, or mere property of the conqueror,
and being property, he could beget only property, which would accrue
only to his owner. But there is no power in heaven or earth that can
make a person a thing, a mere piece of merchandise, and it is only by a
clumsy fiction, or rather by a bare-faced lie, that the law denies the
slave his personality and treats him as a thing. I the unity of all men
had been clearly seen and vividly felt, the law would never have
attempted to justify perpetual slavery on the ground of its penal
character, or indeed on any ground whatever. All men are born under
the law of nature with equal rights, and the civil law can justly
deprive no man of his liberty, but for a crime, committed by him
personally, that justly forfeits his liberty to society.

These defects of the Graeco-Roman civilization the European nations
have in part remedied, and may completely remedy. They can carry out
practically the Christian dogma of the unity of the human race, abolish
slavery in every form, make all men equal before the law, and the
political people commensurate with the territorial people. Indeed,
France has already done it. She has abolished slavery, villenage,
serfage, political aristocracy, asserted the equality of all men before
the law, vindicated the sovereignty of the people, and established
universal suffrage, complete social and territorial democracy. The
other nations may do as much, but hardly can any of them do more or
advance farther. Yet in France, territorial democracy the most
complete results only in establishing the most complete imperial
centralism, usually called Caesarism.

The imperial constitution of France recognizes that the emperor reigns
"by the grace of God and the will of the nation," and therefore, that
by the grace of God and the will of the nation he may cease to reign;
but while he reigns he is supreme, and his will is law. The
constitution imposes no real or effective restraint on his power: while
he sits upon the throne he is practically France, and the ministers are
his clerks; the council of state, the senate, and the legislative body
are merely his agents in governing the nation. This may, indeed, be
changed, but only to substitute for imperial centralism democratic
centralism, which were no improvement, or to go back to the system of
antagonisms, checks and balances, called constitutionalism, or
parliamentary government, of which Great Britain is the model, and
whic