But it has been insisted, in argument, that the emancipation of a
slave, effected either by the direct act and assent of the master, or
by causes operating in contravention of his will, produces a change in
the _status_ or capacities of the slave, such as will transform him
from a mere subject of property, into a being possessing a social,
civil, and political equality with a citizen. In other words, will
make him a citizen of the State within which he was, previously to his
emancipation, a slave.

It is difficult to conceive by what magic the mere _surcease_ or
renunciation of an interest in a subject of _property_, by an
individual possessing that interest, can alter the essential character
of that property with respect to persons or communities unconnected
with such renunciation. Can it be pretended that an individual in any
State, by his single act, though voluntarily or designedly performed,
yet without the co-operation or warrant of the Government, perhaps in
opposition to its policy or its guaranties, can create a citizen of
that State? Much more emphatically may it be asked, how such a result
could be accomplished by means wholly extraneous, and entirely foreign
to the Government of the State? The argument thus urged must lead to
these extraordinary conclusions. It is regarded at once as wholly
untenable, and as unsustained by the direct authority or by the
analogies of history.

The institution of slavery, as it exists and has existed from the
period of its introduction into the United States, though more humane
and mitigated in character than was the same institution, either under
the republic or the empire of Rome, bears, both in its tenure and in
the simplicity incident to the mode of its exercise, a closer
resemblance to Roman slavery than it does to the condition of
_villanage_, as it formerly existed in England. Connected with the
latter, there were peculiarities, from custom or positive regulation,
which varied it materially from the slavery of the Romans, or from
slavery at any period within the United States.

But with regard to slavery amongst the Romans, it is by no means true
that emancipation, either during the republic or the empire,
conferred, by the act itself, or implied, the _status_ or the rights
of citizenship.

The proud title of Roman citizen, with the immunities and rights
incident thereto, and as contradistinguished alike from the condition
of conquered subjects or of the lower gra