn, under its control: 1T has shaped and dc.
fined it, and so cnticrely taken it under its
power, that whom tho institutions Of nations
began, slavery had become part of the stat
ute law; but it had proper, and, so to speak,
personal existence, before falling under tho
action of tho civil and political law; and it's
this primitive existence Of which wo say that
it does not appear to have boon the handi.
work of man. More than that Returning
hereafter to tho Hebrew, Greek, Roman and
barbarian Legislation, which mention slavery
and evidently do not create it, wo bcliovc that
we can say thatwe have in reserve irresisti-
BILE mathematical considerations, which will
be produced in their place, and which will
establish in manner that admits Of no doubt,
not only that slavery, in Lcviticus, in tho
1liad, in the laws of tho Twelve Tables and
in the codes of tho invasion, was not thing
actually or even newly created; but that it
was an old thing, deorepit thing, worn
out thing. decaying thing, alrcady past tho
half Of its time, half way to great social me-
tamorphosis and to its own annihilation SO
that, far from owing its existence to human
Institutions, slavery was already greatly shak-
en-, and declining, when tho most ancient In
stitations saw The lsghs N'>.1 r r. &'Aa i'~s
Iftho language Of tho politics Of those lat.
tor years had not given q feattionary ana
ridiculods Specification to tho words Divine
right, VIC would yeadily say that slavery is Of
Divine right, but wc fear to- bc nisundcr-
stood Wo prefcS to uso oshoS words, and