British Slave Emancipation, pp. 120-1.
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reasoning does seem to influenced others in Britain to go along with the compensation of slave
owners in the West Indies. William A. Green, for example, writes that:
In fact, the reform of Parliament was a strategic concession taken in defence of
property, and after the Reform Act the security of property became a heightened and
anxious question among the governing elite. Any Act of Parliament that would
confiscate millions of pounds in private property without adequate compensation
would set an ominous precedent which might be used against the landowning class.
Members of Parliament interested in preserving a respect for the rights of property
would have been recklessly denying their own interest by abolishing slavery without
indemnity to the planters.
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Today we might think these worries about socialism are outdated and even that they were
overblown at the time. Even so, it is hard to deny that it is desirable for the public to have a fairly
strong attachment to the takings principle, for it is all too easy to imagine how any exception to it
could be abused.
A few final considerations may make Mill’s application of the takings principle to the case
of slave owners a little more palatable. First, what Mill is arguing for is the proposition that it
would be wrong for the state to deny slave owners compensation if they demanded it. This is
entirely consistent with the proposition that it would be morally wrong for them to make the
demand. To have a right is not to be exempt from moral criticism of one’s exercise of that right.
It is likely that Mill would agree that it would be morally wrong for slaveholders to seek
compensation. He does not say this, but then there would not be much point in doing so. It
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