Slavery has existed throughout history in all places and cultures. It was not introduced by the political state yet, as with many things, slavery could not have had the scope or extent that it did in human history absent the coercive apparatus of the political state. Through cronyism, slaveholders consistently had to seek assistance from the legal system in order to socialize and enforce slavery. The enforcement costs for keeping slaves slaves would have been too high for the minority slaveholding elite to maintain slavery, beyond their own strength or what they could afford to hire.
Lord Mansfield, a British judge, argued the following in a case called Somerset v Stewart (1772), which involved his refusal to forcibly send an enslaved person on English soil over to Jamaica to be sold,
The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it’s so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. (emphasis added)
Positive law, according to Mansfield, was the only thing that could be said to maintain slavery. Slavery, of course, would still exist to an extent without positive law enforcing it, but it is much-weakened without the force of positive law from the state (at taxpayer expense). Besides examining the policies that socialized, enforced, and maintained slavery, we can also—with the help of Mises—come to understand the praxeology involved in slavery and why slaveholders are prone to seek the help of the state.
Hellbound and Down 