Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South.  It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone. . . . I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62)
U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Journals (1906), entry for 4 Dec. 1860.