Abstract
Slavery is a bad thing for its victims. But it is also a bad thing for us all. This is not just because slavery taints morally all those who are complicit with it but because it impedes the freedom of all those who come into contact with it, both freeman and slave alike. This, at least, is the classical republican argument. The effects on freemen are not, of course, as brutal as on they are on slaves, and the two cannot seriously be compared. But these effects do still undermine what we consider to be our free way of life and so leave our society far short of what it could be. If the primary legitimate aim of government is, as republicans claim, to protect and promote the freedom of the state and the people then permitting slavery contains a clear contradiction. Put like this, we have a practical as well as a normative reason for tackling slavery.
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