The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 (part 2 of 4)
III. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION."--"Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a possession." This refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants, procured from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not be held as a property-possession, and inheritance; that they became servants of their own accord, and were paid wages; that they were released by law from their regular labor nearly half the days in each year, and thoroughly instructed; that the servants were protected in all their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their masters, &c. Now, truly, all remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre. What a profitable "possession" and "inheritance!" What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition! Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, "Our PECULIAR species of property!" Truly, emphasis is cadence, and euphony and irony have met together!
What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as accords with existing usages and sanctifies them, thus making God pander for their lusts. Little matter whether the meaning of the word be primary or secondary, literal or figurative, provided it sustains their practices.
But let us inquire whether the words rendered "inherit" and "inheritance," when used in the Old Testament, necessarily point out the things inherited and possessed as articles of property. Nahal and Nahala--inherit and inheritance. See 2 Chronicles x. 16. "The people answered the king and said, What portion have we in David, and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse." Did they mean gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of property? Psalms cxxvii. 3--"Lo, children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." Exodus xxxiv. 9--"Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance." When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as his children, does he make them articles of property? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes? Psalms cxix. 111--"Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage (inheritance) forever." Ezekiel xliv. 27, 28--"And in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary, unto the inner court to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin-offering, saith the Lord God. And it shall be unto them for an inheritance; I am their inheritance." Psalms ii. 8--"Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Psalms xciv. 14--"For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance." See also Deuteronomy iv. 20; Joshua xiii. 33; Chronicles x. 16; Psalms lxxxii. 8, and lxxviii. 62, 71; Proverbs xiv. 8.
The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY--"possession," has been already discussed--(See p. 36)--we need add in this place but a word. Ahusa rendered "possession." Genesis xlii. 11--"And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded."
In what sense was the land of Goshen the possession of the Israelites? Answer, In the sense of, having it to live in. In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for their children? We answer, They possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation--a national usage respecting them, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, both male and female, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye get male and female domestics." "Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye get, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your permanent resource," (for household servants.) "And ye shall take them as a perpetual provision for your children after you, to hold as a constant source of supply. ALWAYS of them shall ye serve yourselves."
OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT, but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.
From the fact that only one class of the servants is called hired, it is sagely inferred that servants of the other class were not paid for their labor. That is, that while God thundered anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service without wages," he granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to seize persons, force them to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people. The inference that "hired" is synonimous with paid, and that those servants not called "hired" were not paid for their labor, is a mere assumption.
The meaning of the English verb to hire, is, as every one knows, to procure for a temporary use at a curtain price--to engage a person to temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word "Saukar." Temporary service, and generally for a specific object, is inseparable from its meaning. It is never used when the procurement of permanent service, for a long period, is spoken of. Now, we ask, would permanent servants, those who constituted an integral and stationary part of the family, have been designated by the same term that marks temporary servants? The every-day distinctions made on this subject, are as familiar as table-talk. In many families, the domestics perform only such labor, as every day brings along with it--the regular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. In such families, the familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," or "domestics," and "hired help," (not paid help.) Both classes are paid. One is permanent, the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called "hired." To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings, because when spoken of, he is not called a hired servant, is profound induction! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "hired" man, but if, instead of giving him so much a month, I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm "on shares," he is no longer my hired man. Every farmer knows that that designation is not applied to him. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same times, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month, instead of the twelve, paid him while he was my hired laborer. Now, as the technic "hired" is no longer used to designate him, and as he still labors on my farm, suppose my neighbors gather in conclave, and from such ample premises sagely infer, that since he is no longer my "hired" laborer, I rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, they record their decision, and adjourn to hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep divers!--like some theological professors, they not only go to the bottom, but come up covered with the tokens.
A variety of particulars are recorded in the Bible, distinguishing hired from bought servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at the close of their work. Lev. xix 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8. "Bought" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being called, bought,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a gratuity at the close of their period of service. Deut. xv. 12-13. (2.) The hired servant was paid in money, the bought servant received his gratuity, at least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xiv. 17. (3.) The hired servant lived by himself, in his own family. The bought servant was a part of his master's family. (4.) The hired servant supported his family out of his wages; the bought servant and his family, were supported by the master besides his wages.
A careful investigation of the condition of "hired" and of "bought" servants, shows that the latter were, as a class, superior to the former--were more trust-worthy, had greater privileges, and occupied in every respect (other things being equal) a higher station in society. (1.) They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master. They were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10; Exod. xii. 43, 45. (2) Their interests were far more identified with the general interests of their masters' family. Bought servants were often actually, or prospectively, heirs of their master's estate. Witness the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, of the sons of Bilhah, and Zilpah, and others. When there were no sons to inherit the estate, or when, by unworthiness, they had forfeited their title, bought servants were made heirs. Proverbs xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the heir, come let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." Luke xx. 14; also Mark xii. 7. In no instance on Bible record, does a hired servant inherit his master's estate. (3.) Marriages took place between servants and their master's daughters. "Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters: and Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife." 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a hired servant forming such an alliance.
(4.) Bought servants and their descendants seem to have been regarded with the same affection and respect as the other members of the family[A]. The treatment of Eliezer, and the other servants in the family of Abraham, Gen. chap. 25--the intercourse between Gideon and his servant Phurah, Judges vii. 10, 11. and Saul and his servant, in their interview with Samuel, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22; and Jonathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and his servant Gehazi, are illustrations. No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants and their masters. Their untrustworthiness seems to have been proverbial. See John ix. 12, 13.
None but the lowest class seem to have engaged as hired servants. No instance occurs in which they are assigned to business demanding much knowledge or skill. Various passages show the low repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judges ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5.
The superior condition and privileges of bought servants, are manifested in the high trusts confided to them, and in the dignity and authority with which they were clothed in their master's household. But in no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. In some cases, the bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family--with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham besought Eliezer his servant, to take a solemn oath, that HE would not take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites, but from Abraham's kindred. The servant went accordingly, and himself selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary power in the management of their master's estate, "And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his master were under his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned for taking them, is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephiboseth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Math. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with considerable capital. One of them could not have had less than eight thousand dollars. The parable of the unjust steward is another illustration. Luke xvi. 4, 8. He evidently was entrusted with large discretionary power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods." and manifestly regulated with his master's debtors, the terms of settlement. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants.
The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke; "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father." And then to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add imploringly, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." It need not be remarked, that if hired servants were the superior class; to apply for the situation, and press the suit, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's face" who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears, from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert, he sobs aloud, "The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. (Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all.") If this were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language, into the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its lowliness, its conscious destitution of all merit, and deep sense of all ill desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in apeing it.
Here let it be observed, that both Israelites and Strangers, belonged indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, were in higher estimation, and rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been already shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely political and national, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than either the hired, or the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought servants--the Israelites and the Strangers. The Israelite was to serve six years--the Stranger until the jubilee[A].
[Footnote A: Both classes may with propriety be called permanent servants; even the bought Israelite, when his six-years' service is contrasted with the brief term of the hired servant.]
As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except within walled towns, most of them would choose to attach themselves permanently to Israelitish families. Those Strangers who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants themselves, would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. See Levit. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, the Jewish polity furnished a strong motive to them, to become servants, thus incorporating themselves with the nation, and procuring those social and religious privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation, a permanent inheritance. (This last was a regulation of later date. Ezekiel xlvii. 21-23.) Indeed, the structure of the whole Mosaic polity, was a virtual bounty offered to those who would become permanent servants, and merge in the Jewish system their distinct nationality. None but the monied aristocracy among them, would be likely to decline such offers.
For various reasons, this class, (the servants bought from the Strangers,) would prefer a long service. They would thus more effectually become absorbed into the national circulation, and identify their interests with those in whose gift were all things desirable for themselves, and brighter prospects for their children. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sort of sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance, was, with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the possession of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be restrained from its control, after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate, as much as possible, such a calamity, the law, instead of requiring the Israelite to continue a servant until the jubilee, released him at the end six years[A], as, during that time--if, of the first class--the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If these contingencies had not occurred, then, at the end of another six years, the opportunity was again offered, and in the same manner until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite, to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed, which induced him to become a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service; and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who, instead of being tempted to a brief service, had every inducement to protract the term.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been, its coincidence with other arrangements, and provisions, inseparable from the Jewish economy. That period was a favorite one in the Mosaic system. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations and general internal structure, if not graduated upon a septennial scale, were variously modified by the lapse of the period. Another reason doubtless was, that as those Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, except as a last resort when other expedients to recruit their finances had failed--(See Lev. xxv. 35)--their becoming servants proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them.]
It is important to a clear understanding of the whole subject, to keep in mind that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention. It was not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies--a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a permanent employment, pursued not merely as a means of bettering their own condition, and prospectively that of their posterity, but also, as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen, as our translators have it.) (1.) They followed it as a permanent business. (2.) Their term of service was much longer than that of the other class. (3.) As a class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. (4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land, were tributaries to the Israelites--required to pay an annual tribute to the government, either in money, or in public service, which was called a "tribute of bond-service;" in other words, all the Strangers were national servants, to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word which is used to designate individual servants, equally designates national servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron. viii. 7-9. Deut. xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv. 21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. See 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judges iii. 8, 14. Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, claims notice. It was in the kinds of service assigned to each class. The servants from the Strangers, were properly the domestics, or household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was constantly required in every family, by increasing wants, and needed repairs. On the other hand, the Jewish bought servants seem to have been almost exclusively agricultural. Besides being better fitted for this by previous habits--agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations; kings engaged in them. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field."--1 Sam. xi. 7.
Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen" when Elijah threw his mantle upon him. 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon, the deliverer of Israel, was "threshing wheat by the wine press" when called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judges vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agriculture, is shown by the fact, that it was protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy--God thus indicating it as the chief prop of the government, and putting upon it peculiar honor. An inheritance of land seems to have filled out an Israelite's idea of worldly furnishment. They were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was, in their notions, the basis of family consequence, and the grand claim to honorable estimation. Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed degrading. In short, it was, in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically to unjew him, a hardship and rigor grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers--a distinction vital to the system, and gloried in by every Jew.
To guard this and another fundamental distinction, God instituted the regulation contained in Leviticus xxv. 39, which stands at the head of this branch of our inquiry, "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to servants' work--to the business, and into the condition of domestics.
In the Persian version it is translated thus, "Thou shalt not assign to him the work of servitude," (or menial labor.) In the Septuagint thus, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a domestic or household servant." In the Syriac thus, "Thou shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan thus, "Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of Onkelos thus, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan thus, "Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants[A]." In fine, "thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," means, thou shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same services, with permanent domestics.
[Footnote A: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" is, "the Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his master's shoe latchet, bringing him water to wash his feet and hands, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor, until his legal release."]
We pass to the remainder of the regulation in the 40th verse:--
"But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters; they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority; and this, even though they resided under the same roof with their master. While bought-servants were associated with their master's families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and sojourners were not. Exodus xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Not being merged in the family of his master, the hired servant was not subject to his authority, (except in directions about his labor) in any such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable to masters, is that of keeping back their wages.
To have taken away these privileges in the case stated in the passage under consideration, would have been preeminent rigor; for the case described, is not that of a servant born in the house of a master, nor that of a minor, whose unexpired minority had been sold by the father, neither was it the case of an Israelite, who though of age, had not yet acceded to his inheritance; nor, finally, was it that of one who had received the assignment of his inheritance, but was, as a servant, working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its possession and control[A]. But it was that of the head of a family, who had lived independently on his own inheritance, and long known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment, both for himself and his family. Surely so sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy; but there remaineth to him one consolation, and it cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage. He is an Israelite--Abraham is his father, and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred by the immunities of his birthright. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all." To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose permanent business was serving, would have been to rule over him with peculiar rigor.
[Footnote A: These two latter classes are evidently referred to in Exod. xxi. 1-6, and Deut. xv. 12]
Finally, the former part of the regulation, "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or more literally, thou shall not serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties his political privileges, and secures to him a kind and grade of service, comporting with his character and relations as a son of Israel. And the remainder of the verse, "But as a hired servant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," continues and secures to him his separate family organization, the respect and authority due to his head, and the general consideration in society resulting from such a station. Though this individual was a Jewish bought servant, the case is peculiar, and forms an exception to the general class of Jewish bought servants. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law so arranged his relations, as a servant, as to alleviate as much as possible the calamity which had reduced him from independence and authority, to penury and subjection.
Having gone so much into detail on this point, comment on the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, would be superfluous. "Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy God." As if it had been said, "In your administration you shall not disregard those differences in previous habits, station, authority, and national and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based; for to exercise authority over this class of servants, irrespective of these distinctions, and annihilating them, is _to__rule with rigor_." The same command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between the servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, so vital to an Israelite as to make the violation of them, rigorous in the extreme; while to the servants from the Strangers, whose previous habits and associations differed so widely from those of the Israelite, these same things would be deemed slight disabilities.
It may be remarked here, that the political and other disabilities of the Strangers, which were the distinctions growing out of a different national descent, and important to the preservation of national characteristics, and to the purity of national worship, do not seem to have effected at all the social estimation, in which this class of servants was held. They were regarded according to their character and worth as persons, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments, and political condition.
The common construction put upon the expression, "rule with rigor," and an inference drawn from it, have an air so oracular, as quite to overcharge risibles of ordinary calibre, if such an effect were not forestalled by its impiety. It is interpreted to mean, "you shall not make him an article of property, you shall not force him to work, and rob him of his earnings, you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal protection." So much for the interpretation. The inference is like unto it, viz. Since the command forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and commissioned the infliction of them upon the Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering, captivates two classes of minds, the one by its flippancy, the other by its blasphemy, and both, by the strong scent of its unbridled license. What boots it to reason against such rampant affinities!
In Exodus, chap. i. 13, 14, it is said that the Egyptians "made the children of Israel to serve with rigor," "and all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigor." The rigor here spoken of, is affirmed of the amount of labor extorted from them, and the mode of the exaction. This form of expression, "serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants either under the Patriarchal, or the Mosaic systems. Nor is any other form of expression ever used, either equivalent to it, or at all similar. The phrase, "thou shalt not RULE over him with rigor," used in Leviticus xxv. 43, 46, does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of personal cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise. But it forbids, confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the same term of time, and under the same national and political disabilities as the latter.
We are now prepared to survey at a glance, the general condition of the different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each class. I. In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in their persons, character, property and social relations. All were voluntary, all were compensated for their labor. All were released from their regular labor nearly one half of the days in each year, all were furnished with stated instruction; none in either class were in any sense articles of property, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, hopes, and destinies of men. In these respects the circumstances of all classes of servants among the Israelites, were not only similar but identical, and so far forth, they formed but ONE CLASS.
II. DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SERVANTS.
1. Hired Servants.--This class consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were different. The Israelite, was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was a domestic and personal servant, and in some instances mechanical; both were occasional, procured temporally to serve an emergency. Both lived in their own families, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work was done. As a class of servants, the hired were less loved, trusted, honored and promoted than any other.
2. Bought Servants, (including those "born in the house.")--This class also, was composed both of Israelites and Strangers, the same general difference obtaining in their kinds of employment as was noticed before. Both were paid in advance[A], and neither was temporary.
[Footnote A: The payment in advance, doubtless lessened considerably the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money from the beginning, and the master assuming all the risks of life, and health for labor; at the expiration of the six years' contract, the master having experienced no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been said, he has now served out his time, and as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor which you incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your permanent servant for six years, he has saved you all the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c.]
The Israelitish servant, in most instances, was released after six years. (The freeholder continued until the jubilee.) The Stranger, was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. Besides these distinctions between Jewish and Gentile bought servants, a marked distinction obtained between different classes of Jewish bought servants. Ordinarily, during their term of service, they were merged in their master's family, and, like the wife and children of the master, subject to his authority; (and of course, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But one class of the Jewish bought servants was a marked exception. The freeholder, obliged by poverty to leave his possession, and sell himself as a servant, did not thereby affect his family relations, or authority, nor subject himself as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent upon him for employment. In this respect, his condition differed from that of the main body of Jewish bought servants, which seems to have consisted of those, who had not yet come into possession of their inheritance, or of those who were dislodging from it an incumbrance.
Having dwelt so much at length on this part of the subject, the reader's patience may well be spared further details. We close it with a suggestion or two, which may serve as a solvent of some minor difficulties, if such remain.
I. It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal natural and religious rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own people, who were not servants. If Israelites, all rights belonging to Israelites were theirs. If from the Strangers, the same political privileges enjoyed by those wealthy Strangers, who bought and held Israelitish servants, were theirs. They also shared in common with them, the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters of Jewish servants.
II. The disabilities of the servants from the Strangers, were exclusively political and national.
1. They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil.
2. They were ineligible to civil offices.
3. They were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the prosperity and even to the existence of the state, other employments were in far less repute, and deemed unjewish.
Finally, the condition of the Strangers, whether servants or masters, was, as it respected political privileges, much like that of unnaturalized foreigners in the United States; no matter how great their wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, who has always enjoyed these privileges, be suddenly bereft of them, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor.
The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is a still better illustration of the political condition of the Strangers in Israel. Rothschild, the late English banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, inferior to the veriest scavenger among them. Suppose an Englishman, of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, made ineligible to office, and deprived unconditionally of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, "The government rules over that man with rigor?" And yet his life, limbs, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's. The same was true of all "the strangers within the gates" among the Israelites: Whether these Strangers were the servants of Israelitish masters, or the masters of Israelitish servants, whether sojourners, or bought servants, or born in the house, or hired, or neither--all were protected equally with the descendants of Abraham.
Finally--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, made up of innumerable fractional ones, each rife with meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its significancy. Hence, the care everywhere shown to preserve inviolate the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Exodus xxi. 2-6, is an illustration, "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then, his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant should plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever." In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term expired in six years, married one of his master's permanent female domestics; but the fact of her marriage, did not release her master from his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor absolve him from his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Nor could it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific grade and term of service. Her marriage did not impair her obligation to fulfil her part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To permit this to be rendered void, would have been to divide the system against itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father. By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not, and with such remuneration as was provided by the statute. If he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant from his service in the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his taste and skill, or because his master might not have sufficient work to occupy him. Whether he lived near his family, or at a considerable distance, the great number of days on which the law released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more time with them than can be spent by most of the agents of our benevolent societies with their families, or by many merchants, editors, artists, &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.
We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, which, though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the whole tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,--
"The slavery of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins."--If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh in its own face, it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. For, be it remembered, the Mosaic law was given, while Israel was in the wilderness, and only one statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of the inhabitants of the land. If the sentence of death was first pronounced against them, and afterwards commuted, when? where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation? And where is it recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination; as there was no reversal of the sentence, how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him man--intelligent accountable, guilty man, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, and make it worthless, when the proof of its priceless value, lives in his own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal human nature, and instead of healing a wound, gives a death stab. What! repair an injury done to rational being in the robbery of one of its rights, not merely by robbing it of all, but by annihilating the very foundation of them--that everlasting distinction between men and things? To make a man a chattel, is not the punishment, but the annihilation of a human being, and, so far as it goes, of all human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and rushed to the rescue of the Divine character at the very crisis of its fate, and, by a timely movement, covered its retreat from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it! Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? That the views generally prevalent on this subject, are wrong, we have no doubt; but as the limits of this Inquiry forbid our going into the merits of the question, so as to give all the grounds of dissent from the commonly received opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, and not as a formal laying down of doctrines.
The leading directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages, Exod. xxiii. 23-33, and 33-51, and 34, 11--Deut. vii. 16-25, and ix. 3, and xxxi. 3, 1, 2. In these verses, the Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites"--to "drive out,"--"consume,"--"utterly overthrow,"--"put out,"--"dispossess them," &c. Quest. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the individuals, or merely of the body politic? Ans. The Hebrew word Haram, to destroy, signifies national, as well as individual destruction; political existence, equally with personal; the destruction of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects. Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to mean personal destruction, what meaning shall we give to the expressions, "drive out before thee;" "cast out before thee;" "expel," "put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same passages?
For a clue to the sense in which the word "destroy" is used, see Exodus xxiii. 27. "I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." Here "all their enemies" were to turn their backs, and "all the people" to be "destroyed". Does this mean that God would let all their enemies escape, but kill all their friends, or that he would first kill "all the people" and THEN make them turn their backs in flight, an army of runaway corpses?
The word rendered backs, is in the original, necks, and the passage may mean, I will make all your enemies turn their necks unto you; that is, be subject to you as tributaries, become denationalized, their civil polity, state organization, political existence, destroyed--their idolatrous temples, altars, images, groves, and all heathen rites destroyed; in a word, their whole system, national, political, civil, and religious, subverted, and the whole people put under tribute. Again; if these commands required the unconditional destruction of all the individuals of the Canaanites, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for the directions relative to the treatment of native residents and sojourners, form a large part of it. "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." "If thy brother be waxen poor, thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with thee." "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger." "Thou shalt not vex a stranger." "Judge righteously between every, man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him." "Ye shall not respect persons in judgement." "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger, as for him of your own country." We find, also, that provision was made for them in the cities of refuge. Num. xxxv. 15--the gleanings of the harvest and vintage were assigned to them, Lev. xix. 9, 10, and xxiii. 22, and 25, 6;--the blessings of the Sabbath, theirs, Ex. xx. 10;--the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev. 22. 18; and stated religious instruction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now, does this same law authorize and appoint the individual extermination of those very persons, whose lives and general interests it so solicitously protects? These laws were given to the Israelites, long before they entered Canaan; and they must of necessity have inferred from them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land would continue in it, under their government.
3. We argue that these commands did not require the INDIVIDUAL destruction of the Canaanites unconditionally, from the fact that the most pious Israelites never seem to have so regarded them. Joshua was selected as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan. He had no discretionary power. God's commands were his official instructions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation; refusing to carry them out, rebellion and treason. For not obeying, in every particular, and in a single instance, God's command respecting the Amalekites, Saul was rejected from being king.
Now, if God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanitish nations, Joshua disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, the Israelites still "dwelt among them," and each nation is mentioned by name. See Judges i. 5, and yet we are told that "Joshua was full of the spirit of the Lord and of WISDOM," Deut. xxxiv. 9. (of course, he could not have been ignorant of the meaning of those commands,)--that "the Lord was with him," Josh. vi. 27; and that he "left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses;" and further, that he "took all that land." Joshua xi, 15-23. Also, that "the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it and dwelt therein, and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them." "The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand," &c.
How can this testimony be reconciled with itself, if we suppose that the command to destroy enjoined individual extermination, and the command to drive out, enjoined the unconditional expulsion of individuals from the country, rather than their expulsion from the possession or ownership of it, as the lords of the soil? It is true, multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but in every case it was in consequence of their refusing to surrender their land to the possession of the Israelites. Not a solitary case can be found in which a Canaanite was either killed or driven out of the country, who acquiesced in the transfer of the territory of Canaan, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and all her kindred, and the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim[A]. The Canaanites knew of the miracles in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the wilderness, and at the passage of Jordan. They knew that their land had been transferred to the Israelites, as a judgment upon them for their sins.--See Joshua ii. 9-11, and ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance to the confiscation of their territory. Others fiercely resisted, defied the God of the armies of Israel, and came out to battle. These occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate heathen--the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that aided in the performance of idolatrous rites, the military forces, with the chief profligates and lust-panders of both sexes. Every Bible student will recall many facts corroborating this supposition. Such as the multitudes of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, when the Israelites had "waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of their name. The large numbers of the Canaanites, as well as the Philistines and others, who became proselytes, and joined themselves to the Hebrews--as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite, one of David's memorable "thirty seven"--Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah--Ittai--The six hundred Gitites--David's bodyguard, "faithful among the faithless."--2 Sam. xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, who was adopted into the tribe of Levi.--Compare 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18, and 1 Chron xxvi. 45. The cases of Jaziz, and Obil,--1 Chron. xxvi. 30, 31, 33. Jephunneh, the father of Caleb--the Kenite, registered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, and the one hundred and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of the Temple[B]. Add to these, the fact that the most memorable miracle on record, was wrought for the salvation of a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those who would exterminate them.--Joshua x. 12-14. Further--the terms used in the directions of God to the Israelites, regulating their disposal of the Canaanites, such as, "drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c. seem used interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c., and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar terms, when applied to the Canaanites in Scripture, we refer the reader to the history of the Amalekites. In Ex. xxvii. 14, God says, "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven,"--In Deut. xxv. 19, "Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it."--In 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." In the seventh and eighth verses of the same chapter, we are told, "Saul smote the Amalekites, and took Agag the king of the Amalekites, alive, and UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." In verse 20, Saul says, "I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites."
[Footnote A: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation. If God had straitly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without severe rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshhold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war? What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding upon them than God's command? So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command. This same Saul appears to have put the same construction on the command to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan, that is generally put upon it now. We are told that he sought to slay the Gibeonites "in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah." God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. In assigning the reason, he says, "It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, that we should the destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Samuel xxii. 1-6.]
[Footnote B: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to individual and unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the temple,--what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass through the fire to Moloch.]
In 1 Sam. 30th chapter, we find the Amalekites at war again, marching an army into Israel, and sweeping every thing before them--and all this in hardly more than twenty years after they had all been UTTERLY DESTROYED!
Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding view. "But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perrizites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." We argue that this command to exterminate, did not include all the individuals of the Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabitants of the cities, (and even those conditionally,) for the following reasons.
I. Only the inhabitants of cities are specified,--"of the cities of these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." The reasons for this wise discrimination were, no doubt, (1.) Cities then, as now, were pest-houses of vice--they reeked with abominations little practiced in the country. On this account, their influence would be far more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. (2.) These cities were the centres of idolatry--the residences of the priests, with their retinues of the baser sort. There were their temples and altars, and idols, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea,--"that they teach you not to do after all the abominations which they have done unto their gods." This would be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals around them, as all were idolaters; but God permitted, and even commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with any of them would be perilous--with the inhabitants of the cities peculiarly, and of the Canaanitish cities preeminently so.
It will be seen from the 10th and 11th verses, that those cities which accepted the offer of peace were to be spared. "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be TRIBUTARIES unto thee, and they shall SERVE thee."--Deuteronomy xx. 10, 11. These verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to be summoned to surrender.
1. The offer of peace--if it was accepted, the inhabitants became tributaries--if it was rejected, and they came out against Israel in battle, the men were to be killed, and the women and little ones saved alive. See Deuteronomy xx. 12, 13, 14. The 15th verse restricts their lenient treatment in saving the wives and little ones of those who fought them, to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th verse gives directions for the disposal of the inhabitants of Canaanitish cities, after they had taken them. Instead of sparing the women and children, they were to save alive nothing that breathed. The common mistake has been, in taking it for granted, that the command in the 15th verse, "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities," &c. refers to the whole system of directions preceding, commencing with the 10th verse, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in the verses immediately preceding, viz. the 12th, 13th, and 14th, and thus make a distinction between those Canaanitish cities that fought, and the cities afar off that fought--in one case destroying the males and females, and in the other, the males only. The offer of peace, and the conditional preservation, were as really guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle. But let us settle this question by the "law and the testimony." Joshua xix. 19, 20.--"There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save, the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." That is, if they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been "destroyed utterly"
The great design of God seems to have been to transfer the territory of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereignty in every respect; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, jurisprudence, and their system of religion, with all its rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land[A]; or acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, under the protection of the government; or resistance to the execution of the decree, with death. "And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear by Baal; THEN SHALL THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."
[Footnote A: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require the Israelites to chase them to the ends of the earth, and hunt them down, until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for belief, and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean unconditional individual extermination.]
* * * * *
[The preceding Inquiry is merely an outline. Whoever reads it, needs no such information. Its original design embraced a much wider range of general topics, and subordinate heads, besides an Inquiry into the teachings of the New Testament on the same subject. To have filled up the outline, in conformity with the plan upon which it was sketched, would have swelled it to a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been thrown into the form of a mere skeleton of heads, or rather a series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for minute and protracted investigation.]
No. 4.
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
THE
BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS
ON THE SUBJECT OF
HUMAN RIGHTS.
Third Edition--Revised.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1838.
This periodical contains 5 sheets.--Postage under 100 miles, 7 1-2 cts; over 100 miles, 12 1-2 cts.
Please read and circulate.
CONTENTS
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY,
Negative,
Affirmative,
Legal,
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY
"Thou shalt not steal,"
"Thou shalt not covet,"
MAN-STEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 16,
Separation of man from brutes and things,
IMPORT OF "BUY" AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY,"
Servants sold themselves,
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED BY LAW TO SERVANTS,
SERVANTS WERE VOLUNTARY,
Runaway Servants not to be delivered to their Masters,
SERVANTS WERE PAID WAGES,
MASTERS NOT "OWNERS,"
Servants not subjected to the uses of property,
Servants expressly distinguished from property,
Examination of Gen. xii. 5.--"The souls that they had gotten," &c.
Social equality of Servants and Masters,
Condition of the Gibeonites as subjects of the Hebrew Commonwealth,
Egyptian Bondage analyzed,
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"CURSED BE CANAAN," &c.--EXAMINATION OF GEN. ix. 25,
"FOR HE IS HIS MONEY," &c.--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 20, 21,
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 44-46,
"Both thy BONDMEN, &c., shall be of the heathen,"
"They shall be your bondmen FOREVER,"
"Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE," &c.
EXAMINATION OF LEV. XXV. 39, 40.--THE FREEHOLDER NOT TO "SERVE AS A BOND SERVANT,"
Difference between Hired and Bought Servants,
Bought Servants the most favored and honored class,
Israelites and Strangers belonged to both classes,
Israelites servants to the Strangers,
Reasons for the release of the Israelitish Servants in the seventh year,
Reasons for assigning the Strangers to a longer service,
Reasons for calling them the Servants,
Different kinds of service assigned to the Israelites and Strangers,
REVIEW OF ALL THE CLASSES OF SERVANTS WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF EACH,
Political disabilities of the Strangers,
EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 2-6.--"IF THOU BUY AN HEBREW SERVANT,"
THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION,
THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
The spirit of slavery never seeks shelter in the Bible, of its own accord. It grasps the horns of the altar only in desperation--rushing from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other unclean spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, glowing on every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons quailed before the Son of God, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away under the types of the Mosaic system, and seeks to burrow out of sight among their shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It flies from light into the sun; from heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice of God into the thickest of His thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must determine what slavery is. A constituent element, is one thing; a relation, another; an appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose other things to which they belong. To regard them as the things themselves, or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. A great variety of conditions, relations, and tenures, indispensable to the social state, are confounded with slavery; and thus slaveholding becomes quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify some of these.
1. Privation of suffrage. Then minors are slaves.
2. Ineligibility to office. Then females are slaves.
3. Taxation without representation. Then slaveholders in the District of Columbia are slaves.
4. Privation of one's oath in law. Then disbelievers in a future retribution are slaves.
5. Privation of trial by jury. Then all in France and Germany are slaves.
6. Being required to support a particular religion. Then the people of England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other disabilities, merely political.]
7. Cruelty and oppression. Wives, children, and hired domestics are often oppressed; but these forms of cruelty are not slavery.
8. Apprenticeship. The rights and duties of master and apprentice are correlative and reciprocal. The claim of each upon the other results from his obligation to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed, while the law is just to the master, it is benevolent to the apprentice. Its main design is rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. It promotes the interests of the former, while in doing it, it guards from injury those of the latter. To the master it secures a mere legal compensation--to the apprentice, both a legal compensation and a virtual gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law not only recognizes the right of the apprentice to a reward for his labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master. Neither can hold the other as property; but each holds property in the services of the other, and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
9. Filial subordination and parental claims. Both are nature's dictates and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural affections which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, and constitute a shield for mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the child's services, while a minor, is a slight return for the care and toil of his rearing, to say nothing of outlays for support and education. This provision is, with the mass of mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the family state. The child, in helping his parents, helps himself--increases a common stock, in which he has a share; while his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot cancel.
10. Bondage for crime. Must innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without pay; and well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not pay its drafts on him. He is a public defaulter, and will die so. Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? The law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its product. Are children born of convicts, government property? Besides, can property be guilty? Are chattels punished?
11. Restraints upon freedom. Children are restrained by parents--pupils, by teachers--patients, by physicians--corporations, by charters--and legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Restraints are the web of society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then civilized society is a giant slave--a government of LAW, the climax of slavery, and its executive, a king among slaveholders.
12. Compulsory service. A juryman is empannelled against his will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders must turn in. Men are compelled to remove nuisances, pay fines and taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the law directs," however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves? To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a condition. The slave's feelings toward it, are one thing; the condition itself, is another thing; his feelings cannot alter the nature of that condition. Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder's guilt. Suppose the slave should think himself a chattel, and consent to be so regarded by others, does that make him a chattel, or make those guiltless who hold him as such? I may be sick of life, and I tell the assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does my consent to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt, blot out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far from lessening the guilt of the "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a man and thus break the sorcery that cheats him out of his birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions are appendages of slavery. But no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging element.
