"I'd expect someone to assume we don't mean halflings, then. Quite seriously, what does the committee think of just starting with full abolition of halflings? Then, based on how that goes, we can see whether we need to modify our approach before we do it for all sapients, or all peoples, or whatever we decide on. And that gives us some time to get some orc slaves and goblin slaves and every other enslaved people in Cheliax and talk to them about how to approach it in their case. I'm confident that immediate Chelish citizenship and land grants is a good idea for halflings because all the halflings here think so," and because other places have done it without disaster and because halflings seem capable of being civilized, but she suspects these reasons would be unsympathetic to this audience. "I don't think we can have the same confidence it's the right approach for every people."

"I agree. There is no reason that once the halflings are freed this committee must immediately dissolve, and any vague or overly-broad language will make it much harder to get this proposal past the floor, especially if Delegate Voshrelka's colleague starts to argue again that 'people' includes animals and we are doing evil if we do not also liberate cattle." And - ugh. He did not want to make this line of argument. He hates this line of argument. "I was born a slave. I have little sympathy for the institution of slavery. But I say it is a mistake to put high-minded idealism about freedom for all people, or protections for people who are already and have always been free, over the good of the hundreds of thousands of people who are at this very moment in chains."

"Has she really? Gods above, the hubris of children..." Voshrelka rubs the bridge of her nose. Feather. "Yes, fine, I'll acquiesce to halflings only as a start. But I do expect with this method that either we or our replacements will be dragged constantly back to debate definitions and which species get the special committee star of approval, until perhaps even Pharasma herself grows bored."

Abadarans are boring and reliable, and that's good. Everyone else has grand exciting visions of the world they want to build, the enemy they want to defeat, the idea they want to propagate, large or small. Abadarans are there for anyone whose signature is worth the ink, to lift all boats in a tide of rising wealth, to make their own boring reliable profits on their boring reliable operations that finance all these grand visions. Boring and reliable as sunshine, as air, as the ability to speak the same language as the people you live among.

And here they are planning a mass theft that will prove Chelish signatures cheap and conditional - at a moment when the coinage and the dollar are already panicking in opposite directions and everyone needs loans to rebuild what was destroyed.

He's warned them. He could warn them again but they've already made up their mind about his stance, and they're barbarians and radicals who don't work with Abadar's servants often, so they don't know that the presumption should be "boring and reliable", let alone "honest and serious". His compromises have fallen on the deafest of ears and if he thought for a moment that the Duchess at least was amenable to reason it no longer looks that way. The halflings want to kill and steal, and everyone else wants to look like a band of folk heroes here to liberate the oppressed. They want this more than they want to stem the tide of slave sales into Katapesh, more than they want there to be interest rates below Mendev's ruinous seventeen percent, more than they want to pass the floor.

He writes his notes. He says nothing. If anyone thinks to ask, 'hey, would this idea impoverish millions of people, by any chance?' he can answer them.

"I think that it's a tenet of Republicanism that ongoing debate is good for the soul," says Carlota in the tone of someone who does not especially believe it, "and good for the nation. And I do think that it seems wiser than trying to strike out definitively and overstepping. Chair, can we do one more reading of Delegate Ramirez's first proposal, for abolition of enslavement of halflings, before the committee votes? In case there are other details of importance in it?"

Voshrelka looks about as enthused about Republicanism as some look when confronted with some kind of gelatinous cube. Actually, she'd prefer the cube, then she could just shoot it with her longbow from range until it died. This is a much harder problem.

Daniel is annoyed about these new proposals, which seem very sensible but delay proper abolition of all slavery to the future. Unfortunately, the halflings won't oppose proposals that abolish halfling slavery, and frankly he doesn't want to oppose freeing slaves either.

"A rereading is probably a good idea. Delegate Ramirez's first proposal, on the abolition of halfling slavery, is as follows:"

In defense of the intrinsic dignity of all reasoning beings, and in affirmation of the fact that every person is born free, we hereby declare:

First, that every halfling born in Cheliax, as every other person born in Cheliax, is born free.

Second, that every halfling now held in bondage in Cheliax, or in any of her possessions or territories, or in any other lands held as of this day by Her Majesty Aspexia III of Cheliax in her own person, is henceforth and forevermore a free citizen of the Chelish nation; And, furthermore, that any halfling owned or held in bondage by any Chelish citizen or by any subject of Her Majesty Aspexia III of Cheliax, is likewise free.

