Blackmail in Canadian and U.S. common law and classical Roman law

Why is blackmail a crime? The answer may feel obvious: someone is using a threat to get money. But A asks a more precise question. If I may legally reveal something about you, and I may legally ask for money, why does combining those acts become illegal? Calling the result unpleasant doesn't yet explain where the legal boundary should fall.

Picture someone threatening to reveal an affair unless the person involved pays. The embarrassing disclosure and the request for money can each be lawful on their own, according to A. The transaction becomes blackmail when payment is demanded in exchange for silence. That's the paradox we need explained: two separately permissible acts become a crime together.

The second paragraph tells us why this isn't just an academic puzzle. Without a clear account of what makes blackmail wrong, the laws sweep in conduct that no one really thinks should be criminal. Prosecutors must decide when to hold back rather than enforce those laws literally. That puts a lot of weight on their judgment. A good theory would help distinguish the conduct we actually mean to prohibit from conduct caught by an overly broad rule.

Then the author offers an answer: look at the triangle. There is the blackmailer, the person being blackmailed, and a third party whose reaction gives the threat its force. With the affair, the person may fear how a partner will respond. The blackmailer uses that anticipated response to demand money.

A's own example makes the roles especially clear. Someone threatens to report a crime unless the criminal pays. The state can investigate and punish the criminal; the blackmailer turns that prospect into a private bargaining advantage. The money buys silence about something the state has an interest in learning. That is what it means to bargain with the state's chip. The author's explanation is about misusing another party's leverage for personal gain, not merely about saying something hurtful.

A's main point: Blackmail is wrong because the blackmailer uses a third party's power to harm the victim as leverage for personal gain.

B opens with a striking contrast: Roman law didn't need a special blackmail category. That doesn't mean Romans were free to blackmail people. We need to see how their rules already dealt with the underlying conduct.

Roman jurists started with harm. If revealing shameful private information would damage someone's status or reputation, the disclosure was initially treated as unlawful. The person revealing or threatening to reveal it then had to justify doing so. Notice where the burden sits: the person with the information must show a reason to disclose it, rather than simply insist that the information is true.

Return to the affair. Saying that it really happened doesn't, by itself, establish permission to expose it. Truth matters—false disclosures receive even less protection—but truth alone isn't enough. A harmful disclosure of true information needs both a legitimate purpose and a subject the public authorities have an interest in having revealed. A personal reason to spread the information doesn't automatically satisfy those two requirements.

That's the key contrast with A's starting point. A begins with a disclosure that is separately protected and asks why adding a demand for money changes its legal status. In B, the harmful disclosure itself may already be unlawful. The law doesn't have to wait for a demand for money to address that harm.

B's main point: Roman law needed no special blackmail category because harmful disclosures of private information were already unlawful unless justified by a legitimate purpose and the public authorities' interest.

Keep the accounts distinct. A proposes a theory to explain a special crime in Canadian and U.S. common law. B describes broader Roman restrictions that made a separate category unnecessary. We can compare those approaches without turning this narrow discussion into a verdict on every freedom either legal system allowed.