829. Are any men intended by nature to be the property of other men?

"The absolute subjection of any man to another man is contrary to the law of God. Slavery is an abuse of strength; it disappears with progress, gradually, as all other abuses will disappear."

The human law which sanctions slavery is a law against nature, because it assimilates man to the brute, and degrades him physically and morally.

830. When slavery is already established in the habits of a people, are those who profit by that institution to blame for conforming to a usage which appears to them to be natural?

"What is wrong is always wrong, and no amount of sophistry can change a bad deed into a good one; but the responsibility of wrong-doing is always proportional to the means of comprehending it possessed by the wrong-doer. He who profits by the institution of slavery is always guilty of a violation of natural law; but in this, as in everything else, the guilt is relative. Slavery having become rooted in the habits of certain peoples, men may have taken advantage of it without seeing it to be wrong, and as something which appeared to them altogether natural; but when their reason, more developed and enlightened by the teachings of Christianity, has shown them that their slave is their equal in the sight of God, they are no longer excusable."

831. Does not the inequality of natural aptitudes place some of the human races under the sway of other races of greater intelligence?

"Yes, in order that the latter may raise them to a higher level, but not that they may brutify them still more by slavery. Men have too long regarded certain human races as working-animals furnished with arms and hands, which they have believed themselves to have the right of using and selling like beasts of burden. They fancy themselves to be of purer blood; fools, who see only matter! It is not the blood that is more or less pure, but only the spirit." (361-803.)

832. There are men who treat their slaves humanely, who let them want for nothing, and who think that freedom would expose them to greater privations; what do you say of such persons?

"I say that they have a better understanding of their own interests than those who treat them cruelly; they take the same care of their cattle and horses, in order to get a better price for them at market. They are not so guilty as those who treat them badly, but they none the less treat them as merchandise, by depriving them of the right of belonging to themselves."