We proceed to state affirmatively that, ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free agents, chattels--converting persons into things--sinking immortality, into merchandize. A slave is one held in this condition. In law, "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself is abrogated. If he say my hands, my feet, my body, my mind, MY self, they are figures of speech. To use himself for his own good, is a CRIME. To keep what he earns, is stealing. To take his body into his own keeping, is insurrection. In a word, the profit of his master is made the END of his being, and he, a mere means to that end--a mere means to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they constitute no portion[A]. MAN, sunk to a thing! the intrinsic element, the principle of slavery; MEN, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions, and knocked off at public outcry! Their rights, another's conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or a plaything, as best suits the humor of the hour; their deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes--marketable commodities! We repeat it, the reduction of persons to things; not robbing a man of privileges, but of himself; not loading with burdens, but making him a beast of burden; not restraining liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them; not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating personality; not exacting involuntary labor, but sinking him into an implement of labor; not abridging human comforts, but abrogating human nature; not depriving an animal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of attributes--uncreating a MAN, to make room for a thing!
[Footnote A: Whatever system sinks men from an END to a mere means, just so far makes him a slave. Hence West India apprenticeship retains the cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three fourths of his time, is still forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so far forth he is a mere means, a slave. True, in other respects slavery is abolished in the British West Indies. Its bloodiest features are blotted out--but the meanest and most despicable of all--forcing the poor to work for the rich without pay three fourths of their time, with a legal officer to flog them if they demur at the outrage, is one of the provisions of the "Emancipation Act!" For the glories of that luminary, abolitionists thank God, while they mourn that it rose behind clouds, and shines through an eclipse.]
That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states. Judge Stroud, in his "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says, "The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things--obtains as undoubted law in all of these [the slave] states." The law of South Carolina thus lays down the principle, "Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER."--Brevard's Digest, 229. In Louisiana, "A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs; the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but what must belong to his master."--Civ. Code of Louisiana, Art. 35.
This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a thing, trampled under foot--the crowning distinction of all others--alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value--the rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God to universal homage, in a baptism of glory and honor by the gift of His Son, His Spirit, His word, His presence, providence, and power; His shield, and staff, and sheltering wing; His opening heavens, and angels ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great voice in heaven, proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the word with signs following.
Having stated the principle of American slavery, we ask, DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION SUCH A PRINCIPLE?[A] "To the law and the testimony?" First, the moral law. Just after the Israelites were emancipated from their bondage in Egypt, while they stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and the mount quaked and blazed, God spake the ten commandments from the midst of clouds and thunderings. Two of those commandments deal death to slavery. "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," or, "thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him." All man's powers are God's gift to him. That they are his own, is proved from the fact that God has given them to him alone,--that each of them is a part of himself, and all of them together constitute himself. All else that belongs to man, is acquired by the use of these powers. The interest belongs to him, because the principal does; the product is his, because he is the producer. Ownership of any thing, is ownership of its use. The right to use according to will, is itself ownership. The eighth commandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right to himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic--his right to whatever else that belongs to him is merely relative to this, is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the foundation right--the post is the middle, to which all other rights are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slaveholder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that a man belongs to himself--that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own title, he makes out the title of every human being. As the fact of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common title deed. If one man's title is valid, all are valid. If one is worthless, all are. To deny the validity of the slave's title is to deny the validity of his own; and yet in the act of making a man a slave, the slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him as his property who has the same title. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely disfranchise the humanity of one individual, but of UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates all rights. He attacks not only the human race, but universal being, and rushes upon JEHOVAH. For rights are rights; God's are no more--man's are no less.
[Footnote A: The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character. It vouches for them as facts, not as virtues. It records without rebuke, Noah's drunkenness, Lot's incest, and the lies of Jacob and his mother--not only single acts, but usages, such as polygamy and concubinage, are entered on the record without censure. Is that silent entry God's endorsement? Because the Bible in its catalogue of human actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and number, and write against it, this is a crime--does that wash out its guilt, and bleach into a virtue?]
The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the whole. Does the same Bible which prohibits the taking of any thing from him, sanction the taking of every thing? Does it thunder wrath against him who robs his neighbor of a cent, yet bid God speed to him who robs his neighbor of himself? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the earner, is a compound, life-long theft--supreme robbery, that vaults up the climax at a leap--the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies a solitary horror, monarch of the realm. The eighth commandment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, "THOU SHALT NOT COVET ANY THING THAT IS THY NEIGHBOR'S;" thus guarding every man's right to himself and his property, by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state of mind which would tempt to it. Who ever made human beings slaves, without coveting them? Why take from them their time, labor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire property, to worship according to conscience; to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies, if they do not desire them? They covet them for purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification of pride and ostentation. THEY BREAK THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book.--Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty.--Two of these brand slavery as sin.
The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of that body of laws called the "Mosaic system." Over the gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of God--"HE THAT STEALETH A MAN AND SELLETH HIM, OR IF HE BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." Ex. xxi. 16.
The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time--when the body politic became a theocracy, and reverently waited for the will of God. They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with thronging horrors. They had just witnessed God's testimony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt--the burning blains on man and beast--the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon every living thing--the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred--the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches; reeking and dissolving with the putrid death--the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood, and last of all, that dread high hand and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon,--earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand writing of God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood--a blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash terror on slaveholders. "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Ex. xxi. 16. Deut. xxiv. 7[A]. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system!
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven hundred years ago, in his commentary on this stealing and making merchandize of men, gives the meaning thus:--"Using a man against his will, as a servant lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, if he be forced so to act as a servant, the person compelling him but once to do so shall die as a thief, whether he has sold him or not."]
The word Ganabh here rendered stealeth, means the taking what belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both robbery and theft.
The crime specified is that of depriving SOMEBODY of the ownership of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a servant, not "he that stealeth a man." If the crime had been the taking an individual from another, then the term used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and proprietor!
The crime is stated in a three-fold form--man stealing, selling, and holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty--DEATH. This somebody deprived of the ownership of a man, is the man himself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How stolen? His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for man-stealing with that for property-stealing, Ex. xxii. If a man had stolen an ox and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated, or aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for man-stealing was death, and the penalty for property-stealing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be past labor, and his support a burden, yet death was the penalty, though not a cent's worth of property value was taken. The penalty for stealing property was a mere property penalty. However large the theft, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even stripes, but double of the same kind. Why was not the rule uniform? When a man was stolen why was not the thief required to restore double of the same kind--two men, or if he had sold him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not have them? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But if God permitted men to hold men as property, equally with oxen, the man-thief could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the legal penalty was a compensation to the person injured. But when a man was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations. Compute the value of a MAN in money! Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, a testimony in blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS INVIOLABLE"--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--"I die accursed, and God is just."
If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any other kind of property? Why did he punish with death for stealing a very little of that sort of property, and make a mere fine, the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property--especially if God did by his own act annihilate the difference between man and property, by putting him on a level with it?
The atrociousness of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the nature of the article but in shifting its relation from him to me. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and then my property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner to another of that which is already property, but the turning of personality into property. True, the attributes of man remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are attributed. It is the first law both of reason and revelation to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act towards them according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, religions, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the nature of a man--to his intrinsic value as a rational being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." V. 17, "He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given to a parent, it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the centre of human society. God guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that no relation had any sacredness in his eyes--that he was unfit to move among human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender. Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.
Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. (1.) The relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents and others manifest, dictated by natural affection--a law of the constitution. (2.) The act was violence to nature--a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities. (3.) The parental relation then, as now, was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safeguards. "Honor thy father and thy mother," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and, throughout the Bible, the parental state is God's favorite illustration of his own relations to the whole human family. In this case death was to be inflicted not for smiting a man, but a parent--a distinction cherished by God, and around which, He threw up a bulwark of defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but the doing violence to an immortal nature, blotting out a sacred distinction, making MEN "chattels." The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for his own distinction.
"In the beginning" it was uttered in heaven, and proclaimed to the universe as it rose into being. Creation was arrayed at the instant of its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while God ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career and that high conference in the godhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE after OUR LIKENESS, AND LET HIM HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars--then "GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD CREATED HE HIM." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATED HE HIM. Well might the sons of God shout, "Amen, alleluia"--For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet." Ps. viii. 5, 6. The repetition of this distinction is frequent and solemn. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is repeated in various forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE MAN." In Gen. ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As though it had been said, "All these creatures are your property, designed for your use--they have the likeness of earth, they perish with the using, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness: "IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made I man;" "an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be." So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, "He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a man shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, what an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes and things! (1.) "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." Slavery drags him down among brutes. (2.) "And hast crowned him with glory and honor." Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a yoke. (3.) "Thou madest him to have dominion OVER the works of thy hands." Slavery breaks the sceptre, and casts him down among those works--yea beneath them. (4.) "Thou hast put all things under his feet." Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an "owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dares thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto ME."
In further presenting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and as many regulations of the latter are mere legal forms of Divine institutions previously existing. As a system, the latter alone is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs, God has not made them our exemplars[A].
[Footnote A: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good old patriarchs and slaveholders," might at small cost greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal concubinage, winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal drunkenness, would be a trumpet call, summoning from bush and brake, highway and hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is legion." What a myriad choir and thunderous song.]
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
As the Israelites were commanded to "buy" their servants, and as Abraham had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants were articles of property. The sole ground for this belief is the terms themselves. How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved were always assumed. To beg the question in debate, would be vast economy of midnight oil! and a great forestaller of wrinkles and grey hairs! Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, with painful collating of passages, to find the meaning of terms, let every man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning, and every man have an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, if he only understood the dialect of his own neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon it would make of the Bible to take it for granted that the sense in which words are now used is the inspired sense, David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What, stop the earth in its revolution! Two hundred years ago, prevent was used in its strict Latin sense to come before, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally opposite to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I purposed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." "And the four beasts (living ones) fell down and worshipped God,"--"Whosoever shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--"Go out into the highways and compel (urge) them to come in,"--"Only let your conversation (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"--"They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me,"--"So when tribulation or persecution ariseth by-and-by (immediately) they are offended." Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for a modern Bible Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency now flaunting on promenade, was the very style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, and the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servants. Since such fashions are rife in Broadway now, they must have been in Canaan and Padanaram four thousand years ago!
The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of servants, means procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the fallacy, that whatever costs money is money; that whatever or whoever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your paying for it proves it property. The children of Israel were required to purchase their first-born from under the obligations of the priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or are, held as property? They were bought as really as were servants. (2.) The Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were their souls therefore marketable commodities? (3.) Bible saints bought their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "So Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife." Ruth iv. 10. Hosea bought his wife. "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah, and not having money, paid for them in labor--seven years a piece. Gen. xxix. 15-29. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father. Exod. ii. 21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michal, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services for their fathers. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with money or by service, was the general practice, is plain from such passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews this usage exists, though now a mere form, there being no real purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The coincidences in the methods of procuring wives and servants, in the terms employed in describing the transactions, and in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut. xxii. 28, 29, and Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The medium price of wives and servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the Israelitish female bought servants were wives, their husbands and masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If buying servants proves them property, buying wives proves them property. Why not contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to do, is questioning the morality of those "good old patriarchs and slaveholders, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac, the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as the 16th century, the common record of marriages in the old German Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B."
The word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by the nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have gotten (bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is bought. "He that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 32. So in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to buy) the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. "He brought them to this mountain which his right hand had purchased," (gotten.) Jer. xiii. 4. "Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our ability have redeemed (bought) our brethren that were sold to the heathen." Here "bought" is not applied to persons reduced to servitude, but to those taken out of it. Prov. 8. 22. "The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. xix. 8. "He that getteth (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Finally, to buy is a secondary meaning of the Hebrew word Kana.
Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still "bought." This is the current word in West India newspapers. Ten years since servants were "bought" in New-York, as really as in Virginia, yet the different senses in which the word was used in the two states, put no man in a quandary. Under the system of legal indenture in Illinois, servants now are "bought."[A] Until recently immigrants to this country were "bought" in great numbers. By voluntary contract they engaged to work a given time to pay for their passage. This class of persons called "redemptioners," consisted at one time of thousands. Multitudes are "bought" out of slavery by themselves or others. Under the same roof with the writer is a "servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a slave; when "bought" she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our leading politicians if "buying" men makes them "chattels." The Whigs say that Benton and Rives are "bought" by the administration; and the other party, that Clay and Webster are "bought" by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was "bought" by British gold. When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus hits off the indecency, "The cotton bags bought him." Sir Robert Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can buy him," and John Randolph said, "The northern delegation is in the market, give me money enough, and I can buy them;" both meant just what they said. The temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were bought, yet we have no floating visions of "chattels personal," man auctions, or coffles.
[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the free state of Illinois--No negro, mulatto, or Indian shall at any time purchase any servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to purchase a white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed and taken.]
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use of "buy" and "bought with money." Gen, xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, "Behold I have bought you this day," and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons bought as articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine. The idea attached by both parties to "buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this buying of services (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in Scripture usage, buying the persons. This case claims special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is detailed--the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the mere fact is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open. (1.) The persons "bought," sold themselves, and of their own accord. (2.) Obtaining permanently the services of persons, or even a portion of them, is called "buying" those persons. The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were bought of third persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer assumptions. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which a master sold his servant. That servants who were "bought" sold themselves is a fair inference from various passages of Scripture.
In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the words are, "If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger." The same word, and the same form of the word, which, in verse 47, is rendered sell himself, is in verse 39 of the same chapter, rendered be sold; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered "be sold." "And there ye shall BE SOLD unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women and NO MAN SHALL BUY YOU." How could they "be sold" without being bought? Our translation makes it nonsense. The word Makar rendered "be sold" is used here in the Hithpael conjugation, which is generally reflexive in its force, and, like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an individual does for himself, and should manifestly have been rendered, "ye shall offer yourselves for sale, and there shall be no purchaser." For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25--"Thou hast sold thyself to work evil." "There was none like to Ahab that sold himself to work wickedness."--2 Kings xvii. 17. "They used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil."--Isa. l. 1. "For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves." Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have sold yourselves FOR NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv. 14--Romans vii. 14, vi. 16--John viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of third persons. If servants were bought of third persons, it is strange that no instance of it is on record.
II.--THE LEADING DESIGN OF THE LAWS RELATING TO SERVANTS, WITH THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED TO THEM.
The general object of the laws defining the relations of master and servant, was the good of both parties--more especially the good of the servants. While the master's interests were guarded from injury, those of the servants were promoted. These laws made a merciful provision for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Strangers, not laying on burdens, but lightening them--they were a grant of privileges and favors.
I. No servant from the Strangers, could remain in the family of an Israelite without becoming a proselyte. Compliance with this condition was the price of the privilege.--Gen. xvii. 9-14, 23, 27.
II. Excommunication from the family was a PUNISHMENT.--Gen. xxi. 14. Luke xvi. 2-4.
III. Every Hebrew servant could COMPEL his master to keep him after the six years contract had expired. This shows that the system was framed to advance the interests and gratify the wishes of the servant quite as much as those of the master. If the servant demanded it, the law obliged the master to retain him, however little he might need his services. Deut. xv. 12-17. Ex. xxi. 2-6.
IV. The rights and privileges guarantied by law to all servants.
1. They were admitted into covenant with God. Deut. xxix. 10-13.
2. They were invited guests at all the national and family festivals. Ex. xii. 43-44; Deut. xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10-16.
3. They were statedly instructed in morality and religion. Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Josh. viii. 33-35; 2 Chron. xvii. 8-9.
4. They were released from their regular labor nearly ONE HALF OF THE WHOLE TIME. During which they had their entire support, and the same instruction that was provided for the other members of the Hebrew community.
(a.) The Law secured to them the whole of every seventh year; Lev. xxv. 3-6; thus giving to those who were servants during the entire period between the jubilees, eight whole years, including the jubilee year, of unbroken rest.
(b.) Every seventh day. This in forty-two years, the eight being subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just six years.
(c.) The three annual festivals. The Passover, which commenced on the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the 6th day of the 3d month, and lasted seven days. Lev. xvi. 10, 11. The Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th month, and lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As all met in one place, much time would be spent on the journey. Cumbered caravans move slowly. After their arrival, a day or two would be requisite for divers preparations before the celebration, besides some time at the close of it, in preparations for return. If we assign three weeks to each festival--including the time spent on the journeys, and the delays before and after the celebration, together with the festival week, it will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the servants would be absent from their stated employments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the Sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.
(d.) The new moons. The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus says that the Jews always kept two days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish Calendar, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx. 18, 19, 27. This in forty-two years, would be two years 280 days.
(e.) The feast of trumpets. On the first day of the seventh month, and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
(f.) The atonement day. On the tenth of the seventh month. Lev. xxiii. 27.
These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not reckoned above.
Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this calculation, besides making a donation of all the fractions to the objector, we have left out those numerous local festivals to which frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; I Sam. ix. etc., and the various family festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at circumcisions; at the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam. xx. 28, 29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later period of the Jewish history. The feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and of the Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time which, if distributed, would be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR. Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this time were distributed over every day, the servants would have to themselves nearly one half of each day.
THIS IS A REGULATION OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
V. The servant was protected by law equally with the other members of the community.
Proof.--"Judge righteously between every man and his neighbor, and THE STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM." "Ye shall not RESPECT PERSONS in judgement, but ye shall hear the SMALL as well as the great." Deut. i. 16, 17. Also Lev. xxiv. 22. "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER, as for one of your own country." So Numb. xv. 29. "Ye shall have ONE LAW for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel and for the STRANGER that sojourneth among them." Deut. xxvii. 19. "Cursed be he that PERVERTETH THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER."
VI. The Mosaic system enjoined the greatest affection and kindness toward servants, foreign as well as Jewish.
Lev. xix. 34. "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shall love him as thyself." Also Deut. x. 17, 19. "For the Lord your God * * REGARDETH NOT PERSONS. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE STRANGER, in giving him food and raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE STRANGER." So Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt neither vex a STRANGER nor oppress him." Ex. xxiii. 9. "Thou shalt not oppress a STRANGER, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. "If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights?
VII. Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in all civil and religious rights. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14. Deut. i. 16, 17. Lev. xxiv. 22.
III.--DID PERSONS BECOME SERVANTS VOLUNTARILY, OR WERE THEY MADE SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS?
We argue that they became servants of their own accord.
I. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was to abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God[A], be circumcised in token of it, bound to keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and ceremonial law. Were the servants forced through all these processes? Was the renunciation of idolatry compulsory? Were they dragged into covenant with God? Were they seized and circumcised by main strength? Were they compelled mechanically to chew, and swallow the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution, spurned the laws that enjoined it, detested its author and its executors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they driven from all parts of the land three times in the year to the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated? Goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations? We repeat it, to became a servant, was to become a proselyte. And did God authorize his people to make proselytes, at the point of the sword? by the terror of pains and penalties? by converting men into merchandise? Were proselyte and chattel synonymes, in the Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a thing before taken into covenant with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and the sole passport to the communion of the saints?
[Footnote A: Maimonides, who wrote in Egypt about seven hundred years ago, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the head of Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this point: "Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant."
"But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day, and he that is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be unwilling. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long, it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the worship of a willing heart"--Mamon, Hilcoth Mileth, Chap. 1st, Sec. 8th.
The ancient Jewish Doctors assert that the servant from the Strangers who at the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish religion and was on that account sent back to his own people, received a full compensation for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But that postponement of the circumcision of the foreign servant for a year (or even at all after he had entered the family of an Israelite), of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been a mere usage. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly initiatory. Whether it was a rite merely national or spiritual, or both, comes not within the scope of this inquiry. ]
II. We argue the voluntariness of servants from Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him."
As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the right of the master to hold him; his fleeing shows his choice--proclaims his wrongs and his title to protection; you shall not force him back and thus recognize the right of the master to hold him in such a condition as induces him to flee to others for protection." It may be said that this command referred only to the servants of heathen masters in the surrounding nations. We answer, the terms of the command are unlimited. But the objection, if valid, would merely shift the pressure of the difficulty to another point. Did God require them to protect the free choice of a single servant from the heathen, and yet authorize the same persons, to crush the free choice of thousands of servants from the heathen? Suppose a case. A foreign servant flees to the Israelites; God says, "He shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best." Now, suppose this same servant, instead of coming into Israel of his own accord, had been dragged in by some kidnapper who bought him of his master, and forced him into a condition against his will; would He who forbade such treatment of the stranger, who voluntarily came into the land, sanction the same treatment of the same person, provided in addition to this last outrage, the previous one had been committed of forcing him into the nation against his will? To commit violence on the free choice of a foreign servant is forsooth a horrible enormity, PROVIDED you begin the violence after he has come among you. But if you commit the first act on the other side of the line; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a third person against his will, and then tear him from home, drag him across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave--ah! that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with impunity! Would greater favor have been shown to this new comer than to the old residents--those who had been servants in Jewish families perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise toward him, uncircumcised and out of the covenant, a justice and kindness denied to the multitudes who were circumcised, and within the covenant? But, the objector finds small gain to his argument on the supposition that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the surrounding nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a condition against their wills. In that case, the surrounding nations would adopt retaliatory measures, and become so many asylums for Jewish fugitives. As these nations were not only on every side of them, but in their midst, such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men whose condition was a constant counteraction of will. Besides the same command which protected the servant from the power of his foreign master, protected him equally from the power of an Israelite. It was not, "Thou shalt not deliver him unto his master," but "he shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best." Every Israelite was forbidden to put him in any condition against his will. What was this but a proclamation, that all who chose to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to their own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to such persons and in such places as they pleased? Besides, grant that this command prohibited the sending back of foreign servants merely, there was no law requiring the return of servants who had escaped from the Israelites. Property lost, and cattle escaped, they were required to return, but not escaped servants. These verses contain 1st, a command, "Thou shall not deliver," &c., 2d, a declaration of the fugitive's right of free choice, and of God's will that he should exercise it at his own discretion; and 3d, a command guarding this right, namely, "Thou shalt not oppress him," as though God had said, "If you restrain him from exercising his own choice, as to the place and condition of his residence, it is oppression."
III. We argue the voluntariness of servants from their peculiar opportunities and facilities for escape. Three times every year, all the males over twelve years, were required to attend the national feasts. They were thus absent from their homes not less than three weeks at each time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the way, to intercept deserters?--a corporal's guard at each pass of the mountains, sentinels pacing the hill-tops, and light horse scouring the defiles? The Israelites must have had some safe contrivance for taking their "slaves" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back. When a body of slaves is moved any distance in our republic, they are hand-cuffed and chained together, to keep them from running away, or beating their drivers' brains out. Was this the Mosaic plan, or an improvement introduced by Samuel, or was it left for the wisdom of Solomon? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venerable and biblical! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and transported in bundles, or caged up, and trundled on wheels to and fro, and while at the Holy City, "lodged in jail for safe keeping," the Sanhedrim appointing special religious services for their benefit, and their "drivers" officiating at "ORAL instruction." Mean while, what became of the sturdy handmaids left at home? What hindered them from marching off in a body? Perhaps the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, picking up stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets, keeping a sharp look-out at night.
IV. Their continuance in Jewish families depended upon the performance of various rites necessarily VOLUNTARY.
Suppose the servants from the heathen had upon entering Jewish families, refused circumcision; if slaves, how simple the process of emancipation! Their refusal did the job. Or, suppose they had refused to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten unleavened bread during the Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the anointing oil, they would have been "cut off from the people;" excommunicated.
V. We infer the voluntariness of the servants of the Patriarchs from the impossibility of their having been held against their wills. Abraham's servants are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred and eighteen young men "born in his house," and many more not born in his house. His servants of all ages, were probably MANY THOUSANDS. How Abraham and Sarah contrived to hold fast so many thousand servants against their wills, we are left quite in the dark. The most natural supposition is that the Patriarch and his wife took turns in surrounding them! The neighboring tribes, instead of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants, would have been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, as they did Lot and his household. Besides, there was neither "Constitution" nor "compact," to send back Abraham's fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon them, nor gentleman-kidnappers, suing for his patronage, volunteering to howl on their track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging their "honor" to hunt down and "deliver up," provided they had a description of the "flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by pieces of silver. Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, since he faithfully trained "his household to do justice and judgment," though so deplorably destitute of the needful aids.
VI. We infer that servants were voluntary, as there is no instance of an Israelitish master SELLING a servant. Abraham had thousands of servants, but seems never to have sold one. Isaac "grew until he became very great," and had "great store of servants." Jacob's youth was spent in the family of Laban, where he lived a servant twenty-one years. Afterward he had a large number of servants. Joseph sent for Jacob to come into Egypt, "thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks and thy herds, and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Jacob took his flocks and herds but no servants. Gen xlv. 10; xlvii. 16. They doubtless, served under their own contracts, and when Jacob went into Egypt, they chose to stay in their own country. The government might sell thieves, if they had no property, until their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex. xxii. 3. But masters seem to have had no power to sell their servants. To give the master a right to sell his servant, would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own disposal; but says the objector, "to give the master a right to buy a servant, equally annihilates the servant's right of choice." Answer. It is one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a different thing to have a right to buy him of another man[A].
[Footnote A: There is no evidence that masters had the power to dispose even the services of their servants, as men hire out their laborers whom they employ by the year; but whether they had or not, affects not the argument.]
Though servants were not bought of their masters, yet young females were bought of their fathers. But their purchase as servants was their betrothal as wives. Ex. xxi. 7, 8. "If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, he shall let her be redeemed."[B]
[Footnote B: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows: "A Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed."--Maimonides--Hilcoth--Obedim, Ch. IV. Sec. XI. Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her and take her to be his wife, for the money of her purchase is the money of her espousal."]
VII. We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his service, because he was pre-eminently so IN CONTINUING it. If, at the year of release, it was the servant's choice to remain with his master, law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for him to be held against his will. Yea more, his master was compelled to keep him, however much he might wish to get rid of him.
VIII. The method prescribed for procuring servants, was an appeal to their choice. The Israelites were commanded to offer them a suitable inducement, and then leave them to decide. They might neither seize them by force, nor frighten them by threats, nor wheedle them by false pretences, nor borrow them, nor beg them; but they were commanded to buy them[A]; that is, they were to recognize the right of the individuals to dispose of their own services, and their right to refuse all offers, and thus oblige those who made them, to do their own work. Suppose all, with one accord, had refused to become servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an emergency? NONE.
[Footnote A: The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they had earned enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay the legal penalty, stands by itself, and has nothing to do with the condition of servants.]
IX. Various incidental expressions corroborate the idea that servants became such by their own contract. Job xli. 4, is an illustration, "Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a SERVANT forever?"
X. The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord they came to Joseph and said, "We have not aught left but our bodies and our lands; buy us;" then in the 25th verse, "we will be servants to Pharaoh."
XI. We infer the voluntariness of servants, from the fact that RICH Strangers did not become servants. Indeed, so far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47.
XII. The sacrifices and offerings which ALL were required to present, were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2, 3.
XIII. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants where they were manifestly and pre-eminently VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha. 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his master. The word, translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Num. xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27.
IV.--WERE THE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY?
As the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That they were paid for their labor, we argue,
I. Because God rebuked in thunder, the sin of using the labor of others without wages. "Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOR'S SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES, and giveth him not for his work." Jer. xxii. 13. God here testifies that to use the service of others without wages is "unrighteousness" and pronounces his "wo" against the doer of the "wrong." The Hebrew word Rea, translated neighbor, does not mean one man, or class of men, in distinction from others, but any one with whom we have to do--all descriptions of persons, even those who prosecute us in lawsuits and enemies while in the act of fighting us--"As when a man riseth against his NEIGHBOR and slayeth him." Deut. xxii. 26. "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy NEIGHBOR hath put thee to shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy NEIGHBOR." Ex. xx. 16. "If any man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR to slay him with guile." Ex. xxi. 14, &c.
II. God testifies that in our duty to our fellow men, ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS hang upon this command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses applies this law to the treatment of Strangers, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and clothing also, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of love! Super-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing unto others as we would have them do to us, to make them work for our own good alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard saying against human nature, especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."
III. As persons became servants FROM POVERTY, we argue that they were compensated, since they frequently owned property, and sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David a princely present, "An hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he had twenty servants. In Lev. xxv. 57-59, where a servant, reduced to poverty, sold himself, it is declared that he may be redeemed, either by his kindred, or by HIMSELF. Having been forced to sell himself from poverty, he must have acquired considerable property after he became a servant. If it had not been common for servants to acquire property over which they had the control, the servant of Elisha would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of money, (nearly $3000[A]) from Naaman, 2 Kings v. 22, 23. As it was procured by deceit, he wished to conceal the means used in getting it; but if servants, could "own nothing, nor acquire any thing," to embark in such an enterprise would have been consummate stupidity. The fact of having in his possession two talents of silver, would of itself convict him of theft[B]. But since it was common for servants to own property he might have it, and invest or use it, without attracting special attention, and that consideration alone would have been a strong motive to the act. His master, while rebuking him for using such means to get the money, not only does not take it from him; but seems to expect that he would invest it in real estate, and cattle, and would procure servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. We find the servant of Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emergency. 1 Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the servant of Elah, was the owner of a house. That it was somewhat magnificent, would be a natural inference from it's being a resort of the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. The case of the Gibeonites, who after becoming servants, still occupied their cities, and remained in many respects, a distinct people for centuries; and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the servants of Solomon, who worked out their "tribute of bond-service" in levies, periodically relieving each other, are additional illustrations of independence in the acquisition and ownership of property.
[Footnote A: Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the relative value of that sum, then and now, yet we have enough to warrant us in saying that two talents of silver, had far more value then than three thousand dollars have now.]
[Footnote B: Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing a large amount of money? They "know how to take care of themselves" quite too well for that. When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of such things as will make detection difficult. No doubt they steal now and then a little, and a gaping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in the footsteps of their masters and mistresses? Dull scholars indeed! if, after so many lessons from proficients in the art, who drive the business by wholesale, they should not occasionally copy their betters, fall into the fashion, and try their hand in a small way, at a practice which is the only permanent and universal business carried on around them! Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern set before them in the daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excellences," and to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and Right and Very Reverends! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on Virginia, pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as well as for his slave--and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may slay one who would slay him?"]
IV. Heirship.--Servants frequently inherited their master's property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, Jarha the servant of Sheshan, and the husbandmen who said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xvii. 2--"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?
V. ALL were required to present offerings and sacrifices. Deut. xvi. 15, 17, 2 Chron. xv. 9-11. Numb. ix. 13. Servants must have had permanently, the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.
VI. Those Hebrew servants who went out at the seventh year, were provided by law with a large stock of provisions and cattle. Deut. xv. 11-14. "Thou shall furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy flour, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shall give him[A]." If it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a like bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of Israelitish servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason, they did not go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee. If the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a gratuity proves that they were robbed of their earnings, it proves that the most valued class of Hebrew servants were robbed of theirs also; a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous.
[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows--"Thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c. "That is to say, 'Loading, ye shall load him,' likewise every one of his family, with as much as he can take with him--abundant benefits. And if it be avariciously asked, "How much must I give him?" I say unto you, not less than thirty shekels, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared in Ex. xxi. 32."--Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii. Sec. 3]
VII. The servants were BOUGHT. In other words, they received compensation in advance. Having shown, under a previous head, that servants sold themselves, and of course received the compensation for themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of their children till they became of age[B], a mere reference to the fact is all that is required for the purposes of this argument.
[Footnote B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen years.]
VIII. We find masters at one time having a large number of servants, and afterwards none, without any intimation that they were sold. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and was the master of many servants. Gen. xxx. 43, xxxii. 15. But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32.
IX. God's testimony to the character of Abraham. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep, THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGEMENT." God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth his neighbor's service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY OF HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others? By doing injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back their own? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs? Did he beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!
X. Specific precepts of the Mosaic law enforcing general principles. Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," or literally, while he thresheth. Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular kind of service, all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,--a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man?--MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR SAKES? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE," (2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, YEA, THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this regulation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his services without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM OF HIS EARNINGS?
V.--WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS LEGAL PROPERTY?
The discussion of this topic has already been somewhat anticipated, but a variety of additional considerations remain to be noticed.
