deceased from disrepute.

2 The law is the same if a slave be instituted heir without liberty
being expressly given him, this being enacted by our constitution in
all cases, and not merely where the master is insolvent; so that in
accordance with the modern spirit of humanity, institution will be
equivalent to a gift of liberty; for it is unlikely, in spite of the
omission of the grant of freedom, that one should have wished the person
whom one has chosen as one's heir to remain a slave, so that one should
have no heir at all.

3 If a person is insolvent at the time of a manumission, or becomes so
by the manumission itself, this is manumission in fraud of creditors.
It is, however, now settled law, that the gift of liberty is not avoided
unless the intention of the manumitter was fraudulent, even though his
property is in fact insufficient to meet his creditors' claims; for men
often hope and believe that they are better off than they really are.
Consequently, we understand a gift of liberty to be avoided only when
the creditors are defrauded both by the intention of the manumitter,
and in fact: that is to say, by his property being insufficient to meet
their claims.

4 The same lex Aelia Sentia makes it unlawful for a master under twenty
years of age to manumit, except in the mode of fictitious vindication,
preceded by proof of some legitimate motive before the council.

5 It is a legitimate motive of manumission if the slave to be manumitted
be, for instance, the father or mother of the manumitter, or his son
or daughter, or his natural brother or sister, or governor or nurse or
teacher, or fosterson or fosterdaughter or fosterbrother, or a slave
whom he wishes to make his agent, or a female slave whom he intends to
marry; provided he marry her within six months, and provided that the
slave intended as an agent is not less than seventeen years of age at
the time of manumission.

6 When a motive for manumission, whether true or false, has once been
proved, the council cannot withdraw its sanction.

7 Thus the lex Aelia Sentia having prescribed a certain mode of
manumission for owners under twenty, it followed that though a person
fourteen years of age could make a will, and therein institute an heir
and leave legacies, yet he could not confer liberty on a slave until he
had completed his twentieth year. But it seemed an intolerable hardship
that a man who had the power of disposing freely of all his property
by