Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/400

348 whether in such states the slaves be few or numerous.

But in moderate states, it is a point of the highest importance, that there should not be a great number of slaves. The political liberty of those states, adds to the value of civil liberty; and he who is deprived of the latter, is also deprived of the former. He sees the happiness of a society, of which he is not so much as a member; he sees the security of others fenced by laws, himself without any protection. He sees his master has a soul, that can enlarge itself; while his own is constrained to submit to a continual depression. Nothing more assimilates a man to a beast, than living among freemen, himself a slave. Such people as these are the natural enemies of the society, and their number must be dangerous.

It is not therefore to be wondered at, that moderate governments have been so frequently disturbed by revolts of slaves; and that this so seldom happens in despotic states.

CHAP. XIII. Of armed Slaves.

HE danger of arming slaves is not so great in monarchies as in republics. In the former a warlike people, and a body of nobility, are a sufficient check upon these armed slaves; whereas the pacific members of a republic would have a hard task to quell a set of men, who having offensive weapons in their hands, would find themselves a match for the citizens. Rh