What Is Slavery? — Definitions from The Dial Carrel

Based on sentences retrieved from the dial carrel — for slavery, slave, servitude, and emancipation — the following is an outline of definitions of slavery as they emerge from the carrel's discourse. As with virtue, the question "What is slavery?" receives not a single answer but a constellation of answers, each illuminating a different dimension of a concept that the carrel treats as both historically specific and universally relevant.

I. Slavery as the Reduction of Persons to Property

The most concrete and legalistic definition of slavery in the carrel is the reduction of human beings to chattel — to things that can be owned, bought, and sold. One sentence from the Transcendentalist volumes states the condition plainly:

The distinction is crucial: a slave is "merely a personal chattel" — a possession, not a person. The transition from slavery to serfdom is defined by the difference between being owned as a thing and being bound to a place.

This definition reduces slavery to a property relation and explicitly disconnects it from moral judgment. Another sentence describes the institutional apparatus:

Here slavery is defined not merely as a property relation but as a total system — economic, political, and constitutional — that structured the entire nation.

The same passage names the institution: "Slavery was called by one of its defenders 'our peculiar institution'; surely here was the counter peculiar institution" (item inu.32000000678567-02, idx id2562). The euphemism "peculiar institution" is itself a form of definition — it acknowledges slavery's distinctiveness while avoiding its moral content.

II. Slavery as the Making of Tools

This is a definition not in terms of property but in terms of function — the slave is one who is used as an instrument of another's will, not as an end in himself. The definition echoes Kant's categorical imperative: to treat a person as a tool is to violate the fundamental moral law that persons must be treated as ends, never merely as means.

The same volume offers a complementary definition: "Slavery is wrong" (item hvd.32044054766902-03, idx id1290) — a bare moral judgment that, while not a definition in the strict sense, establishes that slavery is not a neutral institution to be analyzed but a moral wrong to be condemned. The juxtaposition of "Slavery makes men our tools" and "Slavery is wrong" within the same text suggests that the wrongness of slavery consists precisely in the reduction of persons to instruments.

III. Slavery as the Opposite of Freedom and the Spirit

Here slavery (as servitude) is defined as the domain of force — coercion, violence, and physical compulsion — while freedom is the domain of mind. Slavery is what exists when force replaces mind as the governing principle of human relations.

This is a startling definition — it identifies slavery not with the state or the plantation but with the church itself, suggesting that institutional religion can become a form of bondage when it substitutes obedience for spiritual freedom. The definition is spiritual rather than political: slavery is the condition of the soul under institutional domination.

Another passage defines slavery as the subjection of the mind: "ing these long centuries to almost abject intellectual slavery" (item inu.32000000678567-03, idx id2290). Here slavery is not physical bondage but intellectual subjection — the condition of a mind that has been systematically deprived of the capacity for independent thought.

IV. Slavery as the Enslavement of the Self by Desire

The carrel also contains a more existential and psychological definition of slavery — one that detaches the concept from institutions and locates it within the self:

This is a Stoic definition: slavery is not external coercion but internal subjection — the condition of being ruled by one's own desires rather than by reason. The slave is not the one who is owned but the one who cannot govern himself.

Another passage makes the existential point even more sharply: "He is a slave, it appears, of his two hands" (item pst.000020203283-06, idx id111). Here the slave is defined as one who is reduced to labor — who is identified with his physical capacity for work rather than with his mind or soul. And another: "Slaves of Chance" (item chi.19171245-02, idx id3502) — a phrase that defines slavery as the condition of being governed by fortune rather than by agency.

The Transcendentalist volumes offer a parallel definition: "Each man became the slave of the organization of the whole" (item hvd.32044054766894-03, idx id434). Here slavery is defined as the absorption of the individual into the collective — the loss of personal autonomy to the demands of the social organism.

V. Slavery as a System of Bad Political Economy and Bad Morality

A striking definition from the later volumes frames slavery not as a moral abstraction but as a system with concrete social and economic consequences:

This is a consequentialist definition: slavery is defined not by what it is but by what it does — the corruption it introduces into every dimension of social life. It is bad for the economy, bad for morality, bad for political organization, and bad for free labor everywhere. The definition is notable for extending the harm of slavery beyond the enslaved to the enslaver and to society as a whole.

