severe penalties; that libels and
satires should subject their authors to severe chastisement; that every
culprit should be considered innocent until his guilt was proved.

No infringement on personal rights could be tolerated. A citizen was
free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever he would, if he did not
trespass on the rights of another; to seek his pleasure unobstructed,
and pursue his business without vexatious incumbrances. If he was
injured or cheated, he was sure of redress; nor could he be easily
defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous police guarded his
person, his house, and his property; he was supreme and uncontrolled
within his family. This security to property and life and personal
rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Although political
liberty was dead, the fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the
emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence in some of
the most important departments of life reached perfection. If injustice
was suffered it was not on account of the laws, but owing to the
depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers;
the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence of the Romans
could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European States;
indeed, it is already the foundation of their civil codes, especially in
France and Germany.

That there were some features in the Roman laws which we in these
Christian times cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
denied. Under the republic there was not sufficient limit to paternal
power, and the _pater familias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was unjust
that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel that
he was allowed an absolute control not only over his children, but also
his wife. Yet the limits of paternal power were more and more curtailed,
so that under the later emperors fathers were not allowed to have more
authority than was perhaps expedient.

The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
without possibility of redress. But here the Romans were not sinners
beyond all other nations, and our modern times have witnessed a
parallel. It was not the existence of slavery, however, which was the
greatest evil, but the facility by which slaves could be made. The laws
pertaining to debt were severe, and were most disgraceful in dooming a
debt