1. Servants were not subjected to the uses nor liable to the contingencies of property. (1.) They were never taken in payment for their masters' debts, though children were sometimes taken (without legal authority) for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9; Isa. l., 1; Matt. xviii. 25. Creditors took from debtors property of all kinds, to satisfy their demands. Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; Prov. xxii. 27, household furniture; Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions of the soil; Lev. xxv. 27-30, houses; Ex. xxii. 26-29, Deut. xxiv. 10-13, Matt, v. 40, clothing; but servants were taken in no instance. (2.) Servants were never given as pledges. Property of all sorts was given in pledge. We find household furniture, clothing, cattle, money, signets, and personal ornaments, with divers other articles of property, used as pledges for value received; but no servants. (3.) All lost PROPERTY was to be restored. Oxen, asses, sheep, raiment, and "whatsoever lost things," are specified--servants not. Deut. xxii. 13. Besides, the Israelites were forbidden to return the runaway servant. Deut. xxiii. 15. (4.) The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents. They made costly presents, of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of animals, merchandise, family utensils, precious metals, grain, armor, &c. are among their recorded gifts. Giving presents to superiors and persons of rank, was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27; 1 Sam. xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. But no servants were given as presents--though it was a prevailing fashion in the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16; Gen. xx. 14. It may be objected that Laban GAVE handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives. Without enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent suffice it to say that the handmaids of wives were regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and authority. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse upon Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, and Chron. v. 1; also by the equality of their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had it been otherwise--had Laban given them as articles of property, then, indeed, the example of this "good old patriarch and slaveholder," Saint Laban, would have been a forecloser to all argument. Ah! we remember his jealousy for religion--his holy indignation when he found that his "GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and plunged over the desert in hot pursuit, seven days, by forced marches; how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent, little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for lo! the zeal of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up! No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled before the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a pious worthy to haul up and refit: invoking his protection, and the benediction of his "GODS!" "Again, it may be objected that, servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If that proves servants property, it proves wives property. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's WIFE, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Ex. xx. 17. In inventories of mere property if servants are included, it is in such a way, as to show that they are not regarded as property. See Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But when the design is to show not merely the wealth, but the greatness of any personage, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word, if riches alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants; if greatness, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2. "And Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold." So in the fifth verse, "And Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse servants are mentioned, "And there was a strife between the HERDMEN of Abraham's cattle and the HERDMEN of Lot's cattle." See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen. xxxiv. 23; Job xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job i. 3-5; Deut. viii. 12-17; Gen. xxiv. 35, xxvi. 13, xxx. 43. Jacobs's wives say to him, "All the riches which thou hast taken from our father that is ours and our children's." Then follows an inventory of property. "All his cattle," "all his goods," "the cattle of his getting." He had a large number of servants at the time but they are not included with his property. Comp. Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16-18. When he sent messengers to Esau, wishing to impress him with an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him not only of his RICHES, but of his GREATNESS; that Jacob had "oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which he sent, there were no servants; though he seems to have sought as much variety as possible. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7; Gen. xxxiv. 23. As flocks and herds were the staples of wealth, a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of cattle, which would require many herdsmen. When servants are spoken of in connection with mere property, the terms used to express the latter do not include the former. The Hebrew word Mikne, is an illustration. It is derived from Kana, to procure, to buy, and its meaning is, a possession, wealth, riches. It occurs more than forty times in the Old Testament, and is applied always to mere property, generally to domestic animals, but never to servants. In some instances, servants are mentioned in distinction from the Mikne. And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their SUBSTANCE that they had gathered; and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan."--Gen. xii. 5. Many will have it, that these souls were a part of Abraham's substance (notwithstanding the pains here taken to separate them from it)--that they were slaves taken with him in his migration as a part of his family effects. Who but slaveholders, either actually or in heart, would torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a harmless phrase as "the souls that they had gotten?" Until the slave trade breathed its haze upon the vision of the church, and smote her with palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery in, "The souls that they had gotten." In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is rendered, "The souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Targum of Jonathan, "The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran." In the Targum of Jerusalem, "The souls proselyted in Haran." Jarchi, the prince of Jewish commentators, "The souls whom they had brought under the Divine wings." Jerome, one of the most learned of the Christian fathers, "The persons whom they had proselyted." The Persian version, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Samaritan all render it, "All the wealth which they had gathered, and the souls which they had made in Haran." Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible, renders it, "Quas de idolatraria converterant." "Those whom they had converted from idolatry."--Paulus Fagius[B]. "Quas instituerant in religione." "Those whom they had established in religion." Luke Francke, a German commentator who lived two centuries ago. "Quas legi subjicerant"--"Those whom they had brought to obey the law."
[Footnote A: The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament. The Targum of Onkelas is, for the most part, a very accurate and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, bears about the same date. The Targum of Jerusalem was probably about five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their captivity in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language. These translations into the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of the case.]
[Footnote B: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a century before the date of our present translation.]
II. The condition and treatment of servants make the doctrine that they were mere COMMODITIES, an absurdity. St. Paul's testimony in Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." That Abraham's servants were voluntary, that their interests were identified with those of their master's family, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed.--Gen. xiv. 14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebecca did not disdain to say to him, "Drink, MY LORD," as "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his feet and the men's feet that were with him!" In 1 Sam. ix. is an account of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel presided. None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only "about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a select party!--the elite of the city. Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and both of them, at Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR(!) and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time anointed King of Israel! and this servant introduced by Samuel into the PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the chiefest seat at the table! This was "one of the servants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the steward or the chief of them--not at all a picked man, but "one of the servants;" any one that could be most easily spared, as no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking after asses. Again: we find Elah, the King of Israel, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity.--1 Kings xvi. 8, 9. See also the intercourse between Gideon and his servant.--Judg. vii. 10, 11. Jonathan and his servant.--1 Sam. xiv. 1-14. Elisha and his servant.--2 Kings iv. v. vi.
III. The case of the Gibeonites. The condition of the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Hebrew commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron, could not extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the Israelites? (1.) It was voluntary. Their own proposition to Joshua was to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was accepted, but the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in the Tabernacle. (2.) They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites. They still resided in their own cities, cultivated their own fields, tended their flocks and herds, and exercised the functions of a distinct, though not independent community. They were subject to the Jewish nation as tributaries. So far from being distributed among the Israelites, and their internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they remained a separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many centuries. When attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid--it was rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in their cities. Josh. x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them, seven of Saul's descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no intimation that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at Gilgal, a day's journey from their cities; and then at Shiloh, nearly two day's journey from them; where it continued about 350 years. During this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home. It is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes, ministering in rotation--each class a few days or weeks at a time. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to have been required of the females. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition, and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.
IV. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that could feel; by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"--waking anew the memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them.
God's denunciations against the bondage of Egypt make it incumbent on us to ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what they retained.
EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. (1.) The Israelites were not dispersed among the families of Egypt[A], but formed a separate community. Gen. xlvi. 35. Ex. viii. 22, 24; ix. 26; x. 23; xi. 7; ii. 9; xvi. 22; xvii. 5. (2.) They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen[B]. Gen. xlv. 18; xlvii. 6, 11, 27. Ex. xii. 4, 19, 22, 23, 27. (3.) They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, not tents. In Ex. xii. 6, 22, the two side posts, and the upper door posts, and the lintel of the houses are mentioned. Each family seems to have occupied a house by itself,--Acts vii. 20. Ex. xii. 4--and judging from the regulation about the eating of the Passover, they could hardly have been small ones, Ex. xii. 4, probably contained separate apartments, and places for concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. To have their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv. 11. (4.) They owned "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds," and "very much cattle." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38. (5.) They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and tributary to it. Ex. ii. 1; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; iii. 16, 18. (6.) They seem to have had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own time,--Ex. xxiii. 4; iii. 16, 18, xii. 6; ii. 9; and iv. 27, 29-31. And to have practiced the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4; xxxv. 22-35. (7.) They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. (8.) They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as inviolable. No intimation is given that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of property. (9.) All the females seem to have known something of domestic refinements; they were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25, 26. (10.) Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could he inferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29. (11.) So far from being fed upon a given allowance, their food was abundant, and of great variety. "They sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3; xxiv. 1; xvii. 5; iv. 29; vi. 14; "they did eat fish freely, and cucumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5; x. 18; xx. 5. (12.) The great body of the people were not in the service of the Egyptians. (a.) The extent and variety of their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have furnished constant employment for the main body of the nation. (b.) During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were there to enjoy it. (c.) It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex. iv. 29-31. Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the nation would be absent at any one time. Probably one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it from their crops, (Goshen being better for pasturage) they exacted it of them in brick making; and it is quite probable that labor was exacted only from the poorer Israelites, the wealthy being able to pay their tribute in money. Ex. iv. 27-31. Contrast this bondage of Egypt with American slavery. Have our slaves "very much cattle," and "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own, "sit by the flesh-pots," "eat fish freely," and "eat bread to the full?" Do they live in a separate community, in their distinct tribes, under their own rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an extensive tract of country for the culture of their crops, and for rearing immense herds of their own cattle--and all these held inviolable by their masters? Are our female slaves free from exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage? or when employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman by the king's daughter? Have they the disposal of their own time and the means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and for personal improvement? THE ISRAELITES UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. True, "all the service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." But what was this when compared with the incessant toil of American slaves, the robbery of all their time and earnings, and even the power to "own any thing, or acquire any thing?" a "quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food[C]! their only clothing for one half the year, "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons[D]!" two hours and a half only, for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four[E]!--their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence, with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field. Add to this, the ignorance, and degradation; the daily sundering of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by law, and patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt when compared with this? And yet for her oppression of the poor, God smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she passed away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, knew her no more. Ah! "I have seen the afflictions of my people, and I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." HE DID COME, and Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her. If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy, who cloak with religion a system, in comparison with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing? Let those believe who can that God commissioned his people to rob others of all their rights, while he denounced against them wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the far lighter oppression of Egypt--which robbed it's victims of only the least and cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered even of these. What! Is God divided against himself? When He had just turned Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He license the victims of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As Lawgiver did he create a system tenfold more grinding than that for which he had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes, and his hosts, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming?"
[Footnote A: The Egyptians evidently had domestic servants living in their families; these may have been slaves; allusion is made to them in Ex. ix. 14, 20, 21.]
[Footnote B: The land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of the Pelusian arm of the Nile, and between it and the head of the Red Sea, and the lower border of Palestine. The probable centre of that portion, occupied by the Israelites, could hardly have been less than sixty miles from the city. The border of Goshen nearest to Egypt must have been many miles distant. See "Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt," an able article by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical Repository for October, 1832.]
[Footnote C: Law of N.C. Haywood's Manual 524-5.]
[Footnote D: Law of La. Martin's Digest, 610.]
[Footnote E: Law of La. Act of July 7, 1806. Martin's Digest, 610-12.]
We now proceed to examine various objections which will doubtless be set in array against all the foregoing conclusions.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wits end in pressing the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them hard-pushed. Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions, and blind guesswork, proclaim both their cause desperate, and themselves. The Bible defences thrown around slavery by professed ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical facts it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, ignorance, or blasphemy, predominates in the compound; each strives so lustily for the mastery it may be set down a drawn battle. How often has it been bruited that the color of the negro is the Cain-mark, propagated downward. Cain's posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out the flood with flying streamers! Why should not a miracle be wrought to point such an argument, and fill out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed, vindicating the ways of God to man?
OBJECTION 1. "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Gen. ix. 25.
This prophecy of Noah is the vade mecum of slaveholders, and they never venture abroad without it; it is a pocket-piece for sudden occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, and a magnet to draw around their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a throbbing conscience--a mocking lullaby, to unquiet tossings, and vainly crying "Peace be still," where God wakes war, and breaks his thunders. Those who justify negro slavery by the curse of Canaan, assume all the points in debate. (1.) That slavery was prophesied rather than mere service to others, and individual bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. (2.) That the prediction of crime justifies it; at least absolving those whose crimes fulfill it, if not transforming the crimes into virtues. How piously the Pharoahs might have quoted the prophecy "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and they shall afflict there four hundred years." And then, what saints were those that crucified the Lord of glory! (3.) That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Whereas Africa was peopled from Egypt and Ethiopia, and they were settled by Mizraim and Cush. For the location and boundaries of Canaan's posterity, see Gen. x. 15-19. So a prophecy of evil to one people, is quoted to justify its infliction upon another. Perhaps it may be argued that Canaan includes all Ham's posterity. If so, the prophecy is yet unfulfilled. The other sons of Ham settled Egypt and Assyria, and, conjointly with Shem, Persia, and afterward, to some extent, the Grecian and Roman empires. The history of these nations gives no verification of the prophecy. Whereas, the history of Canaan's descendants for more than three thousand years, records its fulfilment. First, they were put to tribute by the Israelites; then by the Medes and Persians; then by the Macedonians, Grecians and Romans, successively; and finally, were subjected by the Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan has been for ages the servant mainly of Shem and Japhet, and secondarily of the other sons of Ham. It may still be objected, that though Canaan alone is named in the curse, yet the 23d and 24th verses show the posterity of Ham in general to be meant. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without." "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his YOUNGER son had done unto him, and said," &c. It is argued that this "younger son" can not be Canaan, as he was the grandson of Noah, and therefore it must be Ham. We answer, whoever that "younger son" was, Canaan alone was named in the curse. Besides, the Hebrew word Ben, signifies son, grandson, or any of one the posterity of an individual. "Know ye Laban the SON of Nahor?" Laban was the grandson of Nahor. Gen. xxix. 5. "Mephibosheth the SON of Saul." 2 Sam. xix. 24. Mephibosheth was the grandson of Saul. 2 Sam. ix. 6. "There is a SON born to Naomi." Ruth iv. 17. This was the son of Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi. "Let seven men of his (Saul's) SONS be delivered unto us." 2 Sam. xxi. 6. Seven of Saul's grandsons were delivered up. "Laban rose up and kissed his SONS." Gen. xxi. 55. These were his grandsons. "The driving of Jehu the SON of Nimshi." 2 Kings ix. 20. Jehu was the grandson of Nimshi. Shall we forbid the inspired writer to use the same word when speaking of Noah's grandson? Further; Ham was not the "younger" son. The order of enumeration makes him the second son. If it be said that Bible usage varies, the order of birth not always being observed in enumerations, the reply is, that, enumeration in that order is the rule, in any other order the exception. Besides, if a younger member of a family, takes precedence of older ones in the family record, it is a mark of pre-eminence, either in endowments, or providential instrumentality. Abraham, though sixty years younger than his eldest brother, stands first in the family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history shows him pre-eminent; besides, the Hebrew word Hakkatan rendered "the younger," means the little, small. The same word is used in Isa. xl. 22. "A LITTLE ONE shall become a thousand." Isa. xxii. 24. "All vessels of SMALL quantity." Ps. cxv. 13. "He will bless them that fear the Lord both SMALL and great." Ex. xviii. 22. "But every SMALL matter they shall judge." It would be a literal rendering of Gen. ix. 24, if it were translated thus. "When Noah knew what his little son[A], or grandson (Beno Hakkatan) had done unto him, he said cursed be Canaan," &c. Further, even if the Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the assumption that their enslavement fulfils this prophecy, lacks even plausibility, for, only a fraction of the Africans have at any time been the slaves of other nations. If the objector say in reply, that a large majority of the Africans have always been slaves at home, we answer: It is false in point of fact, though zealously bruited often to serve a turn; and if it were true, how does it help the argument? The prophecy was, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his BRETHREN," not unto himself!
[Footnote A: The French follows the same analogy; grandson being petit fils (little son.)]
OBJECTION II.--"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of this regulation? Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offense shall not be capital? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered from Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will find a moot court in session, trying law points--settling definitions, or laying down rules of evidence, in almost every chapter. Num. xxxv. 10-22; Deut. xi. 11, and xix. 4-6; Lev. xxiv. 19-22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are a few, out of many cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect the intent, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judicial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions necessary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable them to get at the motive and find out whether the master designed to kill. (1.) "If a man smite his servant with a rod."--The instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Num. xxxv. 16, 18. A rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon--hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be inferred; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. But if the servant die under his hand, then the unfitness of the instrument, is point blank against him; for, to strike him with a rod until he dies, argues a great many blows and great violence, and this kept up to the death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence "He shall surely be punished." But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, together with the kind of instrument used, and the master's pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,") all made a strong case of circumstantial evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill. Further, the word nakam, here rendered punished, is not so rendered in another instance. Yet it occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every place is translated "avenge," in a few, "to take vengeance," or "to revenge," and in this instance ALONE, "punish." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master, whereas it should refer to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged. The meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master. So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the death of the master, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places. One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal. The other, an accidental, and comparatively slight injury--of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! "He shall surely be punished." Now, just the discrimination to be looked for where God legislates, is marked in the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says, "It (the death) shall surely be avenged," that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be fined," (Aunash.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word anash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19: "They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3: "He condemned (mulcted) the land in a hundred talents of gold." That avenging the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, nor stripes, nor a fine, but that it was taking the master's life we infer, (1.) From the use of the word nakam. See Gen. iv. 24; Josh. x. 13; Judg. xiv. 7; xvi. 28; I Sam. xiv. 24; xviii. 25; xxv. 31; 2 Sam. iv. 8; Judg. v. 2: I Sam. xxv. 26-33. (2.) From the express statute, Lev. xxiv. 17; "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be put to death." Also Num. xxxv. 30, 31: "Whoso killeth ANY person, the murderer shall be put to death. Moreover, ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death." (3.) The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem. "Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost." Jarchi, the same. The Samaritan version: "He shall die the death," Again the clause "for he is his money," is quoted to prove that the servant is his master's property, and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY." proves not only that the servant is worth money to the master, but that he is an article of property. If the advocates of slavery insist upon taking the principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turning it loose, let them stand and draw in self-defence. If they endorse for it at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears the table, and tilts them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as the following: "This (bread) is my body;" "this (wine) is my blood;" "all they (the Israelites) are brass and tin;" "this (water) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "the Lord God is a sun and a shield;" "God is love;" "the seven good ears are seven years, and the seven good kine are seven years;" "the tree of the field is man's life;" "God is a consuming fire;" "he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact literalities of the Bible is so amiable, it were hard not to gratify it in this case. The words in the original are (Kaspo-hu,) "his silver is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is a philosopher's stone! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into solid silver! Quite a permanent servant, if not so nimble with all--reasoning against "forever," is forestalled henceforth, and, Deut. xxiii. 15, utterly outwitted. The obvious meaning of the phrase, "He is his money," is, he is worth money to his master, and since, if the master had killed him, it would have taken money out of his pocket, the pecuniary loss, the kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living some time after the injury, (if the master meant to kill, he would be likely to do it while about it,) all together make a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master of intent to kill. But let us look at the objector's inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his property as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he was equally his property, and the objector admits that in the first case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying his own property! The other inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of intent to kill, the loss of the slave would be a sufficient punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A pecuniary loss was no part of the legal claim, where a person took the life of another. In such case, the law spurned money, whatever the sum. God would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide, where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Numb. xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a penalty adequate to the desert of the master, admits his guilt and his desert of some punishment, and it prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law in all cases where man took the life of man, whether with or without the intent to kill. In short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system--makes a new law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit. Divine legislation revised and improved! The master who struck out his servant's tooth, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him free. The pecuniary loss to the master was the same as though he had killed him. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so that he dies of his wounds; another accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth,--the pecuniary loss of both cases is the same. If the loss of the slave's services is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him, would God command the same punishment for the accidental knocking out of a tooth? Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertantly, the loss of the servant's services was only a part of the punishment--mere reparation to the individual for injury done; the main punishment, that strictly judicial, was reparation to the community. To set the servant free, and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it--answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an example of the offender. That "those that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out his servant's tooth the law smote out his tooth--thus redressing the public wrong; and it cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some compensation for the injury done, and exempting him form perilous liabilities in future.
OBJECTION III. "Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the stranger that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possessions. And ye shall take them as an inheritance of your children from you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." Lev, xxv. 44-46.
The points in these verses urged as proof, that the Mosaic system sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." and 4. "FOREVER."
The buying of servants was discussed, pp. 17-22, and holding them as a "possession." pp. 37-46. We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery is derivable from the terms "bondmen," "inheritance," and "forever."
1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called "bondmen," while others are called "servants," is quoted as proof that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The Hebrew word "ebedh," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen," is in Isa. xlii. 1, applied to Christ. "Behold my servant (bondman, slave?) whom I have chosen." So Isa. lii. 13. "Behold my servant (Christ) shall deal prudently." In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, to King Rehoboam. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a servant unto this people, then they will be thy servants forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation. In fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service for others--to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to tributaries, to all the subjects of governments, to younger sons--defining their relation to the first born, who is called Lord and ruler--to prophets, to kings, to the Messiah, and in respectful addresses not less than fifty times in the Old Testament.
If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if Abraham had thousands and if they abounded under the Mosaic system, why had their language no word that meant slave? That language must be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an "ebedh," yet he "owned" (!) twenty ebedhs! In our language, we have both servant and slave. Why? Because we have both the things and need signs for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some name for it: but our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such thing. But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word ebedh if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their national servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestic servants so rarely that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under heathen laws and usages proclaimed their liabilities, their locality made a specific term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had not only servants, but a multitude of slaves, a word meaning slave, would have been indispensable for every day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages between the without and the within.
2. "FOREVER." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their posterity from generation to generation. No such idea is contained in the passage. The word "forever," instead of defining the length of individual service, proclaims the permanence of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that their permanent domestics should be of the Strangers, and not of the Israelites: it declares the duration of that general provision. As if God had said, "You shall always get your permanent laborers from the nations round about you--your servants shall always be of that class of persons." As it stands in the original it is plain--"Forever of them shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering.
That "forever" refers to the permanent relations of a community, rather than to the services of individuals, is a fair inference from the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the heathen. Of THEM shall ye buy," &c. "THEY shall be your possession." To say nothing of the uncertainty of those individuals surviving those after whom they are to live, the language used, applies more naturally to a body of people, than to individual servants. Besides perpetual service cannot be argued from the term forever. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter, limit it absolutely by the jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * * throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means Israelitish inhabitants alone. The command is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in, by the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock, that made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of our salvation lives "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism. It not only eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal to release servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's redemption. Finally, even if forever did refer to individual service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same word defines the length of time which Jewish servants served who did not go out in the seventh year. And all admit that they went out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "forever" in the 46th verse, extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the land is mine"--since it would hardly be used in different senses in the same general connection. As forever, in the 46th verse, respects the general arrangement, and not individual service the objection does not touch the argument. Besides in the 46th verse, the word used, is Olam, meaning throughout the period, whatever that may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth, meaning, a cutting off.
3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION," "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a possession." This refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants, procured from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not be held as a property-possession, and inheritance; that they became servants of their own accord, and were paid wages; that they were released by law from their regular labor nearly half the days in each year, and thoroughly instructed; that the servants were protected in all their personal, social and religious rights, equally with their masters &c. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable "possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, "Our PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words nahal and nahala, inherit and inheritance by no means necessarily signify articles of property. "The people answered the king and said, we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they moan gravely to disclaim the holding of their kin; as an article of property? "Children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps. cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine inheritance." Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them articles of property? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes? "Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage" (inheritance.) Ps. cxix. 111. "I am their inheritance." Ezek. xliv. 28. "I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Ps. ii. 8. "For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance." Ps. xciv 14. see also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 8. The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"possession," has been already discussed--pp. 37-46--we need add in this place but a word, ahuzza rendered "possession." "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlii. 11. In what sense was Goshen the possession of the Israelites? Answer, in the sense of having it to live in. In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for their children? Answer, they possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye get male and female domestics." "Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye get, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your permanent resource." "And ye shall take them as a perpetual provision for your children after you, to hold as a constant source of supply. Always of them shall ye serve yourselves." The design of the passage is manifest from its structure. It was to point out the class of persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the way in which they were to get them.
OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT, but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.
As only one class is called "hired," it is inferred that servants of the other class were not paid for their labor. That God, with thundering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people. The inference that "hired" is synonymous with paid, and that those servants not called "hired" were not paid for their labor, is a mere assumption. The meaning of the English verb to hire, is to procure for a temporary use at a certain price--to engage a person to temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word "saukar." It is not used when the procurement of permanent service is spoken of. Now, we ask, would permanent servants, those who constituted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the same term that marks temporary servants? The every-day distinction on this subject, are familiar as table-talk. In many families the domestics perform only the regular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. The familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," and "hired help," (not paid help.) Both classes are paid. One is permanent, the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called "hired[A]."
[Footnote A: To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a hired servant is profound induction! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "hired" man, but if I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm "on shares," every farmer knows that he is no longer called my "hired" man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same time, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps earns twenty dollars a month, instead of twelve. Now as he is no longer called "hired," and as he still works my farm, suppose my neighbours sagely infer, that since he is not my "hired" laborer, I rob him of his earnings and with all the gravity of owls, pronounce the oracular decision, and hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep divers!--like some theological professors, they not only go to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]
A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing hired from bought servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at the close of their work. Lev. xix 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8. "Bought" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being called bought,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a gratuity. Deut. xv. 12, 13. (2.) The "hired" were paid in money, the "bought" received their gratuity, at least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xiv. 17. (3.) The "hired" lived in their own families, the "bought" were part of their masters' families. (4.) The "hired" supported their families out of their wages: the "bought" and their families were supported by the master besides their wages. The "bought" servants were, as a class, superior to the hired--were more trust-worthy, had greater privileges, and occupied a higher station in society. (1.) They were intimately incorporated with the family of the masters, were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10; Ex. xii, 43, 45. (2.) Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters' family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their masters' estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this is the heir, come let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." Luke xx. 14. In no instance does a hired servant inherit his master's estate. (3.) Marriages took place between servants and their master's daughters. Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife. 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a hired servant forming such an alliance. (4.) Bought servants and their descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the other members of the family.[A]. The treatment of Abraham's servants, Gen. xxv.--the intercourse between Gideon and his servant, Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. iv. 5, 22; Jonathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and his servant, are illustrations. No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants and their masters. Their untrustworthiness was proverbial. John ix. 12, 13. None but the lowest class engaged as hired servants, and the kinds of labor assigned to them required little knowledge and skill. Various passages show the low repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high trusts confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the household. In no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. The bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family--with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant not to take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The servant himself selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary power in the management of their masters' estates, "And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his master were under his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned for taking them, is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So in Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii, 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents; the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with a large capital. The unjust steward had large discretionary power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods," and manifestly regulated with his debtors, the terms of settlement. Luke xvi. 4-8. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants.
[Footnote A: "For the purchased servant who is an Israelite, or proselyte, shall fare as his master. The master shall not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor yet drink old wine, and give his servant new; nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a purchased servant does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if he got himself a master."--Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1, Sec. 2.]
The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart broke; "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father." And then to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." If hired servants were the superior class--to apply for the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's face" who runs to clasp and bless him with unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he sobs aloud. "The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. (Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all.") If this were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of an ill-desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in apeing it.
Israelites and Strangers, belonged indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely political, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than even the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought servants--the Israelites and the Strangers. The Israelite was to serve six years--the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even houses, except within walled towns, most would attach themselves to Israelitish families. Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Stranger's to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six years[A]; as, during that time--if of the first class--the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place; or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service; and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as a general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies--a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was a permanent employment, pursued both as a means of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were graduated upon a septennial scale. Besides as those Israelites who became servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients to recruit their finances had failed--(Lev. xxv. 35)--their becoming servants proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them.]
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen,) (1.) They followed it as a permanent business. (2.) Their term of service was much longer than that of the other class. (3.) As a class they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. (4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land were tributaries, required to pay an annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service, (called a "tribute of land-service;") in other words, all the Strangers were national servants to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word used to designate individual servants, equally designates national servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron. viii. 7-9. Deut xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 Kings iv. 21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3. Judg. iii. 8, 14. Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, was in their kinds of service. The servants from the Strangers were properly the domestics, or household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was required by increasing wants, and needed repairs. The Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively agricultural. Besides being better fitted for it by previous habits--agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field." 1 Sam. xi. 7. Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon was "threshing wheat" when called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agriculture, is shown, in that it was protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy--God indicating it as the chief prop of the government. The Israelites were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturalists on their own inheritances, was with them the grand claim to honorable estimation. Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed degrading. In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically to unjew him, a hardship and rigor grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers.--To guard this and another fundamental distinction, God instituted the regulation which stands at the head of this branch of our inquiry, "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to servant's work--to the business, and into the condition of domestics. In the Persian version it is translated thus, "Thou shalt not assign to him the work of servitude." In the Septuagint, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a domestic." In the Syriac, "Thou shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan, "Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[A] The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics. The remainder of the regulation is,--"But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters: they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority; and this even though they resided under the same roof with their master. While bought servants were associated with their master's families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable to masters, is that of keeping back their wages. To have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would have been pre-eminent "rigor," for it was not a servant born in the house of a master, not a minor, whose minority had been sold by the father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance: nor finally, one who had received the assignment of his inheritance, but was working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its possession and control. But it was that of the head of a family, who had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage; he is an Israelite--Abraham is his father, and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all." To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with" peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or literally, thou shalt not serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties his political privileges, and a kind and grade of service, comporting with his character and relations as an Israelite. And "as a hired servant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service as to alleviate as much as possible the calamity, which had reduced him from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The import of the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, ("Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not disregard those differences in previous associations, station, authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based; for to hold this class of servants irrespective of these distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the disregard of which would be rigorous in the extreme[B]. The construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and commissioned their infliction upon the Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering captivates scoffers and libertines; its flippancy and blasphemy, and the strong scent of its loose-reined license works like a charm upon them. What boots it to reason against such rampant affinities! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that the Egyptians "made the children of Israel to serve with rigor." This rigor is affirmed of the amount of labor extorted and the mode of the exaction. The expression, "serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shalt not RULE over him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise. But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the same term of time, and under the same political disabilities as the latter.
[Footnote A: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shall not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" is, "The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his master's shoe-latchet, bringing him water to wash his feet and hands, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor, until his legal release."]
[Footnote B: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions, based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation of national characteristics, and a national worship, did not at all affect their social estimation. They were regarded according to their character, and worth as persons, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments, and political condition.]
We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each class. In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in their persons, character, property and social relations; all were voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released from it nearly half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated instruction: none in either class were in any sense articles of property, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, hopes and destinies of men. In all these respects, all classes of servants among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLASS. The different classes and the differences in each class, were, (1.) Hired Servants. This class consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were different. The Israelite was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was a domestic and personal servant, and in some instances mechanical; both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own families, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work was done. (2.) Bought Servants, (including those "born in the house.") This class also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in their kinds of employments noticed before. Both were paid in advance[A], and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the exception of the freeholders was released after six years. The stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked distinction obtained also between different classes of Jewish bought servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master's family, and, like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But the freeholder was a marked exception: his family relations, and authority remained unaffected, nor was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent upon him for employment.
[Footnote A: The payment in advance, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the master assuming all the risks of life and health for labor: at the expiration of the six year's contract, the master having suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c.]
It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal natural and religious rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own people who were not servants. They also shared in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters of Jewish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively political and national. (1.) They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. (2.) They were ineligible to civil offices. (3.) They were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute, and deemed unjewish.
Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political privileges, their condition was much like that of naturalized foreigners in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privilege, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration. Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government "rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.
FINALLY,--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve serve inviolate the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex. xxi. 2-6, is an illustration. In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term expired in six years, married one of his master's permanent female domestics; but her marriage, did not release her master from his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific grade and term of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfill her part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To render it void, would have been to divide the system against itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father. By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant in the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his taste and skill. The great number of days on which the law released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more time with his family, than can be spent by most of the agents of our benevolent societies with their families, or by many merchants, editors, artists &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.
We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, which, though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the whole tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,--"The slavery of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins." If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh at itself, it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. For, be it remembered, only one statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was pronounced against them, and afterwards commuted, when? where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation, and where is it recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination; as there was no reversal of the sentence, how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him man--rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal human nature, and instead of healing a wound, gives a death-stab. What! repair an injury to rational being in the robbery of one of its rights, by robbing it of all, and annihilating their foundation--the everlasting distinction between persons and things? To make a man a chattel, is not the punishment, but the annihilation of a human being, and, so far as it goes, of all human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate, from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it! Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, rather than laid down as doctrines. The directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages: Ex. xxiii. 23-33; xxxiv. 11; Deut. vii. 16-25; ix. 3; xxxi. 3-5. In these verses, the Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites," "drive out," "consume," "utterly overthrow," "put out," "dispossess them," &c. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the inhabitants or merely of the body politic? The word haram, to destroy, signifies national, as well as individual destruction, the destruction of political existence, equally with personal; of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects. Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to mean personal destruction, what meaning shall we give to the expressions, "throw out before thee;" "cast out before thee;" "expel," "put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same passages? "I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee" Ex. xxiii. 27. Here "all thine enemies" were to turn their backs and "all the people" to be "destroyed." Does this mean that God would let all their enemies escape, but kill all their friends, or that he would first kill "all the people" and THEN make them "turn their backs," an army of runaway corpses? If these commands required the destruction of all the inhabitants, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for directions as to the treatment of native residents form a large part of it. See Lev. xix. 34; xxv. 35, 36; xx. 22. Ex. xxiii. 9; xxii. 21; Deut. i. 16, 17; x. 17, 19, xxvii. 19. We find, also that provision was made for them in the cities of refuge. Num. xxxv. 15;--the gleanings of the harvest and vintage were theirs, Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxiii. 22;--the blessings of the Sabbath, Ex. xx. 10;--the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev. xxii. 18; and stated religious instruction provided for them, Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now does this same law require the individual extermination of those whose lives and interests it thus protects? These laws were given to the Israelites, long before they entered Canaan; and they must have inferred from them that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land were to continue in it, under their government. Again Joshua was selected as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan. He had no discretionary power. God's commands were his official instructions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation; refusing to carry them out rebellion and treason. Saul was rejected from being king for disobeying god's commands in a single instance. Now, if God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanites. Joshua disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, the Israelites still "dwelt among them," and each nation is mentioned by name. Judg. i. 5, and yet we are told that Joshua "left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses;" and that he "took all that land." Josh. xi. 15-22. Also, that "there stood not a man of all their enemies before them." How can this be, if the command to destroy enjoined individual extermination, and the command to drive out, unconditional expulsion from the country, rather than their expulsion from the possession or ownership of it, as the lords of the soil? True, multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but not a case can be found in which one was either killed or expelled who acquiesced in the transfer of the territory, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and her kindred, and the Gibeonites[A]. The Canaanites knew of the miracles wrought for the Israelites; and that their land had been transferred to them as a judgment for their sins. Josh. ii. 9-11; ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance. Others defied God and came out to battle. These occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate heathen--the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellite, and retainers that aided in idolatrous rites, and the military forces, with the chief profligates of both sexes. Many facts corroborate the general position. Such as the multitude of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, after they had "waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of their name--the Canaanites, Philistines, and others, who became proselytes--as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite--Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah--Ittai--the six hundred Gitites--David's body guard. 2 Sam. xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, adopted into the tribe of Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18, and 1 Chron. xxvi. 45--Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron. xxvi. 30, 31, 33. Jephunneh the father of Caleb, the Kenite, registered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, and the one hundred and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of the Temple[B]. Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to save a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those who would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12-14. Further--the terms employed in the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites, such as "drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c. seem used interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c., and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar terms, we refer to the history of the Amelekites. "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amelek from under heaven." Ex. xxvii. 14. "Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amelek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. "Smite Amelek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Saul smote the Amelekites, and took Agag the king of the Amelekites, alive and UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." Verses 7, 8. In verse 20, Saul says, "I have brought Agag, the king of Amelek, and have utterly destroyed the Amelekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. we find the Amelekites marching an army into Israel, and sweeping everything before them--and this in about eighteen years after they had all been "UTTERLY DESTROYED!" Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding view. We argue that the command in these verses, did not include all the individuals of the Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabitants of the cities, (and even those conditionally,) because, only the inhabitants of the cities are specified,--"of the cities of these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Cities then, as now, were pest-houses of vice--they reeked with abominations little practiced in the country. On this account their influence would be far more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. Besides, they were the centres of idolatry--there were the temples and altars, and idols, and priests, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea,--"that they teach you not to do after all the abominations which they have done unto their gods." This would be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals around them, as all were idolaters; but God commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with any of them would be perilous--with the inhabitants of the cities peculiarly, and of the Canaanitish cities pre-eminently so. The 10th and 11th verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to be summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the offer of peace--if it was accepted, the inhabitants became tributaries--but if they came out against Israel in battle, the men were to be killed, and the women and little ones saved alive. The 15th verse restricts this lenient treatment to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th directs as to the disposal of the inhabitants of Canaanitish cities. They were to save alive "nothing that breathed." The common mistake has been, in supposing that the command in the 15th verse refers to the whole system of directions preceding, commencing with the 10th, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in the 12th, 13th, and 14th, making a distinction between those Canaanitish cities that fought, and the cities afar off that fought--in one case destroying the males and females, and in the other, the males only. The offer of peace, and the conditional preservation, were as really guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle. But let us settle this question by the "law and the testimony." "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xix. 19, 20. That is, if they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been "destroyed utterly." The great design was to transfer the territory of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereignty in every respect; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, and jurisprudence and their system of religion, with all its rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. In a word the people were to be denationalized, their political existence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, images groves and heathen rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute. Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land[C]; or acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, under the protection of the government; or resistance to the execution of the decree, with death. "And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the Lord liveth as they taught my people to swear by Baal; THEN SHALL THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."