Third, that no free halfling in Cheliax or in any of her possessions or territories, nor in any other lands held as of this day by Her Majesty Aspexia III of Cheliax in her own person, may ever be taken into bondage; And that the abduction or false arrest of any such person be punished as fiercely and certainly as the abduction or false arrest of any other citizen of Cheliax.

Fourth, that no citizen of Cheliax, nor any subject of the ruler of Cheliax, may ever again own or hold in bondage any halfling as a slave, nor purchase any enslaved halfling in foreign lands except for the purpose of manumission; Nor may any citizen of Cheliax or subject of the ruler of Cheliax take any part in the foreign trade of slaves except for the purpose of manumission.

Fifth, that any citizen of Cheliax or subject of Her Majesty Aspexia III of Cheliax, who after the due promulgation of this decree keeps or attempts to keep in bondage or slavery any number of halflings, shall be punished as fiercely and certainly as if they had abducted or attempted to abduct any other free human citizens of the same number; And that likewise any person who after due promulgation of this decree keeps or attempts to keep in bondage or slavery any number of halflings within Cheliax, or within any of her possessions or territories, or in any other lands held as of this day by Her Majesty Aspexia III of Cheliax in her own person, be likewise punished as fiercely and certainly as if they had abducted the same number of free humans.

Sixth, that as all halflings are born free and are by their nature intrinsically free persons, that for halflings to be property is impossible; And that therefore no compensation shall be given by the crown or government of Cheliax to any person who falsely claimed ownership of any number of halflings for their liberation.

Permira is fundamentally opposed to not abolishing all other slavery. But she does realize there's a screaming moral crisis where her people are all slaves.

"In affirmation of the fact that every person is born free and cannot rightfully be enslaved? Not just born free."

She pauses. "Also, everyone who freed slaves willingly should be given money. A quarter of the slave's value before the war, in silver not paper. Enough to make everyone who killed a slave after the amnesty be sorry."

"I agree that some measure like that would prevent further killings of slaves but I don't know where we'd get the silver." And she suspects that some people who freed their slaves immediately indentured them, which she doesn't want to reward but also doesn't want to bring up lest the committee decide to also end all unjust indentures on the spot. "What if everyone who willingly freed their slaves gets....recognition from the Crown and from a coalition of the Good churches opposed to slavery, for their role in bringing about an end to Asmodeus's evils." 

"Selling the property of all the slaveowners who will do some clever trick to keep having slaves, Your Grace. If you catch them you can sell everything they own for silver and then give the silver to the people who freed the slaves. This is Cheliax, there's a lot more of them than there are people willing to free their slaves."

(She is 100% correct that the committee would attempt to end all unjust indentures on the spot if it knew that was the clever trick in question.)

"Recognition is a good idea, Your Grace, but I don't think it will be enough."

"We can't promise silver we don't have in the hopes there'll be enough lawbreakers to eventually get it....I suppose we could sell for coin the right to enforce the anti-slavery laws and fund the rewards that way, but there are few buyers I'd be eager to have going around Cheliax in a position to make a lot of money whenever they spot something they can claim is slavery." Carlota strongly suspects that that extremely reasonable approach to law enforcement is one of those 'works well in Axis, fails catastrophically on the Material due to human nature' things, like stock markets and fiat currency.

"In the hopes that it was merely overlooked when I first brought it up," says Jaume, wearily, boringly, "I would like to reiterate my suggestion that, if the committee is determined to see slavery ended in haste, the first measure should be to ban the sale of halflings to purchasers other than the Crown or manumission-inclined churches. This would have several beneficial effects. It would mean that halflings currently engaged in useful labor remunerative to their owners remained at work for the time being, preventing functional businesses which happen to rely on their labor from going under. But they would gradually shed that workforce, and not into Katapesh. For all the reasons slaves are normally sold and then some they would pass through the possession of the relevant state or church instead. The concerns will continue operating, replacing or reducing their workforce over time, generating products and revenue. The entire business will be gradual. There will be no need to offer to buy a dead slave nor to expend any enforcement resource on preventing such disposal. You might wish to require that young halflings only be accepted for such surrender in conjunction with their mothers or a willing halfling adult of some other description, I am as yet unsure what the general approach to orphanages is likely to be let alone whether it could accommodate them... And then when the slave population is smaller and the monetary system stabler you can set a date with a warning of a year or five after which remaining slaves will be taken without compensation. If it so happens that the participating churches or the Crown find it expedient to issue some of their own money to the former slaves then there is no reason for me to object, though I find it unlikely it will scale."

