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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 7156986" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Legally, slaves were NOT legal persons in most places where slavery was legal. Personhood in a legal sense is to have the rights to: self-determination; to own and use personal property; to engage in contract; to be party to lawsuit.Slaves in the US prior to the US CW were not even properly chattle in most states, but simple property. Livestock. They could not sue, could not own, could not contract, and had no right to self determination. The only concession to their personhood was the 3/5 compact, where states got to count adult male slaves as less than an adult male citizen for purposes of federal representation.By law, slaves lacked personhood. All the rights of a legal person were stripped. A corporation was a person, as was a free male citizen; a slave was not. (Women and children were chattle, as were some forms of livestock. (Horses had more legal protections than did women and children throught the 19th century.)The Star Wars Galaxy has a clear line, based upon canon, that makes droids less than chattle. It's referenced in a couple of places... The sense of personality of a droid comes from long times without erasing their memory. A long-since-erasure droid is useful... it's built up more skill... but also a liability, as it's less likely to obey blindly. A memory wipe removes both. They cannot be held to a contract readily in the long term, as if erased, they have no memory of the contract and no expectation to be free from memory erasure. They cannot be held to self determination, as they cannot be ascertained to be adults responsible for their own actions. They can't be owning personal property, as that's a function of legal personhood, predicated upon one's possession being an extension of self. (If you don't believe that, just have all your players put their gear on cards, then shuffle and hand them out for session... and watch the ire...)</blockquote>

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