[Footnote A: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation. If God had strictly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save themselves was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war? What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding than God's command? So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command. When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in "his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah," God sent upon Israel three years famine for it. When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Sam. xxii. 1-6.]
[Footnote B: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the temple,--what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass through the fire to Moloch.]
[Footnote C: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require the Israelites to chase them to the ends of the earth and hunt them out, until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for belief and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean unconditional, individual extermination.]
[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of proof which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted investigation.]
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER NO 4.
THE
BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS
ON THE SUBJECT OF
HUMAN RIGHTS.
Fourth Edition--Enlarged.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1838.
This No. contains 7 sheets:--Postage, under 100 miles, 10 1/2 cents; over 100 miles, 14 cents.
Please read and Circulate.
CONTENTS.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY,
NEGATIVE,
AFFIRMATIVE,
LEGAL,
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY
"THOU SHALT NOT STEAL,"
"THOU SHALT NOT COVET,"
MAN-STEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 16,
SEPARATION OF MAN FROM BRUTES AND THINGS,
IMPORT OF "BUY" AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY,"
SERVANTS SOLD THEMSELVES,
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED BY LAW TO SERVANTS,
SERVANTS WERE VOLUNTARY,
RUNAWAY SERVANTS NOT TO BE DELIVERED TO THEIR MASTERS,
SERVANTS WERE PAID WAGES,
MASTERS NOT "OWNERS,"
SERVANTS NOT SUBJECTED TO THE USES OF PROPERTY,
SERVANTS EXPRESSLY DISTINGUISHED FROM PROPERTY,
EXAMINATION OF GEN. xii. 5.--"THE SOULS THAT THEY HAD GOTTEN," &c.
SOCIAL EQUALITY OF SERVANTS AND MASTERS,
CONDITION OF THE GIBEONITES AS SUBJECTS OF THE HEBREW COMMONWEALTH,
EGYPTIAN BONDAGE CONTRASTED WITH AMERICAN SLAVERY,
CONDITION OF AMERICAN SLAVES,
ILL FED,
ILL CLOTHED,
OVER-WORKED,
THEIR DWELLING UNFIT FOR HUMAN BEINGS,
MORAL CONDITION--"HEATHENS,"
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"CURSED BE CANAAN," &c.--EXAMINATION OF GEN. ix. 25,
"FOR HE IS HIS MONEY," &c.--EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 20, 21,
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 44-46,
"BOTH THY BONDMEN, &c., SHALL BE OF THE HEATHEN,"
"OF THEM SHALL YE BUY,"
"THEY SHALL BE YOUR BONDMEN FOREVER,"
"YE SHALL TAKE THEM AS AN INHERITANCE," &c.
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 39, 40.--THE FREEHOLDER NOT TO "SERVE AS A BOND SERVANT,"
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIRED AND BOUGHT SERVANTS,
BOUGHT SERVANTS THE MOST FAVORED AND HONORED CLASS,
ISRAELITES AND STRANGERS BELONGED TO BOTH CLASSES,
ISRAELITES SERVANTS TO THE STRANGERS,
REASONS FOR THE RELEASE OF THE ISRAELITISH SERVANTS IN THE SEVENTH YEAR,
REASONS FOR ASSIGNING THE STRANGERS TO A LONGER SERVICE,
REASONS FOR CALLING THEM THE SERVANTS,
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SERVICE ASSIGNED TO THE ISRAELITES AND STRANGERS,
REVIEW OF ALL THE CLASSES OF SERVANTS WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF EACH,
POLITICAL DISABILITIES OF THE STRANGERS,
EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 2-6.--"IF THOU BUY AN HEBREW SERVANT,"
THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION,
THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
The spirit of slavery never seeks refuge in the Bible of its own accord. The horns of the altar are its last resort--seized only in desperation, as it rushes from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other unclean spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, glowing on every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons quailed before the Son of God, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away under the types of the Mosaic system, and seeks to burrow out of sight among their shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It flies from light into the sun; from heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice of God into the thickest of His thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must determine what slavery is. An element, is one thing; a relation, another; an appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose other things to which they belong. To regard them as the things themselves, or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. Mere political disabilities are often confounded with slavery; so are many relations, and tenures, indispensible to the social state. We will specify some of these.
1. PRIVATION OF SUFFRAGE. Then minors are slaves.
2. INELIGIBILITY TO OFFICE. Then females are slaves.
3. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Then slaveholders in the District of Columbia are slaves.
4. PRIVATION OF ONE'S OATH IN LAW. Then atheists are slaves.
5. PRIVATION OF TRIAL BY JURY. Then all in France are slaves.
6. BEING REQUIRED TO SUPPORT A PARTICULAR RELIGION. Then the people of England are slaves.
7. APPRENTICESHIP. The rights and duties of master and apprentice are correlative. The claim of each upon the other results from his obligation to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed while the law is just to the former it is benevolent to the latter; its main design being rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. To the master it secures a mere compensation--to the apprentice, both a compensation and a virtual gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law not only recognizes the right of the apprentice to a reward for his labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master. Neither can hold the other as property; but each holds property in the services of the other, and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
8. FILIAL SUBORDINATION AND PARENTAL CLAIMS. Both are nature's dictates, and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural affections which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, and are a shield for mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the child's services, is a slight return for the care and toil of his rearing, exclusively of outlays for support and education. This provision is, with the mass of mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the family state. The child, in helping his parents, helps himself--increases a common stock, in which he has a share; while his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot cancel.
9. CLAIMS OF GOVERNMENT ON SUBJECTS. Governments owe their subjects protection; subjects owe just governments allegiance and support. The obligations of both are reciprocal, and the benefits received by both are mutual, equal, and voluntarily rendered.
10. BONDAGE FOR CRIME. Must innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without pay; and well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not pay its drafts on him. He will die a public defaulter. Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? The law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its product. Are children born of convicts, government property? Besides, can property be guilty? Can chattels deserve punishment?
11. RESTRAINTS UPON FREEDOM. Children are restrained by parents, pupils, by teachers, patients, by physicians, corporations, by charters, and legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Restraints are the web of civilized society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then a government of LAW, is the climax of slavery!
12. INVOLUNTARY OR COMPULSORY SERVICE. A juryman is empannelled against his will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders must turn in. Men are compelled to remove nuisances, pay fines and taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the law directs," however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves? To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a condition. The slave's feelings toward it cannot alter its nature. Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder's guilt. Suppose he should really believe himself a chattel, and consent to be so regarded by others, would that make him a chattel, or make those guiltless who hold him as such? I may be sick of life, and I tell the assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does my consent to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt, blot out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far from lessening the guilt of his "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that cheats him out of his birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions are appendages of slavery, but no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging element.
ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free agents, chattels--converting persons into things--sinking immortality into merchandize. A slave is one held in this condition. In law, "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself is abrogated. If he say my hands, my body, my mind, MY_self_, they are figures of speech. To use himself for his own good, is a crime. To keep what he earns, is stealing. To take his body into his own keeping, is insurrection. In a word, the profit of his master is made the END of his being, and he, a mere means to that end--a mere means to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they constitute no portion[A]. MAN, sunk to a thing! the intrinsic element, the principle of slavery; MEN, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions, and knocked off at a public outcry! Their rights, another's conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article or a plaything, as best suits the humour of the hour; their deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes--marketable commodities! We repeat it, THE REDUCTION OF PERSONS TO THINGS! Not robbing a man of privileges, but of himself; not loading him with burdens, but making him a beast of burden; not restraining liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them; not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating personality; not exacting involuntary labor, but sinking man into an implement of labor; not abridging human comforts, but abrogating human nature; not depriving an animal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of attributes--uncreating a MAN, to make room for a thing!
[Footnote A: To deprive human nature of any of its rights is oppression; to take away the foundation of its rights is slavery. In other words, whatever sinks man from an END to a mere means, just so far makes him a slave. Hence West-India apprenticeship retained the cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three-fourths of his time, was forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so far forth he was a mere means, a slave. True in other respects slavery was abolished in the British West Indies August, 1834. Its bloodiest features were blotted out--but the meanest and most despicable of all--forcing the poor to work for the rich without pay three fourths of their time, with a legal officer to flog them if they demurred at the outrage, was one of the provisions of the "Emancipation Act!" For the glories of that luminary, abolitionists thanked God, while they mourned that it rose behind clouds and shone through an eclipse. [West India apprenticeship is now (August 1838) abolished. On the first of the present month, every slave in every British island and colony stood up a freeman!--Note to fourth edition.] ]
That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states. Judge Stroud, in his "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says, "The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things--obtains as undoubted law in all of these [the slave] states." The law of South Carolina says, "Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER." Brev. Dig., 229. In Louisiana, "A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs; the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but what must belong to his master."--Civ. Code, Art. 35.
This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a thing, trampled under foot--the crowning distinction of all others--alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value--the rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God to universal homage in a baptism of glory and honor, by the gift of his Son, his Spirit, his word, his presence, providence, and power; his shield, and staff, and sheltering wing; his opening heavens, and angels ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great voice in heaven proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the word with signs following.
Having stated the principle of American slavery, we ask, DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION SUCH A PRINCIPLE?[A] "To the law and the testimony?"
[Footnote A: The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character. It vouches for them as facts, not as virtues. It records without rebuke, Noah's drunkenness, Lot's incest, and the lies of Jacob and his mother--not only single acts, but usages, such as polygamy and concubinage, are entered on the record without censure. Is that silent entry God's endorsement? Because the Bible in its catalogue of human actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and number, and write against it, this is a crime--does that wash out its guilt, and bleach it into a virtue?]
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY.
Just after the Israelites were emancipated from their bondage in Egypt, while they stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and the mount quaked and blazed, God spake the ten commandments from the midst of clouds and thunderings. Two of those commandments deal death to slavery. "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," or, "thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him." All man's powers are God's gift to HIM. Each of them is a part of himself, and all of them together constitute himself. All else that belongs to man, is acquired by the use of these powers. The interest belongs to him, because the principal does; the product is his, because he is the producer. Ownership of any thing, is ownership of its use. The right to use according to will, is itself ownership. The eighth commandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right to himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic--his right to anything else is merely relative to this, is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the foundation right--the post in the middle, to which all other rights are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slave-holder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that a man belongs to himself--that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own title, he makes out the title of every human being. As the fact of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common title deed. If one man's title is valid, all are valid. If one is worthless, all are. To deny the validity of the slave's title is to deny the validity of his own; and yet in the act of making a man a slave, the slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him as his property who has the same title. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely disfranchise of humanity one individual, but UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates all rights. He attacks not only the human race, but universal being, and rushes upon JEHOVAH. For rights are rights; God's are no more--man's are no less.
The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the whole. Does the same Bible which prohibits the taking of any thing from him, sanction the taking of every thing! Does it thunder wrath against the man who robs his neighbor of a cent, yet commission him to rob his neighbour of himself? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eight commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the earner, is a compound, life-long theft--supreme robbery that vaults up the climax at a leap--the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies a solitary horror. The eight commandment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, "Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbor's;" thus guarding every man's right to himself and property, by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state of mind which would tempt to it. Who ever made human beings slaves, without coveting them? Why take from them their time, labor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire property, to worship according to conscience, to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies, if they do not desire them? They COVET them for purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification, of pride and ostentation. THEY BREAK THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book. Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty. Two of these brand slavery as sin.
MANSTEALING--EXAMINATION OF EX. XXI. 16.
The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of that body of laws called the "Mosaic system." Over the gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of God--"HE THAT STEALETH A MAN AND SELLETH HIM, OR IF HE BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH[A]." Ex. xxi. 16.
[Footnote A: A writer in the American Quarterly Review, commenting on this passage, thus blasphemes. "On this passage an impression has gone abroad that slave-owners are necessarily menstealers; how hastily, any one will perceive who consults the passage in its connection. Being found in the chapter which authorizes this species of property among the Hebrews, it must of course relate to its full protection from the danger of being enticed away from its rightful owner."--Am. Quart. Review for June, 1833. Article "Negro slavery."]
The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time. They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with thronging horrors. They had just witnessed God's testimony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt--the burning blains on man and beast; the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon every living thing; the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred; the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolving with the putrid death; the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood; and last of all, that dread high hand and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon; earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand-writing of God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood--a blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should uprear on its foreground a blazing beacon to flash terror on slaveholders. "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Ex. xxi. 16. Deut. xxiv, 7[A]. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system!
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven hundred years ago, in his comment on this stealing and making merchandize of men, gives the meaning thus:--"Using a man against his will, as a servant lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, if he be forced so to act as a servant, the person compelling him but once to do so, shall die as a thief, whether he has sold him or not."]
The word Ganabh here rendered stealeth, means, the taking of what belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eight commandment, and prohibits both robbery and theft.
The crime specified, is that of depriving SOMEBODY of the ownership of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a servant, not "he that stealeth a man." If the crime had been the taking of an individual from another, then the term used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and proprietor!
The crime is stated in a three-fold form--man stealing, selling, and holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty--DEATH[A]. This somebody deprived of the ownership of a man, is the man himself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How stolen? His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for man-stealing with that for property-stealing, Ex. xxii. 14. If a man had stolen an ox and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated or aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for man-stealing was death, and the penalty for property-stealing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be diseased or totally past labor, consequently instead of being profitable to the thief, he would be a tax upon him, yet death was still the penalty, though not a cent's worth of property-value was taken. The penalty for stealing property was a mere property-penalty. However large the theft, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor braiding, nor even stripes, but double of the same kind. Why was not the rule uniform? When a man was stolen why was not the thief required to restore double of the same kind--two men, or if he had sold him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not have them? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But if God permitted men to hold men as property, equally with oxen, the man-thief, could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the legal penalty was a compensation to the person injured. But when a man was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations. Compute the value of a MAN in money! Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the testimony of blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS INVIOLABLE."--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--"I die accursed, and God is just."
[Footnote A: "Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell, or buy slaves or freemen." GROTIUS.]
If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any other kind of property? Why punish with death for stealing a very little of that sort of property, and make a mere fine the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property--especially if by his own act, God had annihilated the difference between man and property, by putting him on a level with it?
The guilt of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the nature of the article, but in taking as mine what is his. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and then my property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner to another of that which is already property, but the turning of personality into property. True, the attributes of man remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is the first law both of reason and revelation, to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the nature of a man--to his intrinsic value as a rational being. In the verse preceding the one under consideration, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Verse. 17, "He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given to a parent, it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the centre of human society. God guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever tramples on that, shows that no relation has any sacredness in his eyes--that he is unfit to move among human relations who violates one so sacred and tender. Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.
Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. 1. The relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents and others self-evident, dictated by a law of nature. 2. The act was violence to nature--a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities. 3. The parental relation then, as now, was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safe-guards. "Honor thy father and thy mother," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and throughout the Bible, the parental state is God's favorite illustration of his own relations to the human family. In this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a man, but a parent--a distinction made sacred by God, and fortified by a bulwark of defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but violence to an immortal nature, the blotting out of a sacred distinction--making MEN "chattels."
The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for this, his own distinction. "In the beginning" he proclaimed it to the universe as it rose into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while God ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career and that high conference in the godhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE after OUR LIKENESS, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars--then God created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD created he him." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATED HE HIM. This distinction is often repeated and always with great solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE HIM." In Gen. ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As though it had been said, "All these creatures are your property, designed for your use--they have the likeness of earth, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness: IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made I man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be. So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, "He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a MAN he shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, we have an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes and things! 1. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." Slavery drags him down among brutes. 2. "And hast crowned him with glory and honor." Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a yoke. 3. "Thou madest him to have dominion[A] OVER the works of thy hands." Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down among those works--yea, beneath them. 4. "Thou hast put all things under his feet." Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an "owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto ME."
[Footnote A: "Thou madest him to have dominion." In Gen. i. 28, God says to man, "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," thus vesting in every human being the right of ownership over the earth, its products and animal life, and in each human being the same right. By so doing God prohibited the exercise of ownership by man over man; for the grant to all men of equal ownership, for ever shut out the possibility of their exercising ownership over each other, as whoever is the owner of a man, is the owner of his right of property--in other words, when one man becomes the property of another his rights become such too, his right of property is transferred to his "owner," and thus as far as himself is concerned, is annihilated. Finally, by originally vesting all men with dominion or ownership over property, God proclaimed the right of all to exercise it, and pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade. Such is every slaveholder.]
In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and as many regulations of the latter are mere legal forms of Divine institutions previously existing. As a system, the latter alone is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs God has not made them our exemplars.[B] The question to be settled by us, is not what were Jewish customs, but what were the rules that God gave for the regulation of those customs.
[Footnote B: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good old slaveholders and patriarchs," might at small cost greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal concubinage, winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal drunkenness, would be a trumpet-call, summoning from brothels, bush and brake, highway and hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is legion." A myriad choir and thunderous song!]
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
As the Israelites were commanded to "buy" their servants, and as Abraham had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants were articles of property! The sole ground for this belief is the terms themselves! How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved were always assumed! To beg the question in debate, is vast economy of midnight oil, and a wholesale forestaller of wrinkles and gray hairs. Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, painfully collating passages, to settle the meaning of terms, let every man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning, and every man have an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, in the dialect of his own neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon, to take it for granted that the sense in which words are now used, is the inspired sense. David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What, stop the earth in its revolution! Two hundred years ago, prevent was used in its strict Latin sense, to come before, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly, or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally opposite to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I purposed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." "And the four beasts (living ones) fell down and worshiped God,"--"Whosoever shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--Go out into the highways and compel (urge) them to come in,"--Only let your conversation (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"--"The Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick (living) and the dead,"--They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me," So when tribulation or persecution ariseth by-and-by (immediately) they are offended." Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for a modern Bible-Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency now "showing off" on promenade, was the very style of dress in which the modest and pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels. Since such a fashion flaunts along Broadway now, it must have trailed over Canaan four thousand years ago!
The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of servants, means procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the fallacy, that whatever costs money is money; that whatever or whoever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your paying for it, proves it property. 1. The children of Israel were required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their firstborn were or are, held as property? They were bought as really as were servants. 2. The Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were their souls therefore marketable commodities? 3. When the Israelites set apart themselves or their children to the Lord by vow, for the performance of some service, an express statute provided that a price should be set upon the "persons," and it prescribed the manner and terms of the "estimation" or valuation, by the payment of which, the persons might be bought off from the service vowed. The price for males from one month old to five years, was five shekels, for females, three; from five years old to twenty, for males, twenty shekels, for females, ten; from twenty years old to sixty, for males, fifty shekels, for females, thirty; above sixty years old, for males, fifteen shekels, for females, ten, Lev. xxvii. 2-8. What egregious folly to contend that all these descriptions of persons were goods and chattels because they were bought and their prices regulated by law! 4. Bible saints bought their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased (bought) to be my wife." Ruth iv. 10.[A] Hosea bought his wife. "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of Barley, and an half homer of barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah, and not having money, paid for them in labor--seven years a piece. Gen. xxix. 15-23. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father.[B] Exod. ii. 21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michael, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services for the fathers of the damsels. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with money or by service, was the general practice, is plain from such passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews this usage exists, though now a mere form, there being no real purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The similarity in the methods of procuring wives and servants, in the terms employed in describing the transactions, and in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut, xxii. 28, 29, and Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The medium price of wives and servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the Israelitish female bought-servants were wives, their husbands and masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If buying servants proves them property, buying wives proves them property. Why not contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to do, is questioning the morality of those "good old slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
[Footnote A: In the verse preceding, Boaz says, "I have bought all that was Elimelech's * * * of the hand of Naomi." In the original, the same word (kana) is used in both verses. In the 9th, "a parcel of land" is "bought," in the 10th a "wife" is "bought." If the Israelites had been as profound at inferences as our modern Commentators, they would have put such a fact as this to the rack till they had tortured out of it a divine warrant for holding their wives as property and speculating in the article whenever it happened to be scarce.]
[Footnote B: This custom still prevails in some eastern countries. The Crim Tartars, who are poor, serve an apprenticeship for their wives, during which they live under the same roof with them and at the close of it are adopted into the family.]
This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac, the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as the 16th century, the common record of marriages in the old German Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B."
The word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by the nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have gotten (bought) a man from the Lord." She named him Cain, that is bought. "He that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 32. So in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to buy) the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. "He brought them to his mountain which his right hand had purchased," (gotten.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our ability have redeemed (bought) our brethren the Jews, that were sold unto the heathen." Here "bought" is not applied to persons reduced to servitude, but to those taken out of it. Prov. viii. 22. "The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. xix. 8. "He that getteth (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Finally, to buy is a secondary meaning of the Hebrew word kana.
Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still, (1837,) "bought." This is the current word in West India newspapers. Ten years since servants were "bought" in New York, and still are in New Jersey, as really as in Virginia, yet the different senses in which the word is used in those states, puts no man in a quandary. Under the system of legal indenture in Illinois, servants now are "bought."[A] Until recently immigrants to this country were "bought" in great numbers. By voluntary contract they engaged to work a given time to pay for their passage. This class of persons, called "redemptioners," consisted at one time of thousands. Multitudes are "bought" out of slavery by themselves or others. Under the same roof with the writer is a "servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a slave; when "bought," she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our leading politicians if "buying" men makes them "chattels." The Whigs say, that Calhoun has been "bought" by the administration; and the other party, that Clay and Webster have been "bought" by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was "bought" by British gold, and that Williams, Paulding, and Van Wert, could not be "bought" by Major Andre. When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus hits off the indecency, "The cotton bags bought him." Sir Robert Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can buy him," and John Randolph said, "The northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough, and I can buy them." The temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were bought, yet we have no floating visions of "chattels personal," man-auctions, or coffles.
[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the free state of Illinois--"No negro, mulatto, or Indian, shall at any time purchase any servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to purchase a white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed and taken."]
In Connecticut, town paupers are "bought" by individuals, who, for a stipulated sum become responsible to the town for their comfortable support for one year. If these "bought" persons perform any labor for those who "buy" them, it is wholly voluntary. It is hardly necessary to add that they are in no sense the "property" of their purchasers.[A]
[Footnote A: "The select-men" of each town annually give notice, that at such a time and place, they will proceed to sell the poor of said town. The persons thus "sold" are "bought" by such persons, approved by the "select-men," as engage to furnish them with sufficient wholesome food, adequate clothing, shelter, medicine, &c., for such a sum as the parties may agree upon. The Connecticut papers frequently contain advertisements like the following: "NOTICE--The poor of the town of Chatham will be SOLD on the first Monday in April, 1837, at the house of F. Penfield, Esq., at 9 o'clock in the forenoon,"--[Middletown Sentinel, Feb. 3, 1837.] ]
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use of "buy" and "bought with money." Gen. xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, "Behold I have bought you this day," and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons bought as articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine. The idea attached by both parties to "buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return, for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this buying of services (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in Scripture usage, buying the persons. This case claims special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is detailed--the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the mere fact is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open. 1. The persons "bought," sold themselves, and of their own accord. 2. Paying for the permanent service of persons, or even a portion of it, is called "buying" those persons; just as paying for the use of land or houses for a number of years in succession is called in Scripture usage buying them. See Lev. xxv. 28, 33, and xxvii. 24. The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were bought of third persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer assumptions. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which a master sold his servant.
That servants who were "bought," sold themselves, is a fair inference from various passages of Scripture.[A] In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the words are, "If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger." Yet the 51st verse informs us that this servant was "BOUGHT" and that the price of his purchase was paid to himself. The same word, and the same form of the word, which, in verse 47, is rendered sell himself, is in verse 39 of the same chapter, rendered be sold; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered "be sold." "And there ye shall BE SOLD unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women and NO MAN SHALL BUY YOU." How could they "be sold" without being bought? Our translation makes it nonsense. The word Makar rendered "be sold" is used here in Hithpael conjugation, which is generally reflexive in its force, and like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an individual does for himself, and should manifestly have been rendered "ye shall offer yourselves for sale, and there shall be no purchaser." For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20. 25.--"Thou hast sold thyself to work evil." "There was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickedness."--2 Kings xvii. 17. "They used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil."--Isa. l. 1. "For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves." Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have sold yourselves FOR NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv. 14; Rom. vii. 14, vi. 16; John, viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of third persons. If servants were bought of third persons, it is strange that no instance of it is on record.
[Footnote A: Those who insist that the servants which the Israelites were commanded to buy of "the heathen which were round about" them, were to be bought of third persons, virtually charge God with the inconsistency of recognizing and affirming the right of those very persons to freedom, upon whom, say they, he pronounced the doom of slavery. For they tell us, that the sentence of death uttered against those heathen was commuted into slavery, which punishment God denounced against them. Now if "the heathen round about" were doomed to slavery, the sellers were doomed as well as the sold. Where, we ask, did the sellers get their right to sell? God by commanding the Israelites to BUY, affirmed the right of somebody to sell, and that the ownership of what was sold existed somewhere; which right and ownership he commanded them to recognize and respect. We repeat the question, where did the heathen sellers get their right to sell, since they were dispossessed of their right to themselves and doomed to slavery equally with those whom they sold. Did God's decree vest in them a right to others while it annulled their right to themselves? If, as the objector's argument assumes, one part of "the heathen round about" were already held as slaves by the other part, such of course were not doomed to slavery, for they were already slaves. So also, if those heathen who held them as slaves had a right to hold them, which right God commanded the Israelites to buy out, thus requiring them to recognize it as a right, and on no account to procure its transfer to themselves without paying to the holders an equivalent, surely, these slaveholders were not doomed by God to be slaves, for according to the objector, God had himself affirmed their right to hold others as slaves, and commanded his people to respect it.]
We now proceed to inquire into the condition of servants under the patriarchal and Mosaic systems.
I. THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF SERVANTS.
The leading design of the laws defining the relations of master and servant, was the good of both parties--more especially the good of the servants. While the master's interests were guarded from injury, those of the servants were promoted. These laws made a merciful provision for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Strangers, not laying on burdens, but lightening them--they were a grant of privileges and favors.
I. BUYING SERVANTS WAS REGARDED AS A KINDNESS TO THE PERSONS BOUGHT, and as establishing between them and their purchasers a bond of affection and confidence. This is plain from the frequent use of it to illustrate the love and care of God for his chosen people. Deut. xxxii. 6; Ex. xv. 16; Ps. lxxiv. 2; Prov. viii. 22.
II. NO STRANGER COULD JOIN THE FAMILY OF AN ISRAELITE WITHOUT BECOMING A PROSELYTE. Compliance with this condition was the price of the privilege. Gen. xvii. 9-14, 23, 27. In other words, to become a servant was virtually to become an Israelite.[A] In the light of this fact, look at the relation sustained by a proselyted servant to his master. Was it a sentence consigning to punishment, or a ticket of admission to privileges?
[Footnote A: The rites by which a stranger became a proselyte transformed him into a Jew. Compare 1 Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii. 25. In Esther viii. 17, it is said "Many of the people of the land became Jews." In the Septuagint, the passage is thus rendered, "Many of the heathen were circumcised and became Jews." The intimate union and incorporation of the proselytes with the Hebrews is shown by such passages as Isa. lvi. 6, 7, 8; Eph. ii. 11, 22; Num. x. 29-32. Calmet, Art. Proselyte, says "They were admitted to all the prerogatives of the people of the Lord." Mahommed doubtless borrowed from the laws and usages of the Jews, his well known regulation for admitting to all civil and religious privileges, all proselytes of whatever nation or religion.]
III. EXPULSION FROM THE FAMILY WAS THE DEPRIVATION OF A PRIVILEGE IF NOT A PUNISHMENT. When Sarah took umbrage at the conduct of Hagar and Ishmael, her servants, "She said unto Abraham cast out this bond-woman and her son." * * And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave it unto Hagar and the child, and sent her away. Gen. xxi. 10, 14; in Luke xvi. 1-8, our Lord tells us of the steward or head-servant of a rich man who defrauded his master, and was, in consequence, excluded from his household. The servant anticipating such a punishment, says, "I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses." The case of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, appears to be a similar one. He was guilty of fraud in procuring a large sum of money from Naaman, and of deliberate lying to his master, on account of which Elisha seems to have discarded him. 2 Kings v. 20-27. In this connection we may add that if a servant neglected the observance of any ceremonial rite, and was on that account excommunicated from the congregation of Israel, such excommunication excluded him also from the family of an Israelite. In other words he could be a servant no longer than he was an Israelite. To forfeit the latter distinction involved the forfeiture of the former privilege--which proves that it was a privilege.
IV. THE HEBREW SERVANT COULD COMPEL HIS MASTER TO KEEP HIM.
When the six years' contract had expired, if the servant demanded it, the law obliged the master to retain him permanently, however little he might need his services. Deut. xv. 12-17; Ex. xxi. 2-6. This shows that the system was framed to advance the interest and gratify the wishes of the servant quite as much as those of the master.
V. SERVANTS WERE ADMITTED INTO COVENANT WITH GOD. Deut. xxix. 10-13.
VI. THEY WERE GUESTS AT ALL NATIONAL AND FAMILY FESTIVALS Ex. xii. 43-44; Deut xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10-16.
VII. THEY WERE STATEDLY INSTRUCTED IN MORALITY AND RELIGION. Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Josh. viii. 33-35; 2 Chron. xvii. 8-9, xxxv. 3, and xxxiv. 30. Neh. viii. 7, 8.
VIII. THEY WERE RELEASED FROM THEIR REGULAR LABOR NEARLY ONE HALF OF THE WHOLE TIME. During which they had their entire support, and the same instruction that was provided for the other members of the Hebrew community. The Law secured to them,
1. Every seventh year; Lev. xxv. 3-6; thus giving to those who were servants during the entire period between the jubilees, eight whole years, (including the jubilee year,) of unbroken rest.
2. Every seventh day. This in forty-two years, the eight being subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just six years.
3. The three annual festivals. Ex. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23. The Passover, which commenced on the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the 6th day of the 3d month, and lasted seven days. Deut. xvi. 10, 11. The Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th month, and lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As all met in one place, much time would be spent on the journey. Cumbered caravans move slowly. After their arrival, a day or two would be requisite for divers preparations before the celebration, besides some time at the close of it, in preparations for return. If we assign three weeks to each festival--including the time spent on the journeys, and the delays before and after the celebration, together with the festival week, it will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the servants would be absent from their stated employments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.
4. The new moons. The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus says that the Jews always kept two days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish Calendar, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx, 18, 19, 27. This, in forty-two years, would be two years 280 days.
5. The feast of trumpets. On the first day of the seventh month, and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
6. The atonement day. On the tenth of the seventh month Lev. xxiii. 27.
These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not reckoned above.
Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this calculation, besides making a donation of all the fractions to the objector, we have left out those numerous local festivals to which frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; 1 Sam. ix. 12. 22. etc., and the various family festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at circumcisions; at the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam, xx. 6. 28, 29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later period of the Jewish history--the feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and of the Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time which, if distributed, would be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR. Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this time were distributed over every day, the servants would have to themselves nearly one half of each day.