A complementary sentence frames slavery as an obstacle to national development: "Slavery is to be studied merely as an obstacle to their regular and normal working" (item mdp.39015030979598-05, idx id1898). Here slavery is defined functionally — as a barrier to the normal functioning of democratic society. And another: "Thus the slavery struggle is the subordinate and not the principal fact in our history; it is to be studied in its dependence upon the irresistible expansion of American democracy" (item mdp.39015030979598-05, idx id1909). Slavery is defined as a subordinate fact — a distortion within the larger arc of democratic expansion.

VI. Slavery as the Condition of the Powerless Under the Powerful

The carrel also defines slavery as a relationship of domination — the condition of the weak under the strong:

This is a sociological definition: slavery (as servitude) is the natural condition of the majority under the rule of the few. It is not an aberration but a structural feature of human society — the default condition of the powerless.

Another sentence extends the definition to the relationship between master and slave: "Between master and slave, between man and woman, it admitted no moral advance or development; they were, or might be, equally perfect" (item pst.000020203252-04, idx id843). Here slavery is defined as a static relationship — one that freezes both parties in their roles and permits no moral growth.

The carrel also notes that the relationship of slavery can be reversed by fortune: "It was the fortune of battle, and the slave, by a reverse of fortune, might become the master" (item hvd.32044054766894-02, idx id121). This definition acknowledges that slavery is not a natural or permanent condition but an artifact of power.

VII. Slavery as an Analogical Concept Extended Beyond Chattel Bondage

One of the most striking features of the carrel's discourse on slavery is the repeated extension of the term beyond chattel slavery to other forms of bondage and oppression. The carrel contains references to:

By applying the language of slavery to wage labor, prostitution, imprisonment, intellectual subjection, ecclesiastical conformity, organizational absorption, psychological desire, and gender subordination, the carrel defines slavery as a universal human condition — the degradation of personhood wherever it occurs, not merely the legal institution of chattel bondage.

VIII. Slavery as That Which Emancipation Destroys

Finally, the carrel defines slavery indirectly — through its antonym, emancipation. If slavery is the condition from which emancipation liberates, then the carrel's extensive discourse on emancipation implicitly defines slavery as the state of being unfree:

This last sentence defines slavery as the condition of having a master, regardless of who that master is. The Emancipation Proclamation itself is treated as the defining event: "The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, showed the irresistible march of time" (item pst.000020201043-01, idx id1091). And the Thirteenth Amendment is described as abolishing "slavery forever from the United States and from all places under their jurisdiction, towards which the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln was merely a preparatory step" (item mdp.39015031048187-05, idx id453).

Yet the carrel also contains a melancholy reflection on the limits of emancipation:

This sentence defines slavery as a recurring possibility — not a one-time condition to be abolished but a perpetual temptation of human society. Emancipation does not end slavery; it merely changes its forms.

Conclusion

The dial carrel offers at least eight definitions of slavery: as the reduction of persons to property, as the making of tools, as the opposite of freedom and the spirit, as the enslavement of the self by desire, as a system of bad political economy and bad morality, as the condition of the powerless under the powerful, as an analogical concept extended to all forms of bondage, and as that which emancipation destroys. These definitions span the full range of the carrel's history — from the Transcendentalist moralism of the 1840s, through the political and economic analyses of the late nineteenth century, to the existential and psychological reflections of the modernist 1920s.

What is most striking is the carrel's insistence that slavery is not a single institution but a recurring human condition. The analogical extension of slavery to wage labor, prostitution, imprisonment, intellectual subjection, gender subordination, and desire itself suggests that The Dial understood slavery as something deeper than a legal status — a fundamental distortion of the relationship between personhood and power. The sentence "We shall not escape slavery by a change of masters" (item iau.31858028292138-05, idx id123) encapsulates this insight: slavery is not the condition of having a particular master but the condition of having a master at all. The question "What is slavery?" is thus answered not by a definition but by a warning — that slavery is whatever prevents a person from being fully free, and that its forms are as various as the ingenuity of domination itself.

One might ask: to what extent did the carrel's analogical use of slavery — comparing wage labor, gender subordination, and intellectual conformity to chattel slavery — serve to illuminate the universality of oppression, and to what extent did it diminish the specificity of the African American experience of slavery? The tension between the universal and the particular is one of the deepest questions the carrel raises.