entered into the middle class of libertini or freedmen; but they could never be enfranchised from
the duties of obedience and gratitude; whatever were the fruits of their industry, their patron and
his family inherited the third part, or even the whole of their fortune, if they died without children
and without a testament. Justinian respected the rights of patrons, but his indulgence removed
the badge of disgrace from the two inferior orders of freedmen; whoever ceased to be a slave,
obtained, without reserve or delay, the station of a citizen; and at length the dignity of an
ingenuous birth was created or supposed by the omnipotence of the Emperor."143

The above account of slavery and its modifications will be found in strictest conformity
with the institutes of Justinian. Thus, (book 1st, title 3d), it is said: "The first general division of
persons in respect to their rights is into freemen and slaves." The same title, sec. 4th: "Slaves are
born such, or become so. They are born such of bondwomen; they become so either by the law
of nations, as by capture, or by the civil law." Section 5th: "In the condition of slaves there is no
diversity; but among free persons there are many. Thus some are ingenui or freemen, other
libertini or freedmen."

Tit. 4th De Ingenuis. --"A freeman is who is born free by being born in matrimony, of
parents who both are free, or both freed; or of parents one free and the other freed. But one bom
of a free mother, although the father be a slave or unknown, is free."

Tit. 5th. De Libertinis — "Freedmen are those who have been manumitted from just
servitude."

Section 3d of the same title states that "freedmen were formerly distinguished by a three-
fold division." But the Emperor proceeds to say: "Our piety leading us to reduce all things into a
better state, we have amended our laws, and re-established the ancient usage; for anciently liberty
was simple and undivided — that is, was conferred upon the slave as his manumittor possessed it,
admitting this single difference, that the person manumitted became only a freed man, although
his manumittor was a free man." And he further declares: "We have made all freed men in
general become citizens of Rome, regarding neither the age of the manumitted, nor the
manumittor, nor the ancient forms of manumission. We have also introduced many new methods
by which slaves may become Roman citizens."

By the references above given it is shown, from the nature and objects of civil and
political associations, and upon the direct authority of history, that citizenship was not conferred
by the simple fact of emancipation, but that such a result was deduced therefrom in violation of
the fundamental principles of free political association; by the exertion of despotic will to
establish, under a false and misapplied denomination, one equal and universal slavery; and to
effect this result required the exertions of absolute power — of a power both in theory and
practice, being, in its most plenary acceptation, the sovereignty, the State itself — it could not be
produced by a less or inferior authority, much less by the will or the act of one who, with
reference to civil and political rights, was himself a slave. The master might abdicate or abandon
his interest or ownership in his property, but his act would be a mere abandonment. It seems to

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