The service of those Strangers who were national servants or tributaries, was regulated upon the same benevolent principle, and secured to them TWO-THIRDS of the whole year. "A month they were in Lebanon, and two months they were at home." 1 Kings, v. 13-15. Compared with 2 Chron. 11. 17-19, viii. 7-9; 1 Kings, ix 20. 22. The regulations under which the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth and Kirjath-jearim, (afterwards called Nethinims) performed service for the Israelites, must have secured to them nearly the whole of their time. If, as is probable, they served in courses corresponding to those of their priests whom they assisted, they were in actual service less than one month annually.
IX. THE SERVANT WAS PROTECTED BY LAW EQUALLY WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
Proof.--"Judge righteously between every man and his brother and THE STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM." "Ye shall not RESPECT PERSONS in judgment, but ye shall hear the SMALL as well as the great." Deut. i. 16, 19. Also Lev. xix. 15. xxiv. 22. "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER, as for one of your own country." So Num. xv. 29. "Ye shall have ONE LAW for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel and for the STRANGER that sojourneth among them." Deut. xxvii. 19. "Cursed be he that PERVERTETH THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER."[A] Deut. xxvii. 19.
[Footnote A: In a work entitled, "Instruction in the Mosaic Religion" by Professor Jholson, of the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main, translated into English by Rabbi Leeser, we find the following.--Sec. 165. "Question. Does holy writ any where make a difference between the Israelite and the other who is no Israelite, in those laws and prohibitions which forbid us the committal of any thing against our fellow men?"
"Answer. No where we do find a trace of such a difference. See Lev. xix. 33-36."
"God says thou shalt not murder, steal, cheat, &c. In every place the action itself is prohibited as being an abomination to God without respect to the PERSONS against whom it is committed." ]
X. THE MOSAIC SYSTEM ENJOINED THE GREATEST AFFECTION AND KINDNESS TOWARDS SERVANTS, FOREIGN AS WELL AS JEWISH.
"The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Lev. xix. 34. "For the Lord your God * * REGARDETH NOT PERSONS. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE STRANGER, in giving him food and raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE STRANGER." Deut. x. 17, 19. "Thou shalt neither vex a STRANGER nor oppress him." Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt not oppress a STRANGER, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Ex. xxiii. 9. "If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights?
XI. SERVANTS WERE PLACED UPON A LEVEL WITH THEIR MASTERS IN ALL CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14; Deut. i. 16, 17; Lev. xxiv. 22. To these may be added that numerous class of passages which represents God as regarding alike the natural rights of all men, and making for all an equal provision. Such as, 2 Chron. xix. 7; Prov. xxiv. 23, xxviii. 21; Job. xxxiv. 19, 2 Sam. xiv. 14; Acts x. 35; Eph. vi. 9.
Finally--With such watchful jealousy did the Mosaic Institutes guard the rights of servants, as to make the mere fact of a servant's escape from his master presumptive evidence that his master had oppressed him; and on that presumption, annulled his master's authority over him, gave him license to go wherever he pleased, and commanded all to protect him. Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. As this regulation will be examined under a subsequent head, where its full discussion more appropriately belongs, we notice it here merely to point out its bearings on the topic under consideration.
THESE ARE REGULATIONS OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
II. WERE PERSONS MADE SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS?
We argue that they became servants of their own accord, because,
I. TO BECOME A SERVANT WAS TO BECOME A PROSELYTE. Whoever of the strangers became a servant, he was required to abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God[A], be circumcised in token of it, be bound to keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and ceremonial law. Were the servants forced through all these processes? Was the renunciation of idolatry compulsory? Were they dragged into covenant with God? Were they seized and circumcised by main strength? Were they compelled mechanically to chew and swallow the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution, spurned the laws that enjoined it, detested its author and its executors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they driven from all parts of the land three times in the year to the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated? Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations? We repeat it, to become a servant, was to become a proselyte. Did God authorize his people to make proselytes at the point of the bayonet? by the terror of pains and penalties? by converting men into merchandise? Were proselyte and chattel synonymes in the Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a thing before taken into covenant with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption? the sure and sacred passport to the communion of the saints?
[Footnote A: Maimonides, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the head of Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this point: "Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant.
"But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day, and he that is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be unwilling. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long, it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the worship of a willing heart."--Maimon, Hilcoth Miloth, Chap. 1, Sec. 8.
The ancient Jewish Doctors assert that the servant from the Strangers who at the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish religion and was on that account sent back to his own people, received a full compensation for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But that postponement of the circumcision of the foreign servant for a year (or even at all after he had entered the family of an Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been a mere usage. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly initiatory. Whether it was a rite merely national or spiritual, or both, comes not within the scope of this inquiry. ]
II. THE SURRENDER OF FUGITIVE SERVANTS TO THEIR MASTERS WAS PROHIBITED. "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.
As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the right of the master to hold him; his fleeing shows his choice, proclaims his wrongs and his title to protection; you shall not force him back and thus recognize the right of the master to hold him in such a condition as induces him to flee to others for protection." It may be said that this command referred only to the servants of heathen masters in the surrounding nations. We answer: the terms of the command are unlimited. But the objection, if valid, would merely shift the pressure of the difficulty to another point. Did God require them to protect the free choice of a single servant from the heathen, and yet authorize the same persons, to crush the free choice of thousands of servants from the heathen? Suppose a case. A foreign servant escapes to the Israelites; God says, "He shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best." Now, suppose this same servant, instead of coming into Israel of his own accord, had been dragged in by some kidnapper, who bought him of his master, and forced him into a condition against his will; would He who forbade such treatment of the stranger, who voluntarily came into the land, sanction the same treatment of the same person, provided in addition to this last outrage, the previous one had been committed of forcing him into the nation against his will? To commit violence on the free choice of a foreign servant is forsooth a horrible enormity, provided you begin the violence after he has come among you. But if you commit the first act on the other side of the line; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a third person against his will, and then tear him from home, drag him across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave--ah! that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with impunity! Would greater favor have been shown to this new comer than to the old residents--those who had been servants in Jewish families perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise towards him, uncircumcised and out of the covenant, a justice and kindness denied to the multitudes who were circumcised, and within the covenant? But, the objector finds small gain to his argument on the supposition that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the surrounding nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a condition against their wills. In that case, the surrounding nations would adopt retaliatory measures, and become so many asylums for Jewish fugitives. As these nations were not only on every side of them, but in their midst, such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men whose condition was a constant counteraction of will. Besides the same command which protected the servant from the power of his foreign master, protected him equally from the power of an Israelite. It was not, merely "Thou shalt not deliver him unto his master," but "he shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best." Every Israelite was forbidden to put him in any condition against his will. What was this but a proclamation, that all who chose to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to their own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to such persons, and in such places as they pleased? Besides, grant that this command prohibited the sending back of foreign servants only, there was no law requiring the return of servants who had escaped from the Israelites. Property lost, and cattle escaped, they were required to return, but not escaped servants. These verses contain, 1st, a command, "Thou shalt not deliver," &c., 2d. a declaration of the fugitive's right of free choice, and of God's will that he should exercise it at his own discretion; and 3d, a command guarding this right, namely, "Thou shalt not oppress him," as though God had said, "If you restrain him from exercising his own choice, as to the place and condition of his residence, it is oppression, and shall not be tolerated."[A]
[Footnote A: Perhaps it may be objected that this view of Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, makes nonsense of Ex. xxi. 27, which provides that if a man strikes out his servant's tooth he shall let him go free. Small favor indeed if the servant might set himself free whenever he pleased! Answer--The former passage might remove the servant from the master's authority, without annulling the master's legal claims upon the servant, if he had paid him in advance and had not received from him an equivalent, and this equally, whether his master were a Jew or a Gentile. The latter passage, "He shall let him go free for his tooth's sake," not only freed the servant from the master's authority, but also from any pecuniary claim which the master might have on account of having paid his wages in advance; and this as a compensation, for the loss of a tooth.]
III. THE SERVANTS HAD PECULIAR OPPORTUNITIES AND FACILITIES FOR ESCAPE. Three times every year, all the males over twelve years, were required to attend the national feasts. They were thus absent from their homes not less than three weeks at each time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the way, to intercept deserters?--a corporal's guard at each pass of the mountains, sentinels pacing the hilltops, and light-horse scouring the defiles? The Israelites must have had some safe contrivance for taking their "slaves" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back. When a body of slaves is moved any distance in our republic, they are handcuffed and chained together, to keep them from running away, or beating their drivers' brains out. Was this the Mosaic plan, or an improvement introduced by Samuel, or was it left for the wisdom of Solomon? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venerable and biblical! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and transported in bundles, or caged up and trundled on wheels to and fro, and while at the Holy City, "lodged in jail for safe keeping," the Sanhedrim appointing special religious services for their benefit, and their "drivers" officiating at "ORAL instruction." Meanwhile, what became of the sturdy handmaids left at home? What hindered them from stalking off in a body? Perhaps the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, picking up stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets, keeping a sharp look-out at night!
IV. WILFUL NEGLECT OF CEREMONIAL RITES DISSOLVED THE RELATION.
Suppose the servants from the heathen had, upon entering Jewish families, refused circumcision; if slaves, how simple the process of emancipation! Their refusal did the job. Or, suppose they had refused to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten leavened bread during the Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the anointing oil, or had touched a dead body, a bone, or a grave, or in any way had contracted ceremonial uncleanness, and refused to be cleansed with the "water of separation," they would have been "cut off from the people;" excommunicated. Ex. xii. 19; xxx. 33; Num. xix. 16.
V. SERVANTS OF THE PATRIARCHS NECESSARILY VOLUNTARY.
Abraham's servants are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred and eighteen young men "born in his house," and many more not born in his house. His servants of all ages were probably MANY THOUSANDS. How did Abraham and Sarah contrive to hold fast so many thousand servants against their wills? The most natural supposition is that the Patriarch and his wife "took turns" in surrounding them! The neighboring tribes, instead of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants, would have been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, as they did Lot and his household. Besides, there was neither "constitution" nor "compact," to send back Abraham's fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon them, nor gentlemen-kidnappers, suing for his patronage, volunteering to howl on their track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging their honour to hunt down and deliver up, provided they had a description of the "flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by pieces of silver.[A] Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, since he faithfully trained "his household to do justice and judgment," though so deplorably destitute of the needful aids.
[Footnote A: The following is a standing newspaper advertisement of one of these professional man-catchers, a member of the New York bar, who coolly plies his trade in the commercial emporium, sustained by the complacent greetings and courtesies of "HONORABLE MEN!" "IMPORTANT TO THE SOUTH.--F.H. Pettis, native of Orange County, Va., being located in the city of New York, in the practice of law, announces to his friends and the public in general, that he has been engaged as Counsel and Adviser in General for a party whose business it is in the northern cities to arrest and secure runaway slaves. He has been thus engaged for several years, and as the act of Congress alone governs now in this city, in business of this sort, which renders it easy for the recovery of such property, he invites post paid communications to him, inclosing a fee of $20 in each case, and a power of Attorney minutely descriptive of the party absconded, and if in the northern region, he, or she will soon be had.
"Mr. Pettis will attend promptly to all law business confided to him.
"N.B. New York City is estimated to contain 5,000 Runaway Slaves.
"PETTIS." ]
Probably Job had even more servants than Abraham. See Job. i. 3, 14-19, and xlii. 12. That his thousands of servants staid with him entirely of their own accord, is proved by the fact of their staying with him. Suppose they had wished to quit his service, and so the whole army had filed off before him in full retreat, how could the patriarch have brought them to halt? Doubtless with his wife, seven sons, and three daughters for allies, he would have soon out-flanked the fugitive host and dragged each of them back to his wonted chain and staple.
But the impossibility of Job's servants being held against their wills, is not the only proof of their voluntary condition. We have his own explicit testimony that he had not "withheld from the poor their desire." Job. xxxi. 16. Of course he could hardly have made them live with him, and forced them to work for him against their desire.
When Isaac sojourned in the country of the Philistines he "had great store of servants." And we have his testimony that the Philistines hated him, added to that of inspiration that they "envied" him. Of course they would hardly volunteer to organize patroles and committees of vigilance to keep his servants from running away, and to drive back all who were found beyond the limits of his plantation without a "pass!" If the thousands of Isaac's servants were held against their wills, who held them?
The servants of the Jews, during the building of the wall of Jerusalem, under Nehemiah, may be included under this head. That they remained with their masters of their own accord, we argue from the fact, that the circumstances of the Jews made it impossible for them to compel their residence and service. They were few in number, without resources, defensive fortifications, or munitions of war, and surrounded withal by a host of foes, scoffing at their feebleness and inviting desertion from their ranks. Yet so far from the Jews attempting in any way to restrain their servants, or resorting to precautions to prevent escape, they put arms into their hands, and enrolled them as a night-guard, for the defence of the city. By cheerfully engaging in this service and in labor by day, when with entire ease they might all have left their masters, marched over to the enemy, and been received with shoutings, the servants testified that their condition was one of their own choice, and that they regarded their own interests as inseparably identified with those of their masters. Neh. iv. 23.
VI. NO INSTANCES OF ISRAELITISH MASTERS SELLING SERVANTS. Neither Abraham nor Isaac seem ever to have sold one, though they had "great store of servants." Jacob was himself a servant in the family of Laban twenty-one years. He had afterward a large number of servants. Joseph invited him to come into Egypt, and to bring all that he had with him--"thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks and thy herds, and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Gen. xlv. 10. Jacob took his flocks and herds but no servants. Yet we are told that Jacob "took his journey with all that he had." Gen. xlvi. 1. And after his arrival in Egypt, Joseph said to Pharaoh "my father, and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds and all that they have, are come." Gen. xlvii. 1. The servants doubtless, served under their own contracts, and when Jacob went into Egypt, they chose to stay in their own country.
The government might sell thieves, if they had no property, until their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex. xxii. 3. But masters seem to have had no power to sell their servants. To give the master a right to sell his servant, would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own disposal; but says the objector, "to give the master a right to buy a servant, equally annihilates the servant's right of choice." Answer. It is one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a quite another thing to have a right to buy him of another man.[A]
[Footnote A: There is no evidence that masters had the power to dispose of even the services of their servants, as men hire out their laborers whom they employ by the year; but whether they had or not, affects not the argument.]
Though servants were not bought of their masters, yet young females were bought of their fathers. But their purchase as servants was their betrothal as WIVES. Ex. xxi. 7, 8. "If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, he shall let her be redeemed."[B]
[Footnote B: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows:--"A Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed."--Maimonides--Hilcoth--Obedim, Ch. IV. Sec. XI. Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her to be his wife, for the money of her purchase is the money of her espousal."]
VII. VOLUNTARY SERVANTS FROM THE STRANGERS.
We infer that all the servants from the Strangers were voluntary in becoming such, since we have direct testimony that some of them were so. "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, OR OF THY STRANGERS that are in thy land within thy gates." Deut. xxiv. 14. We learn from this that some of the servants, which the Israelites obtained from the strangers were procured by presenting the inducement of wages to their free choice, thus recognizing their right to sell their services to others, or not, at their own pleasure. Did the Israelites, when they went among the heathen to procure servants, take money in one hand and ropes in the other? Did they ask one man to engage in their service, and drag along with them the next that they met, in spite of his struggles. Did they knock for admission at one door and break down the next? Did they go through one village with friendly salutations and respectful demeanor, and with the air of those soliciting favors, offer wages to the inhabitants as an inducement to engage in their service--while they sent on their agents to prowl through the next, with a kidnapping posse at their heels, to tear from their homes as many as they could get within their clutches?
VIII. HEBREW SERVANTS VOLUNTARY.
We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his service, because he was preeminently so IN CONTINUING it. If, at the year of release, it was the servant's choice to remain with his master, the law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for him to be held against his will. Yea more, his master was compelled to keep him, however much he might wish to get rid of him.
IX. THE MANNER OF PROCURING SERVANTS, AN APPEAL TO CHOICE.
The Israelites were commanded to offer them a suitable inducement, and then leave them to decide. They might neither seize them by force, nor frighten them by threats, nor wheedle them by false pretences, nor borrow them, nor beg them; but they were commanded to BUY them[A]--that is, they were to recognize the right of the individuals to dispose of their own services, and their right to refuse all offers, and thus oblige those who made them, to do their own work. Suppose all, with one accord, had refused to become servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an emergency? NONE.
[Footnote A: The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they had earned enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay the legal penalty, stands by itself, and has nothing to do with the condition of servants.]
X. INCIDENTAL CORROBORATIVES. Various incidental expressions corroborate the idea that servants became such by their own contract. Job. xli. 4, is an illustration, "Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a SERVANT forever?" Isa. xiv. 1, 2 is also an illustration. "The strangers shall be joined with them (the Israelites) and they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord, for servants and handmaids."
The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord they came to Joseph and said, "There is not aught left but our bodies and our lands; buy us;" then in the 25th verse, "We will be Pharaoh's servants." To these it may be added, that the sacrifices and offerings which ALL were required to present, were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2. 3.
The pertinence and point of our Lord's declaration in Luke xvi. 13, is destroyed on the supposition that servants did not become such by their own choice. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." Let it be kept in mind, that our Lord was a Jew. The lost sheep of the house of Israel were his flock. Wherever he went, they were around him: whenever he spake, they were his auditors. His public preaching and his private teaching and conversation, were full of references to their own institutions, laws and usages, and of illustrations drawn from them. In the verse quoted, he illustrates the impossibility of their making choice of God as their portion, and becoming his servants, while they chose the world, and were its servants. To make this clear, he refers to one of their own institutions, that of domestic service, with which, in all its relations, incidents and usages, they were perfectly familiar. He reminds them of the well-known impossibility of any person being the servant of two masters, and declares the sole ground of that impossibility to be, the fact that the servant chooses the service of the one, and spurns that of the other. "He shall hold to the one and despise (reject) the other." As though our Lord had said, "No one can become the servant of another, when his will revolts from his service, and when the conditions of it tend to make him hate the man." Since the fact that the servant spurns one of two masters, makes it impossible for him to serve that one, if he spurned both it would make it impossible for him to serve either. So, also, if the fact that an individual did not "hold to" or choose the service of another, proves that he could not become his servant, then the question, whether or not he should become the servant of another was suspended on his own will. Further, the phraseology of the passage shows that the choice of the servant decided the question. "He will HOLD TO the one,"--hence there is no difficulty in the way of his serving him; but "no servant can serve" a master whom he does not "hold to," or cleave to, whose service he does not choose. This is the sole ground of the impossibility asserted by our Lord.
The last clause of the verse furnishes an application of the principle asserted in the former part, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Now in what does the impossibility of serving both God and the world consist? Solely in the fact that the will which chooses the one refuses the other, and the affections which "hold to" the one, reject the other. Thus the question, Which of the two is to be served, is suspended alone upon the choice of the individual.
XI. RICH STRANGERS DID NOT BECOME SERVANTS. Indeed, so far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47. Since rich strangers did not become servants to the Israelites, we infer that those who did, became such not because they were strangers, but because they were poor,--not because, on account of their being heathen, they were compelled by force to become servants, but because, on account of their poverty, they chose to become servants to better their condition.
XII. INSTANCES OF VOLUNTARY SERVANTS. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants who were manifestly VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha. 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his master. 2 Kings ii. 5. The word translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1; iv. 10. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Ex. xxxiii. 11. Num. xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27. See also the case of the Gibeonites who voluntarily became servants to the Israelites and afterwards performed service for the "house of God" throughout the subsequent Jewish history, were incorporate with the Israelites, registered in the genealogies, and manifestly of their own accord remained with them, and "clave" to them. Neh. x. 28, 29; xi. 3; Ez. vii. 7.
Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service, no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that servants were made such, and held in that condition by force. Add to this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and incidents of compulsion.
Voluntary service on the part of servants would have been in keeping with regulations which abounded in the Mosaic system and sustained by a multitude of analogies. Compulsory service on the other hand, could have harmonized with nothing, and would have been the solitary disturbing force, marring its design, counteracting its tendencies, and confusing and falsifying its types. The directions given to regulate the performance of service for the public, lay great stress on the willingness of those employed to perform it. For the spirit and usages that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron. xxviii. 21; Ex. xxxv. 5, 21, 22, 29; 1 Chron. xxix. 5, 6, 9, 14, 17; Ex. xxv. 2; Judges v. 2; Lev. xxii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxv. 8; Ezra i. 6; Ex. xxxv; Neh. xi. 2.[A]
[Footnote A: We should naturally infer that the directions which regulated the rendering of service to individuals, would proceed upon the same principle in this respect with those which regulated the rendering of service to the public. Otherwise the Mosaic system, instead of constituting in its different parts a harmonious whole, would be divided against itself; its principles counteracting and nullifying each other.]
Again, the voluntariness of servants is a natural inference from the fact that the Hebrew word ebedh, uniformly rendered servant, is applied to a great variety of classes and descriptions of persons under the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, all of whom were voluntary and most of them eminently so. For instance, it is applied to persons rendering acts of worship about seventy times, whereas it is applied to servants not more than half that number of times.
To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition and service of servants and the ideas which the term servant is employed to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the will of the servant resisted his service, and he performed it only by compulsion. Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Bible. We give a single example. "To whom YE YIELD YOURSELVES servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey." Rom. vi. 16. It would hardly be possible to assert the voluntariness of servants more strongly in a direct proposition than it is here asserted by implication.
III. WERE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY
As the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That they were paid for their labor, we argue.
1. BECAUSE GOD REBUKED THE USING OF SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES. "Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOR'S SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES, AND GIVETH HIM NOT FOR HIS WORK." Jer. xxii. 13. The Hebrew word rea, translated neighbor, means any one with whom we have to do--all descriptions of persons, even those who prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of fighting us--"As when a man riseth against his NEIGHBOR and slayeth him." Deut. xxii. 26. "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy NEIGHBOR hath put thee to shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy NEIGHBOR." Ex. xx. 16. "If a man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR to slay him with guile." Ex. xxi. 14, &c. The doctrine plainly inculcated in this passage is, that every man's labor, or "service," being his own property, he is entitled to the profit of it, and that for another to "use" it without paying him the value of it, is "unrighteousness." The last clause of the verse "and giveth him not for his work," reaffirms the same principle, that every man is to be paid for "his work." In the context, the prophet contrasts the unrighteousness of those who used the labor of others without pay, with the justice and equity practiced by their patriarchal ancestor toward the poor. "Did not thy father eat and drink and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence to do it." Jer. xxii. 15, 16. 17.[A]
[Footnote A: Paul lays down the same principle in the form of a precept "Masters give unto your servants that which is JUST and EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. Thus not only asserting the right of the servant to an equivalent for his labor, and the duty of the master to render it, but condemning all those relations between master and servant which were not founded upon justice and equality of rights. The apostle James enforces the same principle. "Behold, the hire of the laborers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth." James v. 4. As though he had said, "wages are the right of laborers; those who work for you have a just claim on you for pay; this you refuse to render, and thus defraud them by keeping from them what belongs to them." See also Mal. iii 5.]
II. GOD TESTIFIES THAT IN OUR DUTY TO OUR FELLOW MEN, ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS HANG UPON THIS COMMAND, "THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses applies this law to the treatment of strangers, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and clothing also, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of love! Super-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing unto others as we would have them do to us, to make them work for our own good alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard sayings against human nature, especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."
III. SERVANTS WERE OFTEN WEALTHY. As persons became servants FROM POVERTY, we argue that they were compensated, since they frequently owned property, and sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David "Two hundred loaves of bread, and a hundred bunches of raisins, and a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he had twenty servants. In Lev. xxv. 47-49, where a servant, reduced to poverty, sold himself, it is declared that he may be redeemed, either by his kindred, or by HIMSELF. Having been forced to sell himself from poverty, he must have acquired considerable property after he became a servant. If it had not been common for servants to acquire property over which they had the control, the servant of Elisha would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of money, (nearly $3000[A]) from Naaman, 2 Kings v. 22, 23. As it was procured by deceit, he wished to conceal the means used in getting it; but if servants could "own nothing, nor acquire anything," to embark in such an enterprise would have been consummate stupidity. The fact of having in his possession two talents of silver, would of itself convict him of theft.[B] But since it was common for servants to own property, he might have it, and invest or use it, without attracting special attention, and that consideration alone would have been a strong motive to the act. His master, though he rebuked him for using such means to get the money, not only does not take it from him, but seems to expect that he would invest it in real estate, and cattle, and would procure servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. We find the servant of Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emergency. 1 Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the servant of Elah, was the owner of a house. That it was somewhat magnificent, would be a natural inference from its being a resort of the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. When Jacob became the servant of Laban, it was evidently from poverty, yet Laban said to him, Tell me "what shall thy wages be?" After Jacob had been his servant for ten years, he proposed to set up for himself, but Laban said "Appoint me thy wages and I will give it," and he paid him his price. During the twenty years that Jacob was a servant, he always worked for wages and at his own price. Gen. xxix. 15, 18; xxx. 28-33. The case of the Gibeonites, who, after becoming servants, still occupied their cities, and remained in many respects, a distinct people for centuries;[C] and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the servants of Solomon, who worked out their "tribute of bond-service" in levies, periodically relieving each other, are additional illustrations of independence in the acquisition and ownership of property.
[Footnote A: Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the relative value of that sum, then and now, yet we have enough to warrant us in saying that two talents of silver, had far more value then than three thousand dollars have now.]
[Footnote B: Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing a large amount of money? They "know how to take care of themselves" quite too well for that. When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of such things as will make detection difficult. No doubt they steal now and then, and a gaping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in the footsteps of their masters and mistresses? Dull scholars indeed! if, after so many lessons from proficients in the art, who drive the business by wholesale, they should not occasionally copy their betters, fall into the fashion, and try their hand in a small way, at a practice which is the only permanent and universal business carried on around them! Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern set before them in the daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excellencies," and to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and Right and Very Reverends! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on Virginia, pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as well as for his slave--and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may slay one who would slay him?"]
[Footnote C: The Nethinims, which name was afterwards given to the Gibeonites on account of their being set apart for the service of the tabernacle, had their own houses and cities and "dwelt every one in his own possession." Neh. xi. 3. 21; Ezra ii. 70; 1 Chron. ix. 2.]
Again. The Israelites often hired servants from the strangers. Deut. xxiv. 17.
Since then it is certain that they gave wages to a part of their Canaanitish servants, thus recognizing their right to a reward for their labor, we infer that they did not rob the rest of their earnings.
If God gave them a license to make the strangers work for them without pay--if this was good and acceptable in His sight, and right and just in itself, they must have been great fools to have wasted their money by paying wages when they could have saved it, by making the strangers do all their work for nothing! Besides, by refusing to avail themselves of this "Divine license," they despised the blessing and cast contempt on the giver! But far be it from us to do the Israelites injustice; perhaps they seized all the Canaanites they could lay their hands on, and forced them to work without pay, but not being able to catch enough to do their work, were obliged to offer wages in order to eke out the supply!
The parable of our Lord, contained in Mat. xviii. 23-34, not only derives its significance from the fact, that servants can both own and owe and earn property, over which they had the control, but would be made a medley of contradictions on any other supposition.--1. Their lord at a set time proceeded to "take account" and "reckon" with his servants; the phraseology itself showing that the relations between the parties, were those of debt and credit. 2. As the reckoning went on, one of his servants was found to owe him ten thousand talents. From the fact that the servant owed this to his master, we naturally infer, that he must have been at some time, and in some way, the responsible owner of that amount, or of its substantial equivalent. Not that he had had that amount put into his hands to invest, or disburse, in his master's name, merely as his agent, for in that case no claim of debt for value received would lie, but, that having sustained the responsibilities of legal proprietorship, he was under the liabilities resulting therefrom. 3. Not having on hand wherewith to pay, he says to his master "have patience with me and I will pay thee all." If the servant had been his master's property, his time and earnings belonged to the master as a matter of course, hence the promise to earn and pay over that amount, was virtually saying to his master, "I will take money out of your pocket with which to pay my debt to you," thus adding insult to injury. The promise of the servant to pay the debt on condition that the time for payment should be postponed, not only proceeds upon the fact that his time was his own, that he was constantly earning property or in circumstances that enabled him to earn it, and that he was the proprietor of his earnings, but that his master had full knowledge of that fact.--In a word, the supposition that the master was the owner of the servant, would annihilate all legal claim upon him for value received, and that the servant was the property of the master, would absolve him from all obligations of debt, or rather would always forestall such obligations--for the relations of owner and creditor in such case, would annihilate each other, as would those of property and debtor. The fact that the same servant was the creditor of one of his fellow servants, who owed him a considerable sum, and that at last he was imprisoned until he should pay all that was due to his master, are additional corroborations of the same point.
IV. HEIRSHIP.--Servants frequently inherited their master's property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, Gen. xv. 23; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth; Jarha, the servant of Sheshan, who married his daughter, and thus became his heir, he having no sons, and the husbandmen who said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xxx. 23, an handmaid (or maid-servant,) that is heir to her mistress; also Prov. xvii. 2--"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?
V. ALL WERE REQUIRED TO PRESENT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES. Deut. xvi. 16, 17; 2 Chron. xv. 9-11; Numb. ix. 13, 14. Beside this, "every man" from twenty years old and above, was required to pay a tax of half a shekel at the taking of the census; this is called "an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls." Ex. xxx. 12-16. See also Ex. xxxiv. 20. Servants must have had permanently the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.
VI. SERVANTS WHO WENT OUT AT THE SEVENTH YEAR, WERE "FURNISHED LIBERALLY." Deut. xv. 10-14. "Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him."[A] If it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a like bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of Israelitish servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason, they did not go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee. If the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a gratuity proves that they were robbed of their earnings, it proves that the most valued class of Hebrew servants were robbed of theirs also; a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous.
[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows--"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally,' &c. That is to say, 'Loading, ye shall load him,' likewise every one of his family with as much as he can take with him--abundant benefits. And if it be avariciously asked, 'How much must I give him?' I say unto you, not less than thirty shekels, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared in Ex. xxi. 32."--Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii. Sec. 3.]
VII. SERVANTS WERE BOUGHT. In other words, they received compensation in advance.[A] Having shown, under a previous head, that servants sold themselves, and of course received the compensation for themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of their children till they became of age,[B] a mere reference to the fact is all that is required for the purposes of this argument. As all the strangers in the land were required to pay an annual tribute to the government, the Israelites might often "buy" them as family servants, by stipulating with them to pay their annual tribute. This assumption of their obligations to the government might cover the whole of the servant's time of service, or a part of it, at the pleasure of the parties.
[Footnote A: But, says the objector, if servants received their pay in advance, and if the Israelites were forbidden to surrender the fugitive to his master, it would operate practically as a bounty offered to all servants who would leave their master's service encouraging them to make contracts, get their pay in advance and then run away, thus cheating their masters out of their money as well as their own services.--We answer, the prohibition, Deut xxiii. 15. 16, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master," &c., sets the servant free from his authority and of course, from all those liabilities of injury, to which as his servant, he was subjected, but not from the obligation of legal contracts. If the servant had received pay in advance, and had not rendered an equivalent for this "value received," he was not absolved from his obligation to do so, but he was absolved from all obligations to pay his master in that particular way, that is, by working for him as his servant.]
[Footnote B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen years.]
VIII. THE RIGHT OF SERVANTS TO COMPENSATION IS RECOGNISED IN Ex. xxi. 27. "And if he smite out his man-servant's, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." This regulation is manifestly based upon the right of the servant to the use of himself and all this powers, faculties and personal conveniences, and consequently his just claim for remuneration, upon him, who should however unintentionally, deprive him of the use even of the least of them. If the servant had a right to his tooth and the use of it, upon the same principle, he had a right to the rest of his body and the use of it. If he had a right to the fraction, and if it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for; he had a right to the sum total, and it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for.
IX. WE FIND MASTERS AT ONE TIME HAVING A LARGE NUMBER OF SERVANTS, AND AFTERWARDS NONE, WITH NO INTIMATION IN ANY CASE THAT THEY WERE SOLD. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and had many servants. Gen. xxx. 43; xxxii. 16. But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32. The case of Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, who had twenty servants, has been already mentioned.
X. GOD'S TESTIMONY TO THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth this neighbor's service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY of HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others? By doing injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back their own? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs? Did he beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!
XI. SPECIFIC PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC LAW ENFORCING GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular kind of service, all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,--a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man?--MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR sakes? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE." In the context, Paul innumerates the four grand divisions of labor among the Jews in illustration of the principle that the laborer, whatever may be the service he performs, is entitled to a reward. The priests, Levites and all engaged in sacred things--the military, those who tended flocks and herds, and those who cultivated the soil. As the latter employment engaged the great body of the Israelites, the Apostle amplifies his illustration under that head by much detail--and enumerates the five great departments of agricultural labor among the Jews--vine-dressing, plowing, sowing, reaping and threshing, as the representatives of universal labor. In his epistle to Timothy. 1 Tim. v. 18. Paul quotes again this precept of the Mosaic law, and connects with it the declaration of our Lord. Luke x. 7. "The laborer is worthy of his hire,"--as both inculcating the same doctrine, that he who labors, whatever the employment, or whoever the laborer, is entitled to a reward. The Apostle thus declares the principle of right respecting the performance of service for others, and the rule of duty towards those who perform it, to be the same under both dispensations. (2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, YEA THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this regulation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his service without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM OF HIS EARNINGS?
