Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/390

338 2. Nor is it true, that a freeman can sell himself. Sale implies a price; now when a person sells himself, his whole substance immediately devolves to his master; the master therefore in that case gives nothing, and the slave receives nothing. You will say, he has a peculium. But this peculium goes along with his person. If it is not lawful for a man to kill himself, because he robs his country of his person, for the same reason he is not allowed to sell himself. The liberty of every citizen constitutes a part of the public liberty; and in a democratical state is even a part of the sovereignty. To sell one's citizenship is so repugnant to all reason, as to be scarce supposeable in any man. If liberty may be rated with respect to the buyer, it is beyond all price to the seller. The civil law, which authorizes a division of goods among men, cannot be thought to rank among such goods, a part of the men who were to make this division. The same law annuls all iniquitous contracts; surely then it affords redress in a contract where the grievance is most enormous.

The third way is birth; which falls with the two former. For if a man could not sell himself, much less could he sell an unborn offspring. It a prisoner of war is not to be reduced to slavery, much less are his children.

The lawfulness of putting a malefactor to death, arises from this; the law, by which he is punished, was made for his security. A murderer, for instance, has enjoyed the benefit of the very law which condemns him; it has been a continual Rh