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Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

Baron de Montesquieu

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disposition Prejudice Reason
When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enforcement Law Liberty
In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Three
There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Government Reality
An injustice to one is a threat made to all
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Injustice Made Threat
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Envy Men Praise
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Power Should
Virtue has needs of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Limits Needs Virtue
Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Citizens May Order
Democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is corrupted, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracy Fall Spirit
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Atheism Atheist Law
The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Philosophical Spirit
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religion Religious War
Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cures Prejudice Trade
The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Act Law Overt Punish

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

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Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

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