IV.--WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS LEGAL PROPERTY?
This topic has been unavoidably somewhat anticipated, in the foregoing discussion, but a variety of additional considerations remain to be noticed.
I. SERVANTS WERE NOT SUBJECTED TO THE USES NOR LIABLE TO THE CONTINGENCIES OF PROPERTY. 1 They were never taken in payment for their masters' debts. Children were sometimes taken (without legal authority) for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9; Isa. l. 1; Matt. xviii. 25. Creditors took from debtors property of all kinds, to satisfy their demands. Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; Prov. xxii. 27, household furniture; Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions of the soil; Lev. xxv. 27-30, houses; Ex. xxii. 26, 27; Deut. xxiv. 10-13; Matt. v. 40, clothing; but servants were taken in no instance. 2. Servants were never given as pledges. Property of all sorts was pledged for value received; household furniture, clothing, cattle, money, signets, personal ornaments, &c., but no servants. 3. Servants were not put into the hands of others, or consigned to their keeping. The precept giving directions how to proceed in a case where property that has life is delivered to another "to keep," and "it die or be hurt or driven away," enumerates oxen, asses, sheep or "any beast," but not "servants." Ex. xxii. 10. 4. All lost property was to be restored. Oxen, asses, sheep, raiment, and "all lost things," are specified--servants not. Deut. xxii 1-3. Besides, the Israelites were forbidden to return the runaway servant. Deut. xxiii, 15. 5. Servants were not sold. When by flagrant misconduct, unfaithfulness or from whatever cause, they had justly forfeited their privilege of membership in an Israelitish family, they were not sold, but expelled from the household. Luke xvi. 2-4; 2 Kings v. 20, 27; Gen. xxi. 14. 6 The Israelites never received servants as tribute. At different times all the nations round about them were their tributaries and paid them annually large amounts. They received property of all kinds in payment of tribute. Gold, silver, brass, iron, precious stone, and vessels, armor, spices, raiment, harness, horses, mules, sheep, goats, &c., are in various places enumerated, but servants, never. 7. The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents. They made costly presents, of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of domestic animals, beds, merchandize, family utensils, precious metals, grain, honey, butter, cheese, fruits, oil, wine, raiment, armor, &c., are among their recorded gifts. Giving presents to superiors and persons of rank, was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27; xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. Abigail the wife of Nabal to David, 1 Sam. xxv. 18. David to the elders of Judah, 1 Sam. xxx. 26. Jehoshaphat to his sons, 2. Chron. xxi. 3. The Israelites to David, 1. Chron. xii. 39, 40. Shobi Machir and Barzillai to David, 2 Sam. xvii. 28, 29. But no servants were given as presents, though it was a prevailing fashion in the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16, xx. 14. In the last passage we are told that Abimelech king of the Philistines "took sheep and oxen and men servants and women servants and gave them unto Abraham." Not long after this Abraham made Abimelech a present, the same kind with that which he had received from him except that he gave him no servants. "And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them unto Abimelech." Gen. xxi. 27. It may be objected that Laban "GAVE" handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives. Without enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent, suffice it to say that the handmaids of wives were regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and authority. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse upon Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, and 1 Chron. v. 1; also by the equality of their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had it been otherwise--had Laban given them as articles of property, then, indeed, the example of this "good old slaveholder and patriarch," Saint Laban, would have been a forecloser to all argument. Ah! we remember his jealousy for religion--his holy indignation when he found that his "GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and plunged over the desert in hot pursuit seven days by forced marches; how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent, little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for lo! the zeal of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up! No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled before the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a pious worthy to haul up and refit; invoking his protection, and the benediction, of his "GODS!" Again, it may be objected that, servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If that proves servants property, it proves wives property. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shall not covet thy neighbor's WIFE, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Ex. xx. 17. In inventories of mere property, if servants are included, it is in such a way as to show that they are not regarded as property. Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But when the design is to show, not merely the wealth, but the greatness and power of any one, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word, if riches alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants; if greatness, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2, 5. "And Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." Yet we are told, in the verse preceding, that he came up out of Egypt "with all that he had." "And Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse servants are mentioned, "And there was a strife between the HERDMEN of Abraham's cattle and the HERDMEN of Lot's cattle." It is said of Isaac. "And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great. For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants." In immediate connection with this we find Abimelech the king of the Philistines saying to him. "Thou art much mightier than we." Shortly after this avowal, Isaac is waited upon by a deputation consisting of Abimelech, Phicol the chief captain of his army, and Ahuzzath, who says to him "Let there be now an oath betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt do us no hurt." Gen. xxvi. 13, 14, 16, 26, 28, 29.--A plain concession of the power which Isaac had both for aggression and defence in his "great store of servants;" that is, of willing and affectionate adherents to him as a just and benevolent prince. When Hamor and Shechem speak to the Hivites of the riches of Abraham and his sons, they say, "Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours?" Gen. xxxiv. 23. See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen. xxxiv. 23; Job. xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job. i. 3-5; Deut. viii. 12-17; Gen. xxiv. 35; xxvi. 13; xxx. 43. Jacob's wives say to him, "All the riches which God has taken from our father that is ours and our children's." Then follows an inventory of property--"All his cattle," "all his goods," "the cattle of his getting." His numerous servants are not included with his property. Comp. Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16-18. When Jacob sent messengers to Esau, wishing to impress him with an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him not only of his RICHES, but of his GREATNESS; that he had "oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which he sent, there were no servants; though he manifestly selected the most valuable kinds of property. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7; xxxiv. 23. As flocks and herds were the staples of wealth, a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of cattle, which would require many herdsmen. When Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt it is repeatedly asserted that they took all that they had. "Their cattle and their goods which they had gotten in the land of Canaan," "Their flocks and their herds" are mentioned, but no servants. And as we have besides a full catalogue of the household, we know that he took with him no servants. That Jacob had many servants before his migration into Egypt, we learn from Gen, xxx. 43; xxxii. 5, 16, 19. That he was not the proprietor of these servants as his property is a probable inference from the fact that he did not take them with him, since we are expressly told that he did take all his property. Gen. xlv. 10; xlvi. 1, 32; xlvii. 1. When servants are spoken of in connection with mere property, the terms used to express the latter do not include the former. The Hebrew word mikne, is an illustration. It is derived from kana, to procure, to buy, and its meaning is, a possession, wealth, riches. It occurs more than forty times in the Old Testament, and is applied always to mere property, generally to domestic animals, but never to servants. In some instances, servants are mentioned in distinction from the mikne. "And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their SUBSTANCE that they had gathered; and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan." Gen. xii. 5. Many will have it, that these souls were a part of Abraham's substance (notwithstanding the pains here taken to separate them from it)--that they were slaves taken with him in his migration as a part of his family effects. Who but slaveholders, either actually or in heart, would torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a harmless phrase as "the souls that they had gotten?" Until the African slave trade breathed its haze into the eyes of the church and smote her with palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery in, "The souls that they had gotten." In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is rendered, "The souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Targum of Jonathan, "The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran." In the Targum of Jerusalem, "The souls proselyted in Haran." Jarchi, the prince of Jewish commentators, "The souls whom they had brought under the Divine wings." Jerome, one of the most learned of the Christian fathers, "The persons whom they had proselyted." The Persian version, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Samaritan all render it, "All the wealth which they had gathered, and the souls which they had made in Haran." Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible, renders it, "Quas de idolatraria converterant." "Those whom they had converted from idolatry." Paulus Fagius,[B] "Quas instituerant in religione." "Those whom they had established in religion." Luke Francke, a German commentator who lived two centuries ago, "Quas legi subjicerant."--"Those whom they had brought to obey the law." The same distinction is made between persons and property, in the enumeration of Esau's household and the inventory of his effects. "And Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land could not bear them because of their cattle." Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7.
[Footnote A: The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament. The Targum of Onkelos is, for the most part, a very accurate and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, bears about the same date. The Targum of Jerusalem was probably about five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their captivity in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language. These translations into the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of the case.]
[Footnote B: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a century before the date of our present translation.]
II. THE CONDITION AND SOCIAL ESTIMATION OF SERVANTS MAKE THE DOCTRINE THAT THEY WERE COMMODITIES, AN ABSURDITY. As the head of a Jewish family possessed the same power over his wife, children, and grandchildren (if they were in his family) as over his servants, if the latter were articles of property, the former were equally such. If there were nothing else in the Mosaic Institutes or history establishing the social equality of the servants with their masters and their master's wives and children, those precepts which required that they should be guests at all the public feasts, and equal participants in the family and social rejoicings, would be quite sufficient to settle the question. Deut. xii. 12, 18; xvi. 10, 11, 13, 14. Ex. xii. 43, 44. St. Paul's testimony in Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." That the interests of Abraham's servants were identified with those of their master's family, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed. Gen. xiv. 14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebecca did not disdain to say to him. "Drink, MY LORD," as "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!" In the arrangements of Jacob's household on his journey from Padanaram to Canaan, we find his two maid servants treated in the same manner and provided with the same accommodations as Rachel and Leah. Each of them had a separate tent appropriated to her use. Gen. xxxi. 33. The social equality of servants with their masters and other members of their master's families, is an obvious deduction from Ex. xxi. 7, 10, from which we learn that the sale of a young Jewish female as a servant, was also betrothed as a wife, either to her master, or to one of his sons. In 1 Sam. ix. is an account of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel presided. None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only "about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a select party!--the elite of the city. Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and both of them, at Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR (!) and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time anointed King of Israel! and this servant introduced by Samuel into the PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the chiefest seat at the table! This was "one of the servants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the steward or the chief of them--not at all a picked man, but "one of the servants;" any one that could be most easily spared, as no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking after asses. David seems to have been for a time in all respects a servant in Saul's family. He "stood before him." "And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me." He was Saul's personal servant, went on his errands, played on the harp for his amusement, bore his armor for him, and when he wished to visit his parents, asked permission of Jonathan, Saul's son. Saul also calls him "my servant." 1 Sam. xvi. 21-23; xviii. 5; xx. 5, 6; xxii. 8. Yet David sat with the king at meat, married his daughter, and lived on terms of the closest intimacy with the heir apparent of the throne. Abimelech, who was first elected king of Shechem, and afterwards reigned over all Israel, was the son of a MAID-SERVANT. His mother's family seems to have been of much note in the city of Shechem, where her brothers manifestly held great sway. Judg. ix. 1-6, 18. Jarha, an Egyptian, the servant of Sheshan, married his daughter. Tobiah, "the servant" and an Ammonite married the daughter of Shecaniah one of the chief men among the Jews in Jerusalem and was the intimate associate of Sanballat the governor of the Samaritans. We find Elah, the King of Israel, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9. See also the intercourse between Gideon and his servants. Judg. vi. 27, and vii. 10, 11. The Levite of Mount Ephraim and his servant. Judg. xx. 3, 9, 11, 13, 19, 21, 22. King Saul and his servant Doeg, one of his herdmen. 1 Sam. xx. 1, 7; xxii. 9, 18, 22. King David and Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth. 2 Sam. xvi. 1-4. Jonathan and his servant. 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14. Elisha and his servant, Gehazi. 2 Kings iv. v. vi. Also between Joram king of Israel and the servant of Elisha. 2 Kings viii. 4, 5, and between Naaman "the Captain of the host of the king of Syria" and the same person. 2 Kings v. 21-23. The fact stated under a previous head that servants were always invited guests at public and social festivals, is in perfect keeping with the foregoing exemplifications of the prevalent estimation in which servants were held by the Israelites.
Probably no one of the Old Testament patriarchs had more servants than Job; "This man was the greatest man of all the men of the east." Job, i. 3. We are not left in the dark as to the condition of his servants. After asserting his integrity, his strict justice, honesty, and equity, in his dealings with his fellow men, and declaring "I delivered the poor," "I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame," "I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out," * * * he says "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my maid-servant when they CONTENDED with me * * * then let mine arm fall from the shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone." Job. xxix. 12, 15, 16; xxxi. 13, 22. The language employed in this passage is the phraseology applied in judicial proceedings to those who implead one another, and whether it be understood literally or figuratively, shows that whatever difference existed between Job and his servants in other respects, so far as rights are concerned, they were on equal ground with him, and that in the matter of daily intercourse, there was not the least restraint on their free speech in calling in question all his transactions with them, and that the relations and claims of both parties were adjudicated on the principles of equity and reciprocal right. "If I despised the cause of my man-servant," &c. In other words, if I treated it lightly, as though servants were not men, had not rights, and had not a claim for just dues and just estimation as human beings. "When they contended with me," that is, when they plead their rights, claimed what was due to them, or questioned the justice of any of my dealings with them.
In the context Job virtually affirms as the ground of his just and equitable treatment of his servants, that they had the same rights as he had, and were, as human beings, entitled to equal consideration with himself. By what language could he more forcibly utter his conviction of the oneness of their common origin and of the identity of their common nature, necessities, attribute and rights? As soon as he has said, "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant," &c., he follows it up with "What then shall I do when God raiseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb." In the next verse Job glories in the fact that he has not "withheld from the poor their desire." Is it the "desire" of the poor to be compelled by the rich to work for them, and without pay?
III. THE CASE OF THE GIBEONITES. The condition of the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Hebrew commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron could not extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the Israelites? 1. It was voluntary. Their own proposition to Joshua was to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was accepted, but the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in the Tabernacle. 2. They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites. They still resided in their own cities, cultivated their own fields, tended their flocks and herds, and exercised the functions of a distinct, though not independent community. They were subject to the Jewish nation as tributaries. So far from being distributed among the Israelites and their internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they remained a separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many centuries. When attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid--it was rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in their cities. Josh. x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them seven of Saul's descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no intimation that they served either families or individuals of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at Gilgal, a days' journey from their cities; and then at Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them; where it continued about 350 years. During this period the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home. It is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes, ministering in rotation--each class a few days or weeks at a time. As the priests whose assistants they were, served by courses in rotation a week at a time; it is not improbable that their periods of service were so arranged as to correspond. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to have been required of the females. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels, if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.
IV. EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"--waking anew the memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them. But what was the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt? Of what rights were they plundered and what did they retain?
1. They were not dispersed among the families of Egypt,[A] but formed a separate community. Gen. xlvi. 34. Ex. viii. 22, 24; ix. 26; x. 23; xi. 7; iv. 29; ii. 9; xvi. 22; xvii. 5; vi. 14. 2. They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen,[B] "the best part of the land" of Egypt. Gen. xlv. 18; xlvii. 6, 11, 27; Ex. viii. 22; ix. 26; xii. 4. Goshen must have been at a considerable distance from those parts of Egypt inhabited by the Egyptians; so far at least as to prevent their contact with the Israelites, since the reason assigned for locating them in Goshen was, that shepherds were "an abomination to the Egyptians;" besides, their employments would naturally lead them out of the settled parts of Egypt to find a free range of pasturage for their immense flocks and herds. 3. They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, not tents. In Ex. xii. 7, 22, the two side posts, and the upper door posts, and the lintel of the houses are mentioned. Each family seems to have occupied a house by itself. Acts vii. 20. Ex. xii. 4--and judging from the regulation about the eating of the Passover, they could hardly have been small ones, Ex. xii. 4; probably contained separate apartments, as the entertainment of sojourners seems to have been a common usage. Ex. iii. 23; and also places for concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. 4. They owned "flocks and herds," and "very much cattle." Ex. xii. 4, 6, 32, 37, 38. From the fact that "every man" was commanded to kill either a lamb or a kid, one year old, for the Passover, before the people left Egypt, we infer that even the poorest of the Israelites owned a flock either of sheep or goats. Further, the immense multitude of their flocks and herds may be judged of from the expostulation of Moses with Jehovah. Num. xii. 21, 22. "The people among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen, and thou hast said I will give them flesh that they may eat a whole month; shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them." As these six hundred thousand were only the men "from twenty years old and upward, that were able to go forth to war," Ex. i. 45, 46; the whole number of the Israelites could not have been less than three millions and a half. Flocks and herds to "suffice" all these for food, might surely be called "very much cattle." 5. They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and tributary to it. Ex. ii. 1; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; iii. 16, 18. 6. They had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own time. Ex. iii. 16, 18; xii. 6; ii. 9; and iv. 27, 29-31. They seem to have practised the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4; xxxv. 22, 35. 7. They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. 8. They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as inviolable. No intimation is given that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of property. 9. All the females seem to have known something of domestic refinements. They were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25, 26; and both males and females were able to read and write. Deut. xi. 18-20; xvii. 19; xxvii. 3. 10. Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be inferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29. 11. Their food was abundant and of great variety. So far from being fed upon a fixed allowance of a single article, and hastily prepared, "they sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3; and their bread was prepared with leaven. Ex. xii. 15, 39. They ate "the fish freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5; xx. 5. Probably but a small portion of the people were in the service of the Egyptians at any one time. The extent and variety of their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have kept at home the main body of the nation. During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were there to enjoy it. See also Ex. ix. 26. It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex. iv. 29-31. Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the nation would be absent at any one time. The adult males of the Israelites were probably divided into companies, which relieved each other at stated intervals of weeks or months. It might have been during one of these periodical furloughs from service that Aaron performed the journey to Horeb. Ex. iv. 27. At the least calculation this journey must have consumed eight weeks. Probably one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it from their crops, (Goshen being better for pasturage) they exacted it of them in brick making; and labor might have been exacted only from the poorer Israelites, the wealthy being able to pay their tribute in money. The fact that all the elders of Israel seem to have controlled their own time, (See Ex. iv. 29; iii. 16; v. 20,) favors the supposition. Ex. iv. 27, 31. Contrast this bondage of Egypt with American slavery. Have our slaves "flocks and herds even very much cattle?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own, "sit by the flesh-pots," "eat fish freely," and "eat bread to the full"? Do they live in a separate community, in their distinct tribes, under their own rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an extensive tract of country for the culture of their crops, and for rearing immense herds of their own cattle--and all these held inviolable by their masters? Are our female slaves free from exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage? or when employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman by the king's daughter? Have they the disposal of their own time, and the means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and for personal improvement? THE ISRAELITES UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. True, "all the service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." But what was this when compared with the incessant toil of American slaves; the robbery of all their time and earnings, and even the "power to own any thing, or acquire any thing?" a "quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food![C] their only clothing for one half the year, "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons!"[D]two hours and a half only, for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four![E]--their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence, with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field.[F] Add to this, the ignorance, and degradation;[G] the daily sunderings of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by law, and patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt when compared with this? And yet for her oppression of the poor, God smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she passed away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, knew her no more. Ah! "I have seen the afflictions of my people, and I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." HE DID COME, and Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her. If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy, who cloak with religion a system, in comparison with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing? Let those believe who can, that God commissioned his people to rob others of all their rights, while he denounced against them wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the far lighter oppression of Egypt--which robbed its victims of only the least and cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered even of these. What! Is God divided against himself? When He had just turned Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He license the VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As Lawgiver, did he create a system tenfold more grinding than that for which he had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes and his hosts, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming?"
[Footnote C: See law of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual 524-5. To show that slaveholders are not better than their laws. We give a few testimonies. Rev. Thomas Clay, of Georgia, (a slaveholder,) in an address before the Georgia presbytery, in 1834, speaking of the slave's allowance of food, says:--"The quantity allowed by custom is a peck of corn a week." The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser of May 30, 1788, says, "a single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a hard-working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though rarely, added."
The Gradual Emancipation Society of North Carolina, in their Report for 1836, signed Moses Swaim, President, and William Swaim, Secretary, says, in describing the condition of slaves in the Eastern part of that State, "The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part of them go half naked and half starved much of the time." See Minutes of the American Convention, convened in Baltimore, Oct. 25, 1826.
Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee, and for many years a preacher in slave states, says of the food of slaves, "It often happens that what will barely keep them alive, is all that a cruel avarice will allow them. Hence, in some instances, their allowance has been reduced to a single pint of corn each, during the day and night. And some have no better allowance than a small portion of cotton seed; while perhaps they are not permitted to taste meat so much as once in the course of seven years. Thousands of them are pressed with the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives." Rankin's Letters on Slavery, pp. 57, 58.
Hon. Robert J. Turnbull, of Charleston, S.C., a slaveholder, says, "The subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called hominy, or baked into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of indulgence or favor." See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian. Charleston, 1822.
Asa A. Stone, a theological student, residing at Natchez, Mississippi, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Evangelist in 1835, in which he says, "On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a good deal of suffering from hunger. On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of almost utter famishment during a great portion of the year."
At the commencement of his letter, Mr. S. says, "Intending, as I do, that my statements shall be relied on, and knowing that, should you think fit to publish this communication, they will come to this country, where their correctness may be tested by comparison with real life, I make them with the utmost care and precaution."
President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon preached half a century ago, at New Haven, Conn., says, speaking of the allowance of food given to slaves--"They are supplied with barely enough to keep them from starving."
In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20, the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged, among other grounds as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south. Mr. Smyth, a member of Congress, from Virginia, and a large slaveholder, said, "The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity and hunger. Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR."--[Speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]--See National Intelligencer. ]
[Footnote D: See law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 6, 10. Mr. Bouldin, a Virginia slaveholder, in a speech in Congress, Feb. 16, 1835, (see National Intelligencer of that date,) said "he knew that many negroes had died from exposure to weather." Mr. B. adds, "they are clad in a flimsy fabric that will turn neither wind nor water." Rev. John Rankin says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, "In every slaveholding state, many slaves suffer extremely, both while they labor and while they sleep, for want of clothing to keep them warm. Often they are driven through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe, until the path they tread is died with their blood. And when they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver while they slumber." ]
[Footnote E: See law of Louisiana, act of July 7, 1806, Martin's Digest, 6, 10-12. The law of South Carolina permits the master to compel his slaves to work fifteen hours in the twenty-four, in summer, and fourteen in the winter--which would be in winter, from daybreak in the morning until four hours after sunset!--See 2 Brevard's Digest, 243. The preamble of this law commences thus: "Whereas, many owners of slaves do confine them so closely to hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest: be it therefore enacted," &c. In a work entitled "Travels in Louisiana in 1802," translated from the French, by John Davis, is the following testimony under this head:--
"The labor of Slaves in Louisiana is not severe, unless it be at the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, then they work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire to rest during the whole period." See page 81. On the 87th page of the same work, the writer says, "Both in summer and winter the slaves must be in the field by the first dawn of day." And yet he says, "the labor of the slave is not severe, except at the rolling of sugars!" The work abounds in eulogies of slavery.
In the "History of South Carolina and Georgia," vol. 1, p. 120, is the following: "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens of thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED."
In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second number of the "Western Review" is the following:--"The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY."
Mr. Philemon Bliss, of Ohio, in his letters from Florida, in 1835, says, "The negroes commence labor by daylight in the morning, and excepting the plowboys, who must feed and rest their horses, do not leave the field till dark in the evening."
Mr. Stone, in his letter from Natchez, an extract of which was given above, says, "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves rise in season in the morning, to be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work, and remain there until it is so dark that they cannot see. This is the case at all seasons of the year."
President Edwards, in the sermon already extracted from, says, "The slaves are kept at hard labor from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night, excepting time to eat twice during the day."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: "All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition." * * * See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian. ]
[Footnote F: A late number of the "Western Medical Reformer" contains a dissertation by a Kentucky physician, on Cachexia Africana, or African consumption, in which the writer says--
"This form of disease deserves more attention from the medical profession than it has heretofore elicited. Among the causes may be named the mode and manner in which the negroes live. They are crowded together in a small hut, sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor--and seldom raised from the ground, illy ventilated, and surrounded with filth. Their diet and clothing, are also causes which might be enumerated as exciting agents. They live on a coarse, crude and unwholesome diet, and are imperfectly clothed, both summer and winter; sleeping upon filthy and frequently damp beds."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, of South Carolina, whose testimony on another point has been given above, says of the slaves, that they live in "clay cabins, with clay chimneys," &c. Mr. Clay, a Georgia slaveholder, from whom an extract has been given already, says, speaking of the dwellings of the slaves, "Too many individuals of both sexes are crowded into one house, and the proper separation of apartments cannot be observed. That the slaves are insensible to the evils arising from it, does not in the least lessen the unhappy consequences." Clay's Address before the Presbytery of Georgia.--P. 13. ]
[Footnote G: Rev. C.C. Jones, late of Georgia, now Professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, made a report before the presbytery of Georgia, in 1833, on the moral condition of the slave population, which report was published under the direction of the presbytery. In that report Mr. Jones says, "They, the slaves, are shut out from our sympathies and efforts as immortal beings, and are educated and disciplined as creatures of profit, and of profit only, for this world." In a sermon preached by Mr. Jones, before two associations of planters, in Georgia, in 1831, speaking of the slaves he says, "They are a nation of HEATHEN in our very midst." "What have we done for our poor negroes? With shame we must confess that we have done NOTHING!" "How can you pray for Christ's kingdom to come while you are neglecting a people perishing for lack of vision around your very doors." "We withhold the Bible from our servants and keep them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it read and explained to them." Jones' Sermon, pp. 7, 9.
An official report of the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, adopted at its session in Columbia, S.C., and published in the Charleston Observer of March 22, 1834, speaking of the slaves, says, "There are over two millions of human beings, in the condition of HEATHEN, and, in some respects, in a worse condition!" * * * "From long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such, as that they may justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world." * * * "The negroes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, and ever will be under the present state of things." Report, &c., p. 4.
A writer in the Church Advocate, published in Lexington, Ky., says, "The poor negroes are left in the ways of spiritual darkness, no efforts are being made for their enlightenment, no seed is being sown, nothing but a moral wilderness is seen, over which the soul sickens--the heart of Christian sympathy bleeds. Here nothing is presented but a moral waste, as extensive as our influence, as appalling as the valley of death."
The following is an extract of a letter from Bishop Andrew of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to Messrs. Garrit and Maffit, editors of the "Western Methodist," then published at Nashville, Tennessee.
"Augusta, Jan. 29, 1835.
"The Christians of the South owe a heavy debt to slaves on their plantations, and the ministers of Christ especially are debtors to the whole slave population. I fear a cry goes up to heaven on this subject against us; and how, I ask, shall the scores who have left the ministry of the Word, that they may make corn and cotton, and buy and sell, and get gain, meet this cry at the bar of God? and what shall the hundreds of money-making and money-loving masters, who have grown rich by the toil and sweat of their slaves, and left their souls to perish, say when they go with them to the judgment of the great day?"
"The Kentucky Union for the moral and religious improvement of the colored race,"--an association composed of some of the most influential ministers and laymen of Kentucky, says in a general circular to the religious public, "To the female character among the black population, we cannot allude but with feelings of the bitterest shame. A similar condition of moral pollution, and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous reputation, is to be found only without the pale of Christendom. That such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation, without calling forth any particular attention to its existence, though ever before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once unaccountable and disgraceful."
Rev. James A. Thome, a native of Kentucky, and still residing there, said in a speech in New York, May 1834, speaking of licentiousness among the slaves, "I would not have you fail to understand that this is a general evil. Sir, what I now say, I say from deliberate conviction of its truth; that the slave states are Sodoms, and almost every village family is a brothel. (In this, I refer to the inmates of the kitchen, and not to the whites.)"
A writer in the "Western Luminary," published in Lexington, Ky., made the following declaration to the same point in the number of that paper for May 7, 1835: "There is one topic to which I will allude, which will serve to establish the heathenism of this population. I allude to the UNIVERSAL LICENTIOUSNESS which prevails. Chastity is no virtue among them--its violation neither injures female character in their own estimation, or that of their master or mistress--no instruction is ever given, no censure pronounced. I speak not of the world. I SPEAK OF CHRISTIAN FAMILIES GENERALLY."
Rev. Mr. Converse, long a resident of Virginia, and agent of the Colonization Society, said, in a sermon before the Vt. C.S.--"Almost nothing is done to instruct the slaves in the principles and duties of the Christian religion. * * * The majority are emphatically heathens. * * Pious masters (with some honorable exceptions) are criminally negligent of giving religious instruction to their slaves. * * * They can and do instruct their own children, and perhaps their house servants; while those called "field hands" live, and labor, and die, without being told by their pious masters (?) that Jesus Christ died to save sinners."
The page is already so loaded with references that we forbear. For testimony from the mouths of slaveholders to the terrible lacerations and other nameless outrages inflicted on the slaves, the reader is referred to the number of the Anti-Slavery Record for Jan. 1837. ]
We now proceed to examine the various objections which will doubtless be set in array against all the foregoing conclusions.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wit's end in pressing the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them hard pushed. Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions and blind guesswork, proclaim both their cause desperate, and themselves. Meanwhile their invocations for help to "those good old slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,"[A] sent up without ceasing from the midst of their convulsions, avail as little as did the screams and lacerations of the prophets of Baal to bring an answer of fire. The Bible defences thrown around slavery by the professed ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical facts it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, ignorance, or blasphemy, predominates, in the compound; each strives so lustily for the mastery, it may be set down a drawn battle. How often has it been bruited that the color of the negro is the Cain-mark, propagated downward. Cain's posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out the flood with flying streamers! How could miracle be more worthily employed, or better vindicate the ways of God to man than by pointing such an argument, and filling out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed!
[Footnote A: The Presbytery of Harmony, South Carolina, at their meeting in Wainsborough, S.C., Oct. 28, 1836, appointed a special committee to report on slavery. The following resolution is a part of the report adopted by the Presbytery. "Resolved, That slavery has existed from the days of those GOOD OLD SLAVEHOLDERS AND PATRIARCHS, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are now in the kingdom of Heaven."
Abraham receives abundant honor at the hands of slave-holding divines. Not because he was the "father of the faithful," forsook home and country for the truth's sake, was the most eminent preacher and practiser of righteousness in his day; nay, verily, for all this he gets faint praise; but then he had "SERVANTS BOUGHT WITH MONEY!!!" This is the finishing touch of his character, and its effect on slaveholders is electrical. Prose fledges into poetry, cold compliments warm into praise, eulogy rarifies into panegyric and goes off in rhapsody. In their ecstasies over Abraham, Isaac's paramount claims to their homage are lamentably lost sight of. It is quite unaccountable, that in their manifold oglings over Abraham's "servants bought with money," no slaveholder is ever caught casting loving side-glances at Gen. xxvii. 29, 37, where Isaac, addressing Jacob, says, "Be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee." And afterwards, addressing Esau, he says, speaking of the birth-right immunities confirmed to Jacob, "Behold I have made him thy Lord and all his brethren have I GIVEN TO HIM FOR SERVANTS!"
Here is a charter for slaveholding, under the sign manual of that "good old slaveholder and patriarch, Isaac." Yea, more--a "Divine Warrant" for a father holding his children as slaves and bequeathing them as property to his heirs! Better still, it proves that the favorite practice amongst our slaveholders of bequeathing their colored children to those of a different hue, was a "Divine institution," for Isaac "gave" Esau, who was "red all over," to Jacob, "as a servant." Now gentlemen, "honor to whom honor." Let Isaac no longer be stinted of the glory that is his due as the great prototype of that "peculiar domestic institution," of which you are eminent patrons, that nice discrimination, by which a father, in his will, makes part of his children property, and the rest, their proprietors, whenever the propriety of such a disposition is indicated, as in the case of Jacob and Esau, by the decisive tokens of COLOR and HAIR, (for, to show that Esau was Jacob's rightful property after he was "given to him" by Isaac "for a servant," the difference in hair as well as color, is expressly stated by inspiration!)
One prominent feature of patriarchal example has been quite overlooked by slaveholders. We mean the special care of Isaac to inform Jacob that those "given to him as servants" were "HIS BRETHREN," (twice repeated.) The deep veneration of slaveholders for every thing patriarchal, clears them from all suspicion of designedly neglecting this authoritative precedent, and their admirable zeal to perpetuate patriarchal fashions, proves this seeming neglect, a mere oversight: and is an all-sufficient guarantee that henceforward they will religiously illustrate in their own practice, the beauty of this hitherto neglected patriarchal usage. True, it would be an odd codicil to a will, for a slaveholder, after bequeathing to some of his children, all his slaves, to add a supplement, informing them that such and such and such of them were their brothers and sisters. Doubtless it would be at first a sore trial also, but what pious slaveholder would not be sustained under it by the reflection that he was humbly following in the footsteps of his illustrious patriarchal predecessors!
Great reformers must make great sacrifices, and if the world is to be brought back to the purity of patriarchal times, upon whom will the ends of the earth come, to whom will all trembling hearts and failing eyes spontaneously turn as leaders to conduct the forlorn hope through the wilderness to that promised land, if not to slaveholders, those disinterested pioneers whose self-denying labors have founded far and wide the "patriarchal institution" of concubinage, and through evil report and good report, have faithfully stamped their own image and superscription, in variegated hues, upon the faces of a swarming progeny from generation to generation. ]
OBJECTION I. "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Gen. ix. 25.
