First-year Roman law students, for instance, were made to memorize the following definition: slavery is an institution according to the law of nations whereby one person falls under the property rights of another, contrary to nature.2 At the very least, there was always seen to be something disreputable and ugly about slavery. Anyone too close to it was tainted. Slave-traders particularly were scorned as inhuman brutes. Throughout history, moral justifications for slavery are rarely taken particularly seriously even by those who espouse them. Instead, most people saw slavery much as we see
...more
