es. It is fairly certain,
however, that slavery originated in conquest. When a tribe was conquered
and enslaved by some more powerful tribe, all the members of the
vanquished tribe sunk to one common level of servility and degradation.
Their exploitation as laborers was the principal object of their
enslavement, and their labor admitted of little gradation. It is easy to
see the fundamental class antagonisms which characterized slavery. Has
there been no uprisings of the slaves, no active and conscious struggle
against their masters, the antagonism of interests between them and
their masters would be none the less apparent. But the overthrow of
slavery was not the result of the rebellions and struggles of the
slaves. While these undoubtedly helped, the principal factors in the
overthrow of chattel slavery as the economic foundation of society were
the disintegration of the system to the point of bankruptcy, and the
rise of a new, and sometimes, as in the case of Rome, alien ruling
class.

The class divisions of feudal society are not less obvious than those of
chattel slavery. The main division, the widest gulf, divided the feudal
lord and the serf. Often as brutally ill-treated as their
slave-forefathers had been, the feudal serfs from time to time made
abortive struggles. The class distinctions of feudalism were constant,
but the struggles between the lords and the serfs were sporadic, and of
comparatively little moment, just as the risings of their slave
forefathers had been. But alongside of the feudal estate there existed
another class, the free handicraftsmen and peasants, the former
organized into powerful guilds. It was this class, and not the serf
class, which was destined to challenge the rule of the feudal nobility,
and wage war upon it. As the feudal class was a landed class, so the
class represented by the guilds became a moneyed and commercial class,
the pioneers of our modern capitalist class. As Mr. Brooks Adams[117]
has shown very clearly, it was this moneyed, commercial class, which
gave to the king the instrument for weakening and finally overthrowing
feudalism. It was this class which built up the cities and towns from
which was drawn the revenue for the maintenance of a standing army, thus
liberating the king from his dependence upon the feudal lords. The
capitalist class triumphed over the feudal nobility, and its interests
became in their turn the dominant interests in society. Capitalism in
its