This prophecy of Noah is the vade mecum of slaveholders, and they never venture abroad without it; it is a pocket-piece for sudden occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, and a magnet to draw to their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a throbbing conscience--a mocking lullaby to unquiet tossings. Those who justify negro slavery by the curse on Canaan, assume as usual all the points in debate. 1. That slavery was prophesied, rather than mere service to others, and individual bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. 2. That the prediction of crime justifies it; or at least absolves those whose crimes fulfil it. How piously the Pharaohs might have quoted the prophecy, "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and they shall afflict them four hundred years." And then, what saints were those that crucified the Lord of glory! 3. That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Africa was peopled from Egypt and Ethiopia, which countries were settled by Mizraim and Cush. For the location and boundaries of Canaan's posterity, see Gen. x. 15-19. So a prophecy of evil to one people, is quoted to justify its infliction upon another. Perhaps it may be argued that Canaan includes all Ham's posterity. If so, the prophecy is yet unfulfilled. The other sons of Ham settled Egypt and Assyria, and, conjointly with Shem, Persia, and afterward, to some extent, the Grecian and Roman empires. The history of these nations gives no verification of the prophecy. Whereas, the history of Canaan's descendants for more than three thousand years, is a record of its fulfillment. First, they were put to tribute by the Israelites; then by the Medes and Persians; then by the Macedonians, Grecians and Romans, successively; and finally, were subjected by the Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan has been for ages the servant mainly of Shem and Japhet, and secondarily of the other sons of Ham. It may still be objected, that though Canaan alone is named, yet the 22d and 24th verses show the posterity of Ham in general to be meant. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without." "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his YOUNGER son had done unto him, and said," &c. It is argued that this "younger son" cannot be Canaan, as he was the grandson of Noah, and therefore it must be Ham. We answer, whoever that "younger son" was, Canaan alone was named in the curse. Besides, the Hebrew word Ben, signifies son, grandson, or any one of the posterity of an individual.[A] "Know ye Laban, the SON (grandson) of Nahor?" Gen. xxix. 5. "Mephibosheth the SON (grandson) of Saul." 2 Sam. xix. 24; 2 Sam. ix. 6. "The driving of Jehu the SON (grandson) of Nimshi." 2 Kings ix. 20. See also Ruth iv. 17; 2 Sam. xxi. 6; Gen. xxxi. 55. Shall we forbid the inspired writer to use the same word when speaking of Noah's grandson? Further, Ham was not the "younger son." The order of enumeration makes him the second son. If it be said that Bible usage varies, the order of birth not always being observed in enumerations; the reply is, that, enumeration in that order, is the rule, in any other order the exception. Besides, if a younger member of a family takes precedence of older ones in the family record, it is a mark of pre-eminence, either in endowments, or providential instrumentality. Abraham, though sixty years younger than his eldest brother, stands first in the family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history shows him pre-eminent; besides, the Hebrew word Hakkatan rendered "the younger," means the little, small. The same word is used in Isa. lx. 22. "A LITTLE ONE shall become a thousand." Isa. xxii. 24. "All vessels of SMALL quantity." Ps. cxv. 13. "He will bless them that fear the Lord both SMALL and great." Ex. xviii, 22. "But every SMALL matter they shall judge." It would be a literal rendering of Gen. ix. 24, if it were translated thus, "when Noah knew what his little son,"[B] or grandson (Beno Hakkatan) "had done unto him, he said cursed be Canaan," &c. Further, even if the Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the assumption that their enslavement fulfils this prophecy, lacks even plausibility, for, only a fraction of the inhabitants of Africa have at any time been the slaves of other nations. If the objector say in reply, that a large majority of the Africans have always been slaves at home, we answer: It is false in point of fact, though zealously bruited often to serve a turn; and if it were true, how does it help the argument? The prophecy was, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his BRETHREN.," not unto himself!
[Footnote A: So av, the Hebrew word for father, signifies any ancestor, however remote. 2 Chron. xvii. 3; xxviii. 1; xxxiv. 2; Dan. v. 2.]
[Footnote B: The French follows the same analogy; grandson being petit fils (little son.)]
OBJECTION II.--"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of this regulation? Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offence should not be capital? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered from Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will often find a moot court in session, trying law points, settling definitions, or laying down rules of evidence. Num. xxxv. 10-22; Deut. xix. 4-6; Lev. xxiv. 19-22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are some of the cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect the intent, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judicial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions necessary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable them to get at the motive and find out whether the master designed to kill. 1. "If a man smite his servant with a rod."--The instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Num. xxxv. 16-18. A rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon--hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be inferred; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. But if the servant "die under his hand," then the unfitness of the instrument, is point blank against him; for, striking with a rod so as to cause death, presupposed very many blows and great violence, and this kept up till the death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence "He shall surely be punished." But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, the kind of instrument used, and the master's pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,") all made a strong case of presumptive evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill. Further, the word nakam, here rendered punished, occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every place is translated "avenge," in a few, "to take vengeance," or "to revenge," and in this instance ALONE, "punish." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master, whereas it should refer to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged. The meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master. So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the death of the master, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places! One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal; the other, an accidental, and comparatively slight injury--of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! Now, just the discrimination to be looked for where GOD legislates, is marked in the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says, "It (the death) shall surely be avenged," that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be fined, (anash.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word anash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19: "They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3: "He condemned (mulcted) the land in a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold." That avenging the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, nor stripes, nor a fine but that it was taking the master's life we infer, 1. From the use of the word nakam. See Gen. iv. 24; Josh. x. 13; Judg. xv. 7; xvi. 28; 1 Sam. xiv. 24; xviii. 25; xxv. 31; 2 Sam. iv. 8; Judg. v. 2; 1 Sam. xxv. 26-33. 2. From the express statute, Lev. xxiv. 17: "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be put to death." Also, Num. xxxv. 30, 31: "Whoso killeth ANY person, the murderer shall be put to death. Moreover, ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death." 3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem, "Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost." Jarchi, the same. The Samaritan version: "He shall die the death." Again, the clause "for he is his money," is quoted to prove that the servant is his master's property, and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY," proves not only that the servant is worth money to the master, but that he is an article of property. If the advocates of slavery insist upon taking this principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turning it loose, let them stand and draw in self-defence. If they endorse for it at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears the table, and tilts them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as the following: "This (bread) is my body;" "all they (the Israelites) are brass and tin;" this (water) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "the Lord God is a sun;" "the seven good ears are seven years;" "the tree of the field is man's life;" "God is a consuming fire;" "he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact literalities of the Bible is too amiable, not to be gratified in this case. The words in the original are (Káspo-hu,) "his silver is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is a philosopher's stone! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into solid silver! Quite a permanent servant, if not so nimble withal--reasoning against "forever," is forestalled henceforth, and, Deut. xxiii. 15, quite outwitted. The obvious meaning of the phrase, "He is his money," is, he is worth money to his master, and since, if the master had killed him, it would have taken money out of his pocket, the pecuniary loss, the kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living sometime after the injury, (if the master meant to kill, he would be likely to do it while about it.) all together make a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master from intent to kill. But let us look at the objector's inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his property as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he was equally his property, and the objector admits that in the first case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying his own property! The other inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of intent to kill, the loss of the servant would be a sufficient punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A pecuniary loss was no part of the legal claim, where a person took the life of another. In such case, the law spurned money, whatever the sum. God would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide, where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Num. xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a penalty adequate to the desert of the master, admits his guilt and his desert of some punishment, and it prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where man took the life of man, whether with or without intent to kill. In short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system--makes a new law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit. Divine legislation revised and improved! The master who struck out his servant's tooth, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him free. The pecuniary loss to the master was the same as though he had killed him. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so that he dies of his wounds; another accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth,--the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same. If the loss of the servant's services is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him, would God command the same punishment for the accidental knocking out of a tooth? Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertently, the loss of the servant's services was only a part of the punishment--mere reparation to the individual for injury done; the main punishment, that strictly judicial, was reparation to the community. To set the servant free, and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it--answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an example of the offender, that "those that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev. xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out his servant's tooth, the law smote out his tooth--thus redressing the public wrong; and it cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from perilous liabilities in future.
OBJECTION III. "Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. xxv. 44-46.
The points in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic system sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." 4. "FOREVER."
We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery is derivable from these terms.
1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called "bondmen," while others are called "servants," is quoted as proof that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The Hebrew word "ebedh," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen," is often applied to Christ. "Behold my servant (bondman, slave?) whom I uphold." Isa. xlii. 1. "Behold my servant (Christ) shall deal prudently." Isa. lii. 13. "And he said it is a light thing that thou (Christ) shouldst be my servant." Isa. xlix. 6. "To a servant of rulers." Isa. xlix. 7. "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant (Christ) justify many." Is. liii. 11. "Behold I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH." Zech. iii. 8. In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, it is applied to King Rehoboam. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a servant unto this people, then they will be thy servants forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation. The word is used to designate those who perform service for individuals or families, about thirty-five times in the Old Testament. To designate tributaries about twenty-five times. To designate the subjects of government, about thirty-three times. To designate the worshippers both of the true God, and of false gods, about seventy times. It is also used in salutations and courteous addresses nearly one hundred times. In fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service for others, and that merely to designate them as the performers of such service, whatever it might be, or whatever the ground on which it might be rendered. To argue from the fact, of this word being used to designate domestic servants, that they were made servants by force, worked without pay, and held as articles of property, is such a gross assumption and absurdity as to make formal refutation ridiculous. We repeat what has been shown above, that the word rendered bondmen in Lev. xxv. 44, is used to point out persons rendering service for others, totally irrespective of the principle on which that service was rendered; as is manifest from the fact that it is applied indiscriminately to tributaries, to domestics, to all the subjects of governments, to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to younger sons--defining their relation to the first born, who is called lord and ruler--to prophets, to kings, and to the Messiah. To argue from the meaning of the word ebedh as used in the Old Testament, that those to whom it was applied rendered service against their will, and without pay, does violence to the scripture use of the term, sets at nought all rules of interpretation, and outrages common sense. If any inference as to the meaning of the term is to be drawn from the condition and relations of the various classes of persons, to whom it is applied, the only legitimate one would seem to be, that the term designates a person who renders service to another in return for something of value received from him. The same remark applies to the Hebrew verb abadh, to serve, answering to the noun ebedh (servant). It is used in the Old Testament to describe the serving of tributaries, of worshippers, of domestics, of Levites, of sons to a father, of younger brothers to the elder, of subjects to a ruler, of hirelings, of soldiers, of public officers to the government, of a host to his guests, &c. Of these it is used to describe the serving of worshippers more than forty times, of tributaries, about thirty five, and of servants or domestics, about ten.
If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if Abraham had thousands, and if they abounded under the Mosaic system, why had their language no word that meant slave? That language must be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an "ebedh," yet he "owned" (!) twenty ebedhs! In our language, we have both servant and slave. Why? Because we have both the things, and need signs for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some name for it: but our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such thing. But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word ebedh if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their national servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestics servants so rarely, that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under heathen laws and usages, proclaimed their liabilities; their locality made a specific term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had not only servants, but a multitude of slaves, a word meaning slave, would have been indispensible for every day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages between the without and the within.
2. "BUY." The buying of servants, is discussed at length. pp. 17-23. To that discussion the reader is referred. We will add in this place but a single consideration. This regulation requiring the Israelites to "buy" servants of the heathen, prohibited their taking them without buying. Buying supposes two parties: a price demanded by one and paid by the other, and consequently, the consent of both buyer and seller, to the transaction. Of course the command to the Israelites to buy servants of the heathen, prohibited their getting them unless they first got somebody's consent to the transaction, and paid to somebody a fair equivalent. Now, who were these somebodies? This at least is plain, they were not Israelites, but heathen. "Of them shall ye buy." Who then were these somebodies, whose right was so paramount, that their consent must be got and the price paid must go into their pockets? Were they the persons themselves who became servants, or some other persons. "Some other persons to be sure," says the objector, "the countrymen or the neighbors of those who become servants." Ah! this then is the import of the Divine command to the Israelites.
"When you go among the heathen round about to get a man to work for you, I straightly charge you to go first to his neighbors, get their consent that you may have him, settle the terms with them, and pay to them a fair equivalent. If it is not their choice to let him go, I charge you not to take him on your peril. If they consent, and you pay them the full value of his labor, then you may go and catch the man and drag him home with you, and make him work for you, and I will bless you in the work of your hands and you shall eat of the fat of the land. As to the man himself, his choice is nothing, and you need give him nothing for his work: but take care and pay his neighbors well for him, and respect their free choice in taking him, for to deprive a heathen man by force and without pay of the use of himself is well pleasing in my sight, but to deprive his heathen neighbors of the use of him is that abominable thing which my soul hateth."
3. "FOREVER." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their posterity from generation to generation.[A] No such idea is contained in the passage. The word "forever," instead of defining the length of individual service, proclaims the permanence of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that their permanent domestics should be of the Strangers, and not of the Israelites; it declares the duration of that general provision. As if God had said, "You shall always get your permanent laborers from the nations round about you; your servants shall always be of that class of persons." As it stands in the original, it is plain--"Forever of them shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering.
[Footnote A: One would think that the explicit testimony of our Lord should for ever forestall all cavil on this point. "The servant abideth not in the house FOR EVER, but the Son, abideth ever." John viii. 35.]
That "forever" refers to the permanent relations of a community, rather than to the services of individuals, is a fair inference from the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the heathen. OF THEM shall ye buy." "They shall be your possession." "THEY shall be your bondmen forever." "But over your brethren the CHILDREN OF ISRAEL," &c. To say nothing of the uncertainty of these individuals surviving those after whom they are to live, the language used applies more naturally to a body of people, than to individual servants. Besides perpetual service cannot be argued from the term forever. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter limit it absolutely by the jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * * throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means Israelitish inhabitants alone. The command is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in by the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock that made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of OUR salvation lives. "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of EVERY kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism.[A] It not only eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out its sun. The refusal to release servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's redemption. But even if forever did refer to individual service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same word defines the length of time which Jewish servants served who did not go out at the end of their six years' term. And all admit that they went out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "forever" in the 46th verse extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the land is mine"--since it would hardly be used in different senses in the same general connection. As forever, in the 46th verse, respects the general arrangement, and not individual service the objection does not touch the argument. Besides, in the 46th verse, the word used is Olam, meaning throughout the period, whatever that may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth, meaning, a cutting off, or to be cut off; and the import of it is, that the owner of an inheritance shall not forfeit his proprietorship of it; though it may for a time pass from his control into the hands of his creditors or others, yet the owner shall be permitted to redeem it, and even if that be not done, it shall not be "cut off," but shall revert to him at the jubilee.
[Footnote A: So far from the Strangers not being released by the proclamation of liberty on the morning of the jubilee, they were the only persons who were, as a body, released by it. The rule regulating the service of Hebrew servants was, "Six years shall he serve, and in the seventh year he shall go out free." The free holders who had "fallen into decay," and had in consequence mortgaged their inheritances to their more prosperous neighbors, and become in some sort their servants, were released by the jubilee, and again resumed their inheritances. This was the only class of Jewish servants (and it could not have been numerous,) which was released by the jubilee; all others went out at the close of their six years' term.]
3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a POSSESSION. This, as has been already remarked refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants procured from the senations. The holding of servants as a possession is discussed at large pp. 47-64. To what is there advanced we here subjoin a few brief considerations. We have already shown, that servants could not he held as a property possession, and inheritance; that they became such of their own accord, were paid wages, released from their regular labor nearly half the days in each year, thoroughly instructed and protected in all their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their masters. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable "possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition! Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, "OUR PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words nahal and nahala, inherit and inheritance, by no means necessarily signify articles of property. "The people answered the king and said, "we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of property? "Children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps. cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine inheritance." Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them articles of property? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes? "I am their inheritance." Ezek. xliv. 28. "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Ps. ii. 18. See also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 18.
The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"possession," has been already discussed, pp. 47-64, we need add in this place but a word. As an illustration of the condition of servants from the heathen that were the "possession" of Israelitish families, and of the way in which they became servants, the reader is referred to Isa. xiv. 1, 2. "For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers will be joined with them, and they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over the oppressors."
We learn from these verses, 1st. That these servants which were to be "possessed" by the Israelites, were to be "joined with them," i.e., become proselytes to their religion. 2d. That they should "CLEAVE to the house of Jacob," i.e., that they would forsake their own people voluntarily, attach themselves to the Israelites as servants, and of their own free choice leave home and friends, to accompany them on their return, and to take up their permanent abode with them, in the same manner that Ruth accompanied Naomi from Moab to the land of Israel, and that the "souls gotten" by Abraham in Padanaram, accompanied him when he left it and went to Canaan. "And the house of Israel shall possess them for servants," i.e. shall have them for servants.
In the passage under consideration, "they shall be your possession," the original word translated "possession" is ahuzza. The same word is used in Gen. xlvii. 11. "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlvii. 11. In what sense was Goshen the possession of the Israelites? Answer, in the sense of having it to live in, not in the sense of having it as owners. In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for their children? Answer, they possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy male and female domestics." "Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your permanent resource." "And ye shall take them as a perpetual source of supply to whom your children after you shall resort for servants. ALWAYS, of them shall ye serve yourselves." The design of the passage is manifest from its structure. So far from being a permission to purchase slaves, it was a prohibition to employ Israelites for a certain term and in a certain grade of service, and to point out the class of persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the way in which they were to get them.[A]
[Footnote A: Rabbi Leeser, who translated from the German the work entitled "Instruction in the Mosaic Religion" by Professor Jholson of the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in his comment on these verses, says, "It must be observed that it was prohibited to SUBJECT a Stranger to slavery. The buying of slaves alone is permitted, but not stealing them."
Now whatever we call that condition in which servants were, whether servitude or slavery, and whatever we call the persons in that condition, whether servants or slaves, we have at all events, the testimony that the Israelites were prohibited to subject a Stranger to that condition, or in other words, the free choice of the servant was not to be compelled. ]
OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.
As only one class is called "hired," it is inferred that servants of the other class were not paid for their labor. That God, while thundering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people. The inference that "hired" is synonymous with paid, and that those servants not called "hired," were not paid for their labor, is a mere assumption. The meaning of the English verb to hire, is to procure for a temporary use at a certain price--to engage a person to temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word "saukar." It is not used when the procurement of permanent service is spoken of. Now, we ask, would permanent servants, those who constituted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the same term that marks temporary servants? The every-day distinctions in this matter, are familiar as table-talk. In many families the domestics perform only the regular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. The familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," and "hired help," (not paid help.) Both classes are paid. One is permanent, and the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called "hired."[A] A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing, hired from bought servants. 1. Hired servants were paid daily at the close of their work. Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8. "Bought" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being called bought,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a gratuity. Deut. xv. 12, 13. 2. The "hired" were paid in money, the "bought" received their gratuity, at least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xv. 14. 3. The "hired" lived in their own families, the "bought" were a part of their masters' families. 4. The "hired" supported their families out of their wages; the "bought" and their families were supported by the master beside their wages. 5. Hired servants were expected to work more constantly, and to have more working hours in the day than the bought servants. This we infer from the fact, that "a hireling's day," was a sort of proverbial phrase, meaning a full day. No subtraction of time being made from it. So a hireling's year signifies an entire year without abatement. Job. vii. 1; xiv. 6; Isa. xvi. 14; xxi. 16.
[Footnote A: To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a hired servant, is profound induction! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "hired" man, but if I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm "on shares," every farmer knows that he is no longer called a "hired" man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same times, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month, instead of twelve. Now as he is no longer called "hired," and as he still works my farm, suppose my neighbors sagely infer, that since he is not my "hired" laborer, I rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, pronounce their oracular decision, and hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep divers! like some theological professors, they go not only to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]
The "bought" servants, were, as a class, superior to the hired--were more trust-worthy, were held in higher estimation, had greater privileges, and occupied a more elevated station in society. 1. They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master, were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10, 11; Ex. xii. 43, 45. 2. Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters' family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their masters' estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of Bilhah, and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves saying, this is the heir, come let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." Luke xx. 14. In no instance does a hired servant inherit his master's estate. 3. Marriages took place between servants and their master's daughters. "Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife." 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a hired servant forming such an alliance. 4. Bought servants and their descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the other members of the family.[A] The treatment of Abraham's servants. Gen. xxiv. and xviii. 1-7; the intercourse between Gideon and Phurah Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22; Jonathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and Gehazi are illustrations. The tenderness exercised towards home-born servants or the children of handmaids, and the strength of the tie that bound them to the family, are employed by the Psalmist to illustrate the regard of God for him, his care over him, and his own endearing relation to him, when in the last extremity he prays, "Save the son of thy handmaid." Ps. lxxxvi. 16. So also in Ps. cxvi. 16. Oh Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid. Also, Jer. ii. 14. Is Israel a servant? Is he a home-born?[B] WHY IS HE SPOILED? No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants and their masters. Their untrustworthiness was proverbial. John x. 12, 13. They were reckoned at but half the value of bought servants. Deut. xv. 18. None but the lowest class of the people engaged as hired servants, and the kinds of labor assigned to them required little knowledge and skill. No persons seem to have become hired servants except such as were forced to it from extreme poverty. The hired servant is called "poor and needy," and the reason assigned by God why he should be paid as soon as he had finished his work is, "For he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it." Deut. xxiv. 14, 15. See also, 1 Sam. ii. 5. Various passages show the low repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high trust confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the household. In no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. The bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family, sometimes with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant, not to take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The servant himself selected the individual. Servants exercised discretionary power in the management of their masters' estates, "And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his master were in his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the disposal of property. Gen. xxiv. 22, 30, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents, the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with a large capital. The unjust steward had large discretionary power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods," and manifestly regulated with his debtors the terms of settlement. Luke xvi. 4-8. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants.
[Footnote A: "For the purchased servant who is an Israelite, or proselyte, shall fare as his master. The master shall not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor yet drink old wine, and give his servant new: nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a purchased servant does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if he got himself a master."--Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1, Sec. 2.]
[Footnote B: Our translators in rendering it "Is he a home-born SLAVE," were wise beyond what is written.]
The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, the memory of his home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the lowest class of servants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast, that he exclaimed, "How many hired servants of my father, have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart broke. "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father;" and then to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add; "Make me as one of thy hired servants." If hired servants were the superior class--to bespeak the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he sobs aloud, "The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos.
It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." If this were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of all ill-desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.
Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely political, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than even the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought servants. The Israelite was to serve six years--the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor houses, except within walled towns, they would naturally attach themselves to Israelitish families. Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six[A] years; as, during that time--if of the first class--the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service;[B] and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies--a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Stranger, it was a permanent employment, pursued both as a means of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.
[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were graduated upon a septennial scale. Besides, as those Israelites who had become servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients to recruit their finances had failed--(Lev. xxv. 35)--their becoming servants proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them.]
[Footnote B: The Stranger had the same inducements to prefer a long term of service that those have who cannot own land, to prefer a long lease.]
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen,) 1. They followed it as a permanent business. 2. Their term of service was much longer than that of the other class. 3. As a class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. 4. All the Strangers that dwelt in the land were tributaries, required to pay an annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service, (called a "tribute of bond-service;") in other words, all the Strangers were national servants, to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word used to designate individual servants, equally designates national servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14; 2 Chron. viii. 7-9; Deut, xx. 11; 2 Sam. x. 19; 1 Kings ix. 21, 22; 1 Kings iv. 21; Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3.; Judg. iii. 8, 14; Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, was in their kinds of service. The servants from the Strangers were properly the domestics, or household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was required by increasing wants and needed repairs. The Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively agricultural. Besides being better fitted for it by previous habits, agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field." 1 Sam. xi. 5. Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon was "threshing wheat" when called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agriculture is shown, in that it was protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy--God indicating it as the chief prop of the government. The Israelites were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturists on their own patrimonial inheritances, was with them the grand claim to honorable estimation. When Ahab proposed to Naboth that he should sell him his vineyard, king though he was, he might well have anticipated from an Israelitish freeholder, just such an indignant burst as that which his proposal drew forth, "And Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." 1 Kings xxi. 2, 3. Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed degrading.[C] In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically to unjew him, a hardship and a rigor grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers. To guard this and another fundamental distinction, God instituted the regulation, "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to servant's work--to the business, and into the condition of domestics. In the Persian version it is translated, "Thou shalt not assign to him the work of servitude." In the Septuagint, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a domestic." In the Syriac, "Thou shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan, "Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[D] The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics. The remainder of the regulation is--"But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters; they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority; and this, even though they resided under the same roof with their master. The same substantially may be said of the sojourner though he was not the owner of the land which he cultivated, and of course had not the control of an inheritance, yet he was not in a condition that implied subjection to him whose land he tilled, or that demanded the surrender of any right, or exacted from him any homage, or stamped him with any inferiority; unless, it be supposed that a degree of inferiority would naturally attach to a state of dependence however qualified. While bought servants were associated with their master's families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable to masters, is that of keeping back their wages. To have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would have been pre-eminent "rigor;" for it was not a servant born in the house of a master, nor a minor, whose minority had been sold by the father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance, nor finally, one who had received the assignment of his inheritance, but was working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its possession and control. But it was that of the head of a family, who had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage; he is an Israelite--Abraham is his father and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all." To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with" peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or literally, thou shalt not serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties his political privileges, and a kind and grade of service comporting with his character and relations as an Israelite. And "as a hired servant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service as to alleviate as much as possible the calamity which had reduced him from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The import of the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, ("Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not disregard those differences in previous associations, station, authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based; for to hold this class of servants irrespective of these distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the disregard of which would be rigorous in the extreme.[E] The construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and commissioned their infliction upon the Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering captivates scoffers and libertines; its flippancy and blasphemy, and the strong scent of its loose-reined license works like a charm upon them. What boots it to reason against such rampant affinities! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that the Egyptians, "made the children of Israel to serve with rigor." This rigor is affirmed of the amount of labor extorted and the mode of the exaction. The expression "serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shall not RULE over him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise. But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the same term of time and under the same political disabilities as the latter.
[Footnote C: The Babylonish captivity seems to have greatly modified Jewish usage in this respect. Before that event, their cities were comparatively small, and few were engaged in mechanical or mercantile employments. Afterward their cities enlarged apace and trades multiplied.]
[Footnote D: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" is, "The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any thing which is accounted degrading--such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his master's shoe-latchet, bringing him water to wash his hands and feet, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor, until his legal release."]
[Footnote E: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions, based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation of nation characteristics, and a national worship, did not at all affect their social estimation. They were regarded according to their character and worth as persons, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments and political condition.]
We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each.
In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in their persons, character, property and social relations; all were voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released from it nearly one half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated instruction; none in either class were in any sense articles of property, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, hopes and destinies of men. In all these respects, all classes of servants among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLASS. The different classes, and the differences in each class, were, 1. Hired Servants. This class consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were different. The Israelite was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was a domestic and personal servant, and in some instances mechanical; both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own families, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work was done. 2. Bought Servants, (including those "born in the house.") This class also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in their kinds of employment as noticed before. Both were paid in advance,[A] and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the exception of the freeholder, completed his term in six years. The Stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked distinction obtained also between different classes of Jewish bought servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master's family, and, like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But the freeholder was an exception; his family relations and authority remained unaffected, nor was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent on him for employment.
[Footnote A: The payment in advance, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the master assuming all the risks of life, and health for labor; at the expiration of the six years' contract, the master having suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c. This gratuity at the close of the service shews the principle of the relation; equivalent for value received. ]
It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal, natural and religious rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own people who were not servants. They also shared in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether servants of Jewish masters, or masters of Jewish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively political and national. 1. They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. 2. They were ineligible to civil offices. 3. They were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute, and deemed unjewish.
Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political privileges, their condition was much like that of unnaturalized foreigners in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privileges, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration. Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government "rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.
FINALLY.--As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve inviolate the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex. xxi. 2-6, is an illustration. In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term expired in six years, married one of his master's permanent female domestics; but her marriage did not release her master from his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific grade and term of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfil her part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To render it void, would have been to divide the system against itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.[B] By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant in the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his taste and skill. The great number of days on which the law released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more time with his family, than can be spent by most of the agents of our benevolent societies with their families, or by many merchants, editors, artists, &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.
[Footnote B: Whoever profoundly studies the Mosaic Institutes with a teachable and reverential spirit, will feel the truth and power of that solemn appeal and interrogatory of God to his people Israel, when he had made an end of setting before them all his statutes and ordinances. "What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments SO RIGHTEOUS, as all this law which I set before you this day." Deut. iv. 8.]
We conclude this inquiry by touching upon an objection, which, though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,--"The slavery of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins."[A] If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh at itself; it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. Only one statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was pronounced against them, and afterwards commuted, when? where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation, and where is it recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination; how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal human nature, and instead of healing a wound, gives a death-stab. What! repair an injury to rational being in the robbery of one of its rights, not only by robbing it of all, but by annihilating their foundation, the everlasting distinction between persons and things? To make a man a chattel, is not the punishment, but the annihilation of a human being, and, so far as it goes, of all human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate, from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it! Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, rather than laid down as doctrines. The directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages, Ex. xxiii. 23-33; xxxiv. 11; Deut. vii. 16-24; ix. 3; xxxi. 3-5. In these verses, the Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites," to "drive out," "consume," "utterly overthrow," "put out," "dispossess them," &c. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the individuals, or merely of the body politic? The word haram, to destroy, signifies national, as well as individual destruction; the destruction of political existence, equally with personal; of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects. Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to mean personal destruction, what meaning shall we give to the expressions, "drive out before thee," "cast out before thee," "expel," "put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same and in parallel passages? In addition to those quoted above, see Josh. iii. 10; xvii. 18; xxiii. 5; xxiv. 18; Judg. i. 20, 29-35; vi. 9. "I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." Ex. xxiii. 27. Here "all their enemies" were to turn their backs, and "all the people" to be "destroyed." Does this mean that God would let all their enemies escape, but kill their friends, or that he would first kill "all the people" and THEN make them "turn their backs," an army of runaway corpses? In Josh. xxiv. 8, God says, speaking of the Amorites, "I destroyed them from before you." In the 18th verse of the same chapter, it is said, "The Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land." In Num. xxxii. 39, we are told that "the children of Machir the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead, and took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which was in it." If these commands required the destruction of all the individuals, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for directions as to the treatment of native residents form a large part of it. See Lev. xix. 34; xxv. 35, 36; xxiv. 22.; Ex. xxiii. 9; xxii. 21; Deut. i. 16, 17; x. 17, 19; xxvii. 19. We find, also, that provision was made for them in the cities of refuge, Num. xxxv. 15,--the gleanings of the harvest and vintage were theirs, Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxiii. 22;--the blessings of the Sabbath, Ex. xx. 10;--the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev. xxii. 18; and stated religious instruction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now does this same law require the individual extermination of those whose lives and interests it thus protects? These laws were given to the Israelites, long before they entered Canaan; and they must have inferred from them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land were to continue in it, under their government. Again Joshua was selected as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan. He had no discretionary power. God's commands were his official instructions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation; refusing to carry them out, rebellion and treason. Saul was rejected from being king for disobeying God's commands in a single instance. Now if God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanites Joshua disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, the Israelites still "dwelt among them," and each nation is mentioned by name. Judg. i. 27-36, and yet we are told that Joshua "left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses;" and that he "took all that land." Josh. xi. 15-22. Also, that "there stood not a man of all their enemies before them." Josh. xxi. 44. How can this be if the command to destroy, destroy utterly, &c., enjoined individual extermination, and the command to drive out, unconditional expulsion from the country, rather than their expulsion from the possession or ownership of it, as the lords of the soil? That the latter is the true sense to be attached to those terms, we argue, further from the fact that the same terms are employed by God to describe the punishment which he would inflict upon the Israelites if they served other Gods. "Ye shall utterly perish," "be utterly destroyed," "consumed," &c., are some of them.--See Deut. iv. 20; viii. 19, 20.[B] Josh. xxiii. 12, 13-16; 1. Sam. xii. 25. The Israelites did serve other Gods, and Jehovah did execute upon them his threatenings--and thus himself interpreted these threatenings. He subverted their government, dispossessed them of their land, divested them of national power, and made them tributaries, but did not exterminate them. He "destroyed them utterly" as an independent body politic, but not as individuals. Multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but not a case can be found in which one was either killed or expelled who acquiesced in the transfer of the territory, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and her kindred, and that of the Gibeonites.[C] The Canaanites knew of the miracles wrought for the Israelites; and that their land had been transferred to them as a judgment for their sins. Josh. ii. 9-11; ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance. Others defied God and came out to battle. These last occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate heathen--the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that aided in idolatrous rites, and the military forces, with the chief profligates of both sexes. Many facts corroborate the general position. Witness that command (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,) which, not only prohibited the surrender of the fugitive servant to his master, but required the Israelites to receive him with kindness, permit him to dwell where he pleased, and to protect and cherish him. Whenever any servant, even a Canaanite, fled from his master to the Israelites, Jehovah, so far from commanding them to kill him, straitly charged them, "He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose--in one of thy gates where it liketh him best--thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. xxiii. 16. The Canaanitish servant by thus fleeing to the Israelites, submitted himself as a dutiful subject to their national government, and pledged his allegiance. Suppose all the Canaanites had thus submitted themselves to the Jewish theocracy, and conformed to the requirements of the Mosaic institutes, would not all have been spared upon the same principle that one was? Again, look at the multitude of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, after they had "waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of their name--the Canaanites, Philistines and others, who became proselytes--as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite--Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah--Jether, an Ishmaelite, who married Abigail the sister of David and was the father of Amasa, the captain of the host of Israel. Comp. 1 Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii. 25.--Ittai--the six hundred Gittites, David's body guard. 2. Sam xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, adopted into the tribe of Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18, and xxvi. 4, 5--Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron, xxvii. 30, 31. Jephunneh the Kenezite, Josh. xiv. 6, and father of Caleb a ruler of the tribe of Judah. Numb. xiii. 2, 6--the Kenites registered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, Judg. i. 16; 1 Chron. ii. 55, and the one hundred and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of the Temple.[D] Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to save a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those who would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12-14. Further--the terms employed in the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites, such as "drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c., seem used interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c., and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar terms, we refer to the history of the Amalekites. "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." Ex. xvii. 14. "Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. "Smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Saul smote the Amalekites, and he took Agag the king of the Amalekites, alive and UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." Verses 7, 8. In verse 20, Saul says, "I have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. 1, 2, we find the Amalekites marching an army into Israel, and sweeping everything before them--and this in about eighteen years after they had all been "UTTERLY DESTROYED!" In 1 Kings ii. 15-17, is another illustration. We are informed that Joab remained in Edom six months with all Israel, "until he had cut off every male" in Edom. In the next verse we learn that Hadad and "certain Edomites" were not slain. Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding view. We argue that the command in these verses, did not include all the individuals of the Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabitants of the cities, (and even those conditionally,) because, only the inhabitants of cities are specified--"of the cities of these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Cities then, as now, were pest-houses of vice, they reeked with abominations little practised in the country. On this account, their influence would be far more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. Besides, they were the centres of idolatry--there were the temples and altars, and idols, and priests, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea--"that they teach you not to do after all the abominations which they have done unto their gods." This would be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals around them, as all were idolaters; but God commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with any of them would be perilous--with the inhabitants of the cities peculiarly, and of the Canaanitish cities pre-eminently so. The 10th and 11th verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to be summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the offer of peace--if it was accepted, the inhabitants became tributaries--but if they came out against Israel in battle, the men were to be killed, and the woman and little ones saved alive. The 15th verse restricts this lenient treatment to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th directs as to the disposal of the inhabitants of the Canaanitish cities. They were to save alive "nothing that breathed." The common mistake has been, in supposing that the command in the 15th verse refers to the whole system of directions preceding, commencing with the 10th, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in the 12th, 13th, and, 14th, making a distinction between those Canaanitish cities that fought, and the cities afar off that fought--in one case destroying the males and females, and in the other, the males only. The offer of peace, and the conditional preservation, were as really guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle. Whatever be the import of the commands respecting the disposition to be made of the Canaanites, all admit the fact that the Israelites did not utterly exterminate them. Now, if entire and unconditional extermination was the command of God, it was never obeyed by the Israelites, consequently the truth of God stood pledged to consign them to the same doom which he had pronounced upon the Canaanites, but which they had refused to visit upon them. "If ye will not drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that * * I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them." Num. xxxiii. 55, 56. As the Israelites were not exterminated, we infer that God did not pronounce that doom upon them; and as he did pronounce upon them the same doom, whatever it was, which they should refuse to visit upon the Canaanites, it follows that the doom of unconditional extermination was not pronounced against the Canaanites. But let us settle this question by the "law and the testimony." "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xi. 19. 20. That is, if they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been "destroyed utterly." The great design was to transfer the territory of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereignty in every respect; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, and jurisprudence, and their system of religion, with all its rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. In a word the people were to be denationalized, their political existence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, groves, images, pictures, and heathen rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute. Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land;[E] or acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, under the protection of the government; or resistance to the execution of the decree, with death. "And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear by Baal; THEN SHALL THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."