"With what funds do you propose the Crown and Church purchase all halflings available for sale in Cheliax?"

"I recommend that it set the price very low, so as to not have to do any such thing right away. I can come up with an estimate depending upon the time frame if it is material. A low price will still attract some sellers - old or unmanageable halflings, retiring business owners, persons of conscience who simply cannot make ends meet without some compensatory funding. If it does not free the population quickly enough then interested parties can offer more. If it is too quick for the institutions to afford it they can offer less."

"If what you meant was that the abolition of slavery, in order to be baked into the constitution, wouldn't happen until the constitution was ratified, and the crown issued such an order now, to prevent people from removing slaves from the country to somewhere else they could be enslaved, that would make sense. But extending slavery five more years to protect the interests of people who decided to hold other people captive is insane." 

"Most of the convention delegates are ordinary human beings whose interests are entangled with the economy of other ordinary human beings. I am sure your experience is highly relevant on topics that do not pertain to that. But the economy is my area of study and it is not infinitely flexible. There are free lessons on topics like this at the Church of Abadar if you do not value your ignorance."

Thank you Abadaran for letting her seem moderate while proposing delayed abolition, very helpful. "Under that proposal one imagines it might take decades for every halfling in Cheliax to be free, which is far too long. I think you wrongly discount the great Evil of slavery in your calculation about what is to the country's benefit.

But a delay isn't about protecting the interests of slaveowners, who are generally wealthy and not the people who will starve if the harvest fails. I do think abolition right now will cause chaos that prevents a successful harvest in much of the country, and when prices rise it's always the poorest who suffer most - including many of the newly-free laborers. So there's perhaps a case for the ban on the slave trade now, and then abolition come wintertime."

"Now? After your convention's publicly decried slavery as Asmodean?" Voshrelka raises her eyebrows. "I understand your concerns with the harvest, and I am planning to personally do my best to avert them, but, really, is waffling after that declaration going to help anything? I think the damage is already done, and your slaveowners will scramble no matter what we decide here. Emancipation to give the halflings a chance to get somewhere they can feed themselves off the land sooner rather than later is more likely to let them save themselves. In fact, some druids might be moved by this if you make it public enough; a fair few of the Barrowood are halflings themselves."

"The slaveowners will work all their slaves to death by the winter if you do this, Your Grace," Permira tells the Duchess. "We have already agreed on the end of slavery and we should end it."

. "The idea," she says tiredly, "is that you pretend you're only ending the slave trade, maybe introducing a buyback program like the Abadaran's, not doing abolition, so you can do abolition swiftly by decree with no one starving. You are probably right that it's too late, though."

"I must protest against pretending to do a buyback program, though I admit I do not normally expect transparent dealing from anyone planning to steal from millions of people."

"Thank you, Your Grace."

"Fiducia, I would like to avoid revisiting the apparently-contentious debates this committee previously indulged in over whether abolition constitues 'stealing' or for that matter whether slavery does or what a stance on this matter can be understood to imply about a person's true character. We have been directed by the convention at large to work out the logistics of ending slavery in Cheliax; if that is a duty you believe you cannot in good conscience assist us in I would never ask a man to go against his deeply felt convictions."

"I protest without further editorializing against pretending to do a buyback program."

Technically she was suggesting genuinely implementing a buyback program in a way that gives people the false impression there's not going to be abolition on its heels in three months with no compensation. This is not an argument worth having. None of these arguments are worth having. Even now there are probably pamphlets being released with some kind of mangled version of this morning's discussion and if they're lucky the headline is 'the convention is freeing all halflings' rather than 'the Church of Iomedae says to kill the evil nobles' but it's still going to cause a lot of panicked people to try selling abroad or something if they don't move fast from there. And there's neither the enthusiasm nor the competence for a staged rollout.

Fine.