SLAVERY 219fire in a stable, and Confucius asked, "Has anyone been hurt?" He did not ask
about the horses. This was the way the sages esteemed men over animals. How
could there be any I moralJ principle by which men would be exchanged for
horses? The mores of the age are so benighted and confused that they naturally
will produce disaster.Despite this apparently unequivocal attack on chattel slavery as inhumane, the
Office of Remonstrance only recommended that the inheritance or gift of slaves
be restricted to the legitimate male line of succession or close relatives in the
absence of such heirs, and that grants of slaves to Buddhist temples be for-
bidden,4^2
The list of regulations of 1392 also prohibited purchase and sale of slaves except
when starvation or public or private indebtedness made such sales essential.^43
It was, however, preservation of the patrimony, not the welfare of the slave that
was at issue here, and these regulations provided mainly for the "release and
return" of slaves to their original owners if they were possessed illegally, not
their manumission.^44
In 1388 the Ministry of Justice (Chonbopsa) did ask that the enslavement of
wives and chi Idren and the confiscation by the state of family property and slaves
of criminals be ended because there was no precedent for either in ancient times.
In 1389 the Office of Surveillance (Honsa) also endorsed this opinion and urged
the government to abandon enslavement as punishment to bring Korean law into
greater conformity with the compassionate rule of the three ages of antiquity in
China.^45 Nonetheless, neither agency called for an end to inherited slavery, and
the dominant attitude at court was one of extreme caution over the manumis-
sion of slaves.
In 1392 the Slave Agency warned that if slaves were to be manumitted and
they and their heirs made commoners, the release from service to their masters
would breed a mentality incompatible with their station in life:+^6 They would
take it upon themselves to seek public office and marry women of families of
good status, causing confusion in the social order. Or they might plot harm to
their original masters, lose their fear of the law, and dare to bring suit in court.
The agency then recommended that in the future any manumissions based on
emotional considerations or meritorious achievement by the slave be confined
to the slave only, and not to his male descendants. 47
Lawsuits and Petitions
While one or two officials may have voiced an appeal on behalf of the basic
humanity of the slave, the majority of bureaucrats were concerned with the more
mundane problem of clearing up a tremendous backlog of petitions and suits
over slaves. What this backlog of lawsuits meant was a breakdown of the soli-
darity ofthe slaveholding aristocracy itself. Powerful aristocrats used their influ-
ence against their weaker colleagues by taking away their slaves by force, seizing