[Footnote A: In the prophecy, Gen. ix. 25, the subjection of the Canaanites as a conquered people rendering tribute to other nations, is foretold by inspiration. The fulfilment of this prediction, seems to have commenced in the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites as tributaries. If the Israelites had exterminated them, as the objector asserts they were commanded to do; the prediction would have been falsified.]
[Footnote B: These two verses are so explicit we quote them entire--"And it shall be if thou do at all forget the Lord they God and walk after other Gods and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish, as the nations which the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall ye perish." The following passages are, if possible still more explicit--"The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly." "The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee until he have consumed thee." "They (the 'sword,' 'blasting,' &c.) shall pursue thee until thou perish." "From heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed." "All these curses shall come upon thee till thou be destroyed." "He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee." "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young, * * until he have destroyed thee." All these, with other similar threatenings of destruction, are contained in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deut. See verses 20-25, 45, 48, 51. In the same chapter God declares that as a punishment for the same transgressions, the Israelites shall "be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth," thus showing that the terms employed in the other verses, "destroy," "perish," "perish quickly," "consume," &c., instead of signifying utter, personal destruction doubtless meant their destruction as an independent nation. In Josh. xxiv. 8, 18, "destroyed" and "drave out," are used synonymously.]
[Footnote C: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation. If God had straitly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war? What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding than God's command? So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command. When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in "his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah," God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel, let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6.]
[Footnote D: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the temple,--what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh or make their sons pass through the fire to Moloch.]
[Footnote E: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require the Israelites to chase them to ends of the earth, and hunt them out, until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for belief, and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean unconditional, individual extermination.]
[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted investigation.]
NO. 5.
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
THE
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
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REPRINTED FROM THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.
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NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU-STREET.
1838.
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This periodical contains 3 1/2 sheets.--Postage under 100 miles, 6 cts.; over 100, 10 cts.
POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that government be a republic, its citizens are the sole sources, as well as the subjects of its power. Its constitution is their bill of directions to their own agents--a grant authorizing the exercise of certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 6, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all cases," not of all kinds; not all laws whatsoever, but laws "in all cases whatsoever." The grant respects the subjects of legislation, not the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power every where is subject to moral restrictions, whether limited by constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by principles, existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.
In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general limitations. Congress cannot do these things any where. The exact import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, on all subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Some legislatures are restrained by constitutions, from the exercise of powers strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole field of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of Columbia.
It has been objected that the clause in question respects merely police regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect itself against popular tumults. But if the convention that framed the Constitution aimed to provide for a single case only, why did they provide for "all cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was extended to "all cases whatsoever," instead of being restricted to police regulations alone. In the Virginia Convention, George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, Patrick Henry, Mr. Grayson, and others, assailed it on that ground. Mr. Mason said, "This clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within the District. He would willingly give them exclusive power as far as respected the police and good government of the place, but he would give them no more." Mr. Grayson exclaimed against so large a grant of power--said that control over the police was all-sufficient, and "that the Continental Congress never had an idea of exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said: "Shall we be told, when about to grant such illimitable authority, that it will never be exercised? Is it consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant unlimited, unbounded authority?" Mr. Madison said in reply: "I did conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise. I cannot comprehend that the power of legislation over a small District, will involve the dangers which he apprehends. When any power is given, it's delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. * * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification is left to the Legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances, in which legislation by the general legislature, would be necessary." Governor Randolph said: "Holland has no ten miles square, but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat of government within its territory, subject in some respects to its control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The wisdom of the convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the place of their session." (See debates in the Virginia Convention, p. 320.) In the forty-third number of the "Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it."
Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to the obvious import of its terms, and not in such a way as to restrict it to police regulations, is proved by the fact, that the State of Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States Constitution at the time of its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed as to give power only over the police and good government of said District," which amendment was rejected. Fourteen other amendments, proposed at the same time by Virginia, were adopted.
The former part, of the clause under consideration, "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation," gives sole jurisdiction, and the latter part, "in all cases whatsoever," defines the extent of it. Since, then, Congress is the sole legislature within the District, and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically competent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of Columbia.
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE.
Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to argue the real question at issue. Is the law-making power competent to abolish slavery when not restricted in that particular by constitutional provisions--or, Is the abolition of slavery within the appropriate sphere of legislation?
In every government, absolute sovereignty exists somewhere. In the United States it exists primarily with the people, and ultimate sovereignty always exists with them. In each of the States, the legislature possesses a representative sovereignty, delegated by the people through the Constitution--the people thus committing to the legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the amount and the conditions of the grant. That the people in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because the people have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the legislature "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," they would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the State, and so far forth the legislature would have become the people, clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, during the continuance of the grant, to do whatever the people might have done before the surrender of their power: consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists somewhere--where is it lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their "full and absolute right and entire sovereignty," and the people of the United States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District."
Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from their entire sovereignty within the state, so the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire sovereignty within the District. If it be objected that Congress can have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause in the constitution graduates the power of Congress by the standard of a state legislature? Was the United States constitution worked into its present shape under the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation? There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District, as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to the united States the territory of the District. By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress furnished a sphere for its exercise.
That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I argue, secondly, from the fact, that slavery as a legal system, is the creature of legislation. The law by creating slavery, not only affirmed its existence to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, but equally, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the question whether or not it should exist. Of course legislation would not travel out of its sphere, in abolishing what is within it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own act. Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body belongs to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to yourself, and I will sustain your right." If it can annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, and can create for another an artificial title to him, can it not annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his original title?
3. The abolition of slavery has always been considered within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Almost every civilized nation has abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this invisible.
The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102. The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing over many instances of the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times. In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St. Domingo, Cayenne, Guadaloupe and Martinique, in 1794, where more than 600,000 slaves were emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811; in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823; in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, in 1826; in Bolivia, 1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828, in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Mauritius, St. Christopher's, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincents, Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, Demarara, and the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. But waving details, suffice it to say, that England, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have all and often given their testimony to the competency of the law to abolish slavery. In our own country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in 1780, Connecticut, in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799; New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by Constitution, in 1777; Massachusetts, in 1780; and New Hampshire, in 1784.
When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has thus been recognised every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it forsooth an achievement of modern discovery, that such a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage?
4. Legislative power has abolished slavery in its parts. The law of South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours in the twenty-four. [_See__Brevard's Digest_, 253.] In other words, it takes from the slaveholder his power over nine hours of the slave's time daily; and if it can take nine hours it may take twenty-four--if two-fifths, then five-fifths. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the first, they can for the six following. Laws embodying the same principle have existed for ages in nearly all governments that have tolerated slavery.
The law of North Carolina prohibits the "immoderate" correction of slaves. If it has power to prohibit immoderate correction, it can prohibit moderate correction--all correction, which would be virtual emancipation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of fear, and he is free. Laws similar to this exist in slaveholding governments generally.
The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power to make laws "to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity." The Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an additional one making it the DUTY of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to secure the humane treatment of the slaves. This grant of power to those legislatures empowers them to decide what is and what is not "humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power"--the clause is mere waste paper, and flouts in the face of a mocked and befooled legislature. A clause giving power to require "humane treatment" covers all the particulars of such treatment--gives power to exact it in all respects--requiring certain acts, and prohibiting others--maiming, branding, chaining together, allowing each but a quart of corn a day,[A] and but "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons" in six months[B]--separating families, destroying marriages, floggings for learning the alphabet and reading the Bible--robbing them of their oath, of jury trial, and of the right to worship God according to conscience--the legislature has power to specify each of these acts--declare that it is not "humane treatment," and PROHIBIT it.--The legislature may also believe that driving men and women into the field, and forcing them to work without pay as long as they live, is not "humane treatment," and being constitutionally bound "to oblige" masters to practise "humane treatment"--they have the power to prohibit such treatment, and are bound to do it.
[Footnote A: Law of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual, 524-5.]
[Footnote B: Law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 610.]
The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the holder, if he be also a land holder, to separate them from the soil.[C] If it has power to prohibit the sale without the soil, it can prohibit the sale with it; and if it can prohibit the sale as property, it can prohibit the holding as property. Similar laws exist in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies.
[Footnote C: Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705. (Beverly's Hist. of Va., p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main staple production of the State.]
The law of Louisiana requires the master to give his slaves a certain amount of food and clothing, (Martin's Digest, 610.) If it can oblige the master to give the slave one thing, it can oblige him to give him another: if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body. Such laws exist in most slaveholding governments.
By the slave laws of Connecticut, under which slaves are now held, (for even Connecticut is still a slave State,) slaves might receive and hold property, and prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs: [This last was also the law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73.] There were also laws making marriage contracts legal, in certain contingencies, and punishing infringements of them, ["Reeve's Law of Baron and Femme," p. 310-1.] Each of the laws enumerated above, does, in principle, abolish slavery; and all of them together abolish it in fact. True, not as a whole, and at a stroke, nor all in one place; but in its parts, by piecemeal, at divers times and places; thus showing that the abolition of slavery is within the boundary of legislation.
5.The competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery has been recognized by all the slaveholding States, either directly or by implication. Some States recognize it in their Constitutions, by giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may "have rendered the state some distinguished service," and others by express prohibitory restrictions. The Constitutions of Mississippi, Arkansas, and other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect. Why this express prohibition, if the law-making power cannot abolish slavery? A stately farce, indeed, formally to construct a special clause, and with appropriate rites induct it into the Constitution, for the express purpose of restricting a nonentity!--to take from the lawmaking power what it never had, and what cannot pertain to it! The legislatures of those States have no power to abolish slavery, simply because their Constitutions have expressly taken away that power. The people of Arkansas, Mississippi, &c., well knew the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to restrict it. The fact that these and other States have inhibited their legislatures from the exercise of this power, shows that the abolition of slavery is acknowledged to be a proper subject of legislation, when Constitutions impose no restrictions.
The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their laws. The Virginia Legislature passed a law in 1786 to prevent the further importation of Slaves, of which the following is an extract: "And be it further enacted that every slave imported into this commonwealth contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall upon such importation become free." By a law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792, a slave brought into the state and kept there a year, was free. The Maryland Court of Appeals at the December term 1813 (see case of Stewart vs. Oakes,) decided that a slave owned in Maryland, and sent by his master into Virginia to work at different periods, making one year in the whole, became free, being emancipated by the law of Virginia quoted above. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts of cession, transferring to the United States the territory now constituting the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a condition of the grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87, should be secured to the inhabitants with the exception of the sixth article which prohibits slavery; thus conceding, both the competency of law to abolish slavery, and the power of Congress to do it, within its jurisdiction. Besides, these acts show the prevalent belief at that time, in the slaveholding States, that the general government had adopted a line of policy aiming at the exclusion of slavery from the entire territory of the United States, not included within the original States, and that this policy would be pursued unless prevented by specific and formal stipulation.
Slaveholding states have asserted this power in their judicial decisions. In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if the legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal emancipates them, such law or constitution abolishing their slavery. This principle is asserted in the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, in the case of Lunsford vs. Coquillon, 14 Martin's La. Reps. 401. Also by the Supreme Court of Virginia, in the case of Hunter vs. Fulcher, 1 Leigh's Reps. 172. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Washington, of the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Butler vs. Hopper, Washington's Circuit Court Reps. 508. This principle was also decided by the Court of Appeals in Kentucky; case of Rankin vs. Lydia, 2 Marshall's Reps. 407; see also, Wilson vs. Isbell, 5 Call's Reps. 425, Spotts vs. Gillespie, 6 Randolph's Reps. 566. The State vs. Lasselle, 1 Blackford's Reps. 60, Marie Louise vs. Mariot, 8 La. Reps. 475. In this case, which was tried in 1836, the slave had been taken by her master to France and brought back; Judge Mathews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that "residence for one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her.
6. Eminent statesmen, themselves slaveholders, have conceded this power. Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 1786, says: "There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority." In a letter to Lafayette, dated May 10, 1786, he says: "It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and assuredly ought to be effected, and that too by legislative authority." In a letter to John Fenton Mercer, dated Sept. 9, 1786, he says: "It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law." In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he says: "There are in Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which nothing is more certain that that they must have, and at a period not remote." Speaking of movements in the Virginia Legislature in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating the slaves, Mr. Jefferson says: "The principles of the amendment were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day; but it was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition, yet the day is not far distant, when it must bear and adopt it."--Jefferson's Memoirs, v. 1, p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason, Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the Virginia House of Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were the great lights of Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Constitution; Pendleton, the President of the memorable Virginia Convention in 1787, and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals; Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the State, the professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. He was author of the celebrated remonstrance to the English House of Commons on the subject of the stamp act. As to Jefferson, his name is his biography.
Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known letter to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the abolition of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in 1789. Luther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal Convention, and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796, St. George Tucker, professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published an elaborate dissertation on slavery, addressed to the General Assembly of the State, and urging upon them the abolition of slavery by law.
John Jay, while New-York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent law might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the purpose, drawn up with great care, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member."
Daniel D. Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York, January 8, 1812, said: "To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate extermination from amongst us of slavery, is work worthy the representatives of a polished and enlightened nation."
The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close of a month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I extract from an editorial article of the Richmond Whig, of January 26, 1832.
"The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on the subject of Abolition, was in these words: Resolved, as the opinion of this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE PRESENT, to make any legislative enactments for the abolition of Slavery." This Report Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it was expedient, now to make Legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery. This was meeting the question in its strongest form. It demanded action, and immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73. Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted against the amendment; because they thought public opinion not sufficiently prepared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move too rapidly. The vote on Mr. Witcher's motion to postpone the whole subject indefinitely, indicates the true state of opinion in the House.--That was the test question, and was so intended and proclaimed by its mover. That motion was negatived, 71 to 60; showing a majority of 11, who by that vote, declared their belief that "at the proper time, and in the proper mode, Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual abolition."
8. The Congress of the United States have asserted this power. The ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude," in the North Western territory, abolished the slavery then existing there. The Supreme Court of Mississippi, in its decision in the case of Harvey vs. Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36, declared that the ordinance emancipated the slaves then held there. In this decision the question is argued ably and at great length. The Supreme Court of Louisiana made the same decision in the case of Forsyth vs. Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps 385. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Porter, (late United States Senator from Louisiana,) in his decision at the March term of the La. Supreme Court, 1830, in the case of Merry vs. Chexnaider, 20 Martin's Reps. 699.
That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing, is also shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petitioned for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a reason. "The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article of the ordinance of '87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there." [Am. State papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69,] Congress passed this ordinance before the United States Constitution was adopted, when it derived all its authority from the articles of Confederation, which conferred powers of legislation far more restricted than those conferred on Congress over the District and Territories by the United States Constitution. Now, we ask, how does the Constitution abridge the powers which Congress possessed under the articles of confederation?
The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery. The African slave trade has become such a mere technic, in common parlance, that the fact of its being proper slavery is overlooked. The buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress did not, in the abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery within its jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in one part of its jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in another part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?"
9. The Constitution of the United States recognizes this power by the most conclusive implication. In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808: thus implying the power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction; and its power to do it unconditionally, when that restriction ceased. Again: In Art. 4, sec. 2, "No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or labor." This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway slave from being emancipated by the laws of the free states. If these laws had no power to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to prevent it?
The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent jurists that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the power, and their public proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the appropriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of universal law, and is recognised and protected by all civilized nations; property in slaves is, by general consent, an exception; hence slaveholders insisted upon the insertion of this clause in the United States Constitution that they might secure by an express provision, that from which protection is withheld, by the acknowledged principles of universal law.[A] By demanding this provision, slaveholders consented that their slaves should not be recognised as property by the United States Constitution, and hence they found their claim, on the fact of their being "persons, and held to service."
[Footnote A: The fact, that under the articles of Confederation, slaveholders, whose slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal power to force them back,--that now they have no power to recover, by process of law, their slaves who escape to Canada, the South American States, or to Europe--the case already cited in which the Supreme Court of Louisiana decided, that residence "for one moment," under the laws of France emancipated an American slave--the case of Fulton, vs. Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. Domingo slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by the Maryland Court of Appeals--these, with other facts and cases "too numerous to mention," are illustrations of the acknowledged truth here asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on the principles of universal law, slaves are not "property," but self-proprietors, and that whenever held as property under law, it is only by positive legislative acts, forcibly setting aside the law of nature, the common law, and the principles of universal justice and right between man and man,--principles paramount to all law, and from which alone law derives its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]
But waiving all concessions, whether of constitutions, laws, judicial decisions, or common consent, I take the position that the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, follows from the fact, that as the sole legislature there, it has unquestionable power to adopt the Common Law, as the legal system within its exclusive jurisdiction. This has been done, with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either by legislative acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW KNOWS NO SLAVES. Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch it. It is a universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is a legal system, it is so only by statute law, and in violation of common law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that "by the common law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and based upon the well known common law definition of property. "The subjects of dominion or property are things, as contra-distinguished from persons." Let Congress adopt the common law in the District of Columbia, and slavery there is at once abolished. Congress may well be at home in common law legislation, for the common law is the grand element of the United States Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles and paramount authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole. The preamble of the Constitution plants the standard of the Common Law immovably in its foreground. "We, the people of the United States, in order to ESTABLISH JUSTICE, &c., do ordain and establish this Constitution;" thus proclaiming devotion to justice, as the controlling motive in the organization of the Government, and its secure establishment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn recognition, the common law, that grand legal embodiment of "justice" and fundamental right was made the groundwork of the Constitution, and intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 9, Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also express recognitions of the common law as the presiding Genius of the Constitution.
By adopting the common law within its exclusive jurisdiction Congress would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and follow the highest precedents in our national history and jurisprudence. It is a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should be strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose will they express, embodying and carrying them out--being indeed the principles themselves, in preceptive form--representatives alike of the nature and the power of the Government--standing illustrations of its genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority. Who needs be told that slavery is in antagonism to the principles of the Declaration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that these and the principles of the common law gravitate toward each other with irrepressible affinities, and mingle into one? The common law came hither with our pilgrim fathers; it was their birthright, their panoply, their glory, and their song of rejoicing in the house of their pilgrimage. It covered them in the day of their calamity, and their trust was under the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of the country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In all the colonies the common law is received as the foundation and main body of their law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the Continental Congress at its first session in '74, there was the following resolution: "Resolved, That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the course of that law." Soon after the organization of the general government, Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on the bench of the United States Supreme Court, said: "The common law of this country remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief Justice Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston vs. Jefferson, said: "When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought with them the common law of their native country, so far as it was applicable to their new situation and I do not conceive that the revolution in any degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law which regulates them. In breaking our political connection with the parent state, we did not break our connection with each other." [_See__Hall's Law Journal, new series._] Mr. Duponceau, in his "Dissertation on the Jurisdiction of Courts in the United States," says, "I consider the common law of England the jus commune of the United States. I think I can lay it down as a correct principle, that the common law of England, as it was at the time of the declaration of Independence, still continues to be the national law of this country, so far as it is applicable to our present state, and subject to the modifications it has received here in the course of nearly half a century." Chief Justice Taylor of North Carolina, in his decision in the case of the State vs. Reed, in 1823, Hawkes' N.C. Reps. 454, says, "a law of paramount obligation to the statute was violated by the offence--COMMON LAW, founded upon the law of nature, and confirmed by revelation." The legislation of the United States abounds in recognitions of the principles of the common law, asserting their paramount binding power. Sparing details, of which our national state papers are full, we illustrate by a single instance. It was made a condition of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, that the right of trial by jury should be secured to all her citizens,--the United States government thus employing its power to enlarge the jurisdiction of the common law in this its great representative.
Having shown that the abolition of slavery is within the competency of the law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional provisions, and that the legislation of Congress over the District is thus unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is established.
Besides this general ground, the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District may be based upon another equally tenable. We argue it from the fact, that slavery exists there now by an act of Congress. In the act of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted portions of territory offered by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and enacted that the laws, as they then were, should continue in force, "until Congress shall otherwise by law provide;" thus making the slave codes of Maryland and Virginia its own. Under these laws, adopted by Congress, and in effect re-enacted and made laws of the District, the slaves there are now held.
Is Congress so impotent in its own "exclusive jurisdiction" that it cannot "otherwise by law provide?" If it can say, what shall be considered property, it can say what shall not be considered property. Suppose a legislature enacts, that marriage contracts shall be mere bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his bona fide property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny the power of the legislature, which stamped them property, to undo its own wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would such cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held sway, and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage? If a frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power, with returning reason, to take back the blasphemy? Is the impious edict irrepealable? Be it, that with legal forms it has stamped wives "wares." Can no legislation blot out the brand? Must the handwriting of Deity on human nature be expunged for ever? Has law no power to stay the erasing pen, and tear off the scrawled label that covers up the IMAGE OF GOD? We now proceed to show that
THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED.
1. It has been assumed by Congress itself. The following record stands on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 225: "On motion made and seconded that the House do come to the following resolution: 'Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of July, 1805, all blacks and people of color that shall be born within the District of Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of any person residing within said District, shall be free, the males at the age of ----, and the females at the age of ----. The main question being taken that the House do agree to said motion as originally proposed, it was negatived by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion was lost, it was on the ground of its alleged inexpediency alone, and not because Congress lacked the constitutional power. In the debate which preceded the vote, the power of Congress was conceded. In March, 1816, the House of Representatives passed the following resolution:--"Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to report whether any and what measures are necessary for putting a stop to the same."
On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed the following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66: "Resolved, That the Committee on the District of Columbia be instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing by law for the gradual abolition of slavery within the District, in such manner that the interests of no individual shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the affirmative were Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A.H. Shepperd of N.C., Blair of Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Delaware, and others from slave states.
2. It has been conceded directly, or impliedly, by all the committees on the District of Columbia that have reported on the subject. In a report of the committee on the District, Jan. 11, 1837, by their chairman, Mr. Powell of Virginia, there is the following declaration "The Congress of the United States, has by the constitution exclusive jurisdiction over the District, and has power upon this subject, (slavery) as upon all other subjects of legislation, to exercise unlimited discretion." Reps. of Comms. 2d Session, 19th Cong. v. I. No. 43. In February, 1829, the committee on the District, Mr. Alexander of Virginia, Chairman, in their report pursuant to Mr. Miner's resolutions, recognize a contingent abolition proceeding upon the consent of the people. In December, 1831, the committee on the District, Mr. Doddridge of Virginia, Chairman, reported, "That until the adjoining states act on the subject (slavery) it would be (not unconstitutional but) unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere." In April, 1836, a special committee on abolition memorials reported the following resolutions by their Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina: "Resolved, that Congress possesses no constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the states of this confederacy."
"Resolved, That Congress ought not to interfere in any way with slavery in the District of Columbia." "Ought not to interfere," carefully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in effect conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated "Address to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinckney is thus denounced by his own constituents: "He has proposed a resolution which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as a concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia."
3. It has been conceded by the citizens of the District. A petition for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, March 24, 1837. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch, Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J.M. Staughton, Rev. Dr. Balch, Rev. Dr. Keith, John M. Munroe, and a large number of the most influential inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New York, asserted on the floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers of this petition owned more than half of the property in the District. The accuracy of this statement has never been questioned.
This power has been conceded by grand juries of the District. The grand jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term 1802, presented the domestic slave trade as a grievance, and said, "We consider these grievances demanding legislative redress." Jan. 19, 1829, Mr. Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the grand jury in the city of Washington, remonstrating against "any measure for the abolition of slavery within said District, unless accompanied by measures for the removal of the emancipated from the same;" thus, not only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but affirming an additional power, that of excluding them when free. See Journal H.R. 1828-9, p. 174.
4. This power has been conceded by State Legislatures. In 1828 the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress "to procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of Assembly of New York passed a resolution, that their "Senators in Congress be instructed to make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In February, 1837, the Senate of Massachusetts "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery and the slave trade therein, and that the early exercise of such right is demanded by the enlightened sentiment of the civilized world, by the principles of the revolution, and by humanity." The House of Representatives passed the following resolution at the same session: "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery in said District, and that its exercise should only be restrained by a regard to the public good."
November 1, 1837, the Legislature of Vermont, "Resolved, that Congress have the full power by the constitution to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and in the territories." The Legislature of Vermont passed in substance the same resolution, at its session in 1836.
May 30, 1836, a committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature reported the following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress does possess the constitutional power, and it is expedient to abolish slavery and the slave trade within the District of Columbia."
In January, 1836, the Legislature of South Carolina "Resolved, That we should consider the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia as a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District derived from the implied conditions on which that territory was ceded to the General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional power, they virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under an implication. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina "Resolved, That, although by the Constitution all legislative power over the District of Columbia is vested in the Congress of the United States, yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of that body towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of faith towards those States by whom the territory was originally ceded, and will regard such interference as the first step towards a general emancipation of the slaves of the South." Here is a full concession of the power, February 2, 1836, the Virginia Legislature passed unanimously the following resolution: "Resolved, by the General Assembly of Virginia, that the following article be proposed to the several states of this Union, and to Congress, as an amendment of the Constitution of the United States: 'The powers of Congress shall not be so construed as to authorize the passage of any law for the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, without the consent of the individual proprietors thereof, unless by the sanction of the Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, and under such conditions as they shall by law prescribe.'"
Fifty years after the formation of the United States constitution the states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District, the "case" of slavery is not included!! What could have dictated such a resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an irresistible interference from the constitution as it is. The fact that the same legislature passed afterward a resolution, though by no means unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates not a tittle of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, "Mr. Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio, recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for the gradual emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in the United States." On the same day, "Mr. Noble, of Indiana, communicated a resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting the gradual emancipation of slaves within the United States." Journal of the United States Senate, for 1824-5, p. 231.
The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the general power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert its special power within its exclusive jurisdiction.
5. The power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has been conceded by bodies of citizens in the slave states. The petition of eleven hundred citizens of the District of Columbia, in 1827, has been already mentioned. "March 5, 1830, Mr. Washington presented a memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state of Maryland, praying that provision may be made for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 358.
March 30, 1828. Mr. A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, "praying Congress to take measures fur the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 379.
January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, praying "that provision may be made, whereby all slaves which may hereafter be born in the District of Columbia, shall be free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H.R. 1821-22, p. 142.
December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, praying "that measures may be taken for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States." Journal H.R. 1824-25, p. 27.
December 16, 1828. "Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia." Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p. 24.
6. Distinguished statesmen and jurists in the slaveholding states, have conceded the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. The testimony of Messrs. Doddridge, Powell, and Alexander, of Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsell and Van Ness, of the District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in the territories "Congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over the territories than that of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the" District. In March, 1816, John Randolph introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, objected to the printing, but "expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the District any measures which they might deem necessary to free themselves from the deplorable evil."--(See letter of Mr. Claiborne, of Mississippi, to his constituents, published in the Washington Globe, May 9, 1836.) The sentiments of Henry Clay on the subject are well known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District "unquestionable." Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, Chilton, Lyon, and Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth, of Virginia, Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Maryland, and Johns, of Delaware, with numerous others from slave states, have asserted the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point: "If the future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere pretence, why do you not begin here? Within the ten miles square, you have undoubted power to exercise exclusive legislation. Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia, or, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."
To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before the United States' Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 29, 1820,) he says: "Congress has the express power stipulated by the Constitution, to exercise exclusive legislation over this District of ten miles square. Here slavery is sanctioned by law. In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE. Why, then, let me ask, Mr. President, why all this sensibility--this commiseration--this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District of Columbia?"
It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in his letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of gentlemen in North Carolina, says, "I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of the President is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question, on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[A] It is consistent also, with his recommendation in his late message on the 5th of last month, in which, speaking of the District, he strongly urges upon Congress "a thorough and careful revision of its local government," speaks of the "entire dependence" of the people of the District "upon Congress," recommends that a "uniform system of local government" be adopted, and adds, that "although it was selected as the seat of the General Government, the site of its public edifices, the depository of its archives, and the residence of officers intrusted with large amounts of public property, and the management of public business, yet it never has been subjected to, or received, that special and comprehensive legislation which these circumstances peculiarly demanded."
[Footnote A: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York, voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which passed unanimously:--Jan. 28th, 1820. "Whereas, the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil much to be deplored, and that every constitutional barrier should be interposed to prevent its further extension: and that the constitution of the United States clearly gives congress the right to require new states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to make the prohibition of slavery a condition of their admission into the Union: Therefore,
"Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making the prohibition of slavery therein an indispensable condition of admission." ]
The tenor of Senator Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, in the last Congress, and of Mr. Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
After presenting this array of evidence, direct testimony to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has always till recently been universally conceded, is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin; however, the following:
The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery in Missouri would be unconstitutional, adds, "But I am at a loss to conceive why gentlemen should arouse all their sympathies upon this occasion, when they permit them to lie dormant upon the same subject, in relation to other sections of country, in which THEIR POWER COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." Then follows immediately the assertion of congressional power to abolish slavery in the District, as already quoted. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."
Mr. Sutherland, of Pennsylvania, in a speech in the House of Representatives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that the report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."
The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this 'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE CONSTITUTION."
Finally--an explicit, and unexpected admission, that an "over-whelming majority" of the present Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District, has just been made by a member of Congress from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec. 27, well known as the mouth-piece of Mr. Calhoun. The following is an extract:
"The time has arrived when we must have new guarantees under the constitution, or the union must be dissolved. Our views of the constitution are not those of the majority. An overwhelming majority think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them. They think, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, that the power of Congress extends to all of these subjects."
In another letter, the same correspondent says:
"The fact is, it is vain to attempt, AS THE CONSTITUTION IS NOW, to keep the question of slavery out of the halls of Congress,--until, by some decisive action, WE COMPEL SILENCE, or alter the constitution, agitation and insult is our eternal fate in the confederacy."
OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.
We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible, is that "the conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to accept a cession coupled with conditions restricting the power given it by the constitution. Nothing short of a convention of the states, and an alteration of the constitution, abridging its grant of power, could have empowered Congress to accept a territory on any other conditions than that of exercising "exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever," over it.
To show the futility of the objection, here follow the acts of cession. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as follows: "An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in this state for the seat of the government of the United States."
"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are hereby authorized and required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of government of the United States." Laws of Maryland, vol. 2, chap. 46.
The cession from Virginia was made by act of the Legislature of that State on the 3d of December, 1788, in the following words: