slavery. Will it be to the history of Greek and Roman slavery? No–for your own book acknowledges its unutterable horrors and abominations. Will you refer me to the history of the West Indies for proofs of the happy fruits of slavery? Not until the earth is no more, will its polluted and bloody pages cease to testify against slavery. And, when we have come down to American slavery, you will not even open the book which records such facts, as that its subjects are forbidden to be joined in wedlock, and to read the Bible. No–you will not presume to look for a single evidence of the benign influences of a system, where, by the admission of your own ecclesiastical bodies, it has turned millions of men into heathen. I say nothing now of your beautiful and harmless theories of slavery:–but this I say, that when you look upon slavery as it has existed, or now exists, either amidst the darkness of Mahommedanism or the light of Christianity, you dare not, as you hope for the Divine favor, say that it is a Heaven-descended institution; and that, notwithstanding it is like Ezekiel’s roll, “written within and without with lamentations and mourning and wo,” it, nevertheless, bears the mark of being a boon from God to man.
Having disposed of your “strong reasons” for the position, that the New Testament authorizes slavery, I proceed to consider your remaining reasons for it.
Because it does not appear, that our Saviour and the Apostle Peter told certain centurions, who, for the sake of the argument, I will admit were slaveholders, that slaveholding is sinful, you argue, and most confidently too, that it is not sinful. But, it does not appear, that the Saviour and the Apostle charged _any_ sinful practices upon them. Then, by your logic, all their other practices, as well as their slaveholding, were innocent, and these Roman soldiers were literally perfect.–Again; how do you know that the Saviour and the Apostle did not tell them, on the occasion you refer to, that they were sinners for being slaveholders? The fact, that the Bible does not inform us that they told them so, does not prove that they did not; much less does it prove, that they did not tell them so subsequently to their first interview with them. And again, the admission that they did not specifically attack slavery, at any of their interviews with the centurions, or on any other occasions whatever, would not justify the inference, that it is sinless. I need not repeat the reasoning which makes the truth of this remark apparent.
You refer to the Saviour’s declaration of the unequaled faith of one of these centurions, with the view of making it appear that a person of so great faith could not be a great sinner. But, how long had he exercised this, or, indeed, any Christian faith? That he was on good terms with the Jews, and had built them a synagogue, is quite as strong evidence, that he had not, as that he had, previously to that time, believed in Jesus:–and, if he had not, then his faith, however strong, and his conversion, however decided, are nothing towards proving that slavery is sinless.
It is evident, that the Apostle was sent to Cornelius for the single purpose of inculcating the doctrine of the remission of sin, through faith in Christ.
I proceed to examine another of your arguments. From Paul’s declaration to the Elders at Miletus, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God,” taken in connexion with the fact, that the Bible does not inform us that he spoke to them of slaveholding, you confidently and exultingly infer that it is innocent. Here, again, you prove too much, and therefore, prove nothing. It does not appear that he specified a hundredth part of their duties. If he did not tell them to abstain from slaveholding, neither did he tell them to abstain from games and theatres. But, his silence about slaveholding proves to your mind its sinlessness: equally then should his silence about games and theatres satisfy you of their innocence. Two radical errors run through a great part of your book. They are, that the Apostle gave specific instructions concerning all duties, and that the Bible contains these instructions. But, for these errors, your book would be far less objectionable than it is. I might, perhaps, rather say, that but for these, you could not have made up your book.
And now, since Paul’s address to the Elders has been employed by you in behalf of slavery, allow me to try its virtue against slavery: and, if it should turn out that you are slain with your own weapon, it will not be the first time that temerity has met with such a fate. I admit, that the Apostle does not tell the Elders of any wrong thing which they had done; but there are some wrong things from which he had himself abstained, and some right things which he had himself done, of which he does tell them. He tells them, for instance, that he had not been guilty of coveting what was another’s, and also, that with his own hands he had ministered to his own necessities and those of others: and he further tells them, that they ought to copy his example, and labor, as he had done, “to support the weak.” Think you, sir, from this language that Paul was a slaveholder–and, that his example was such, as to keep lazy, luxurious slaveholders in countenance? The slaveholder is guilty of coveting, not only all a man has, but even the man himself. The slaveholder will not only not labor with his hands to supply the wants of others, and “to support the weak;” but he makes others labor to supply his wants:–yes, makes them labor unpaid–night and day–in storm, as well as in sunshine–under the lash–bleeding–groaning–dying–and all this, not to minister to his actual needs, but to his luxuriousness and sensuality.
You ridicule the idea of the abolition of slavery, because it would make the slaveholder “so poor, as to oblige him to take hold of the maul and wedge himself–he must catch, curry, and saddle his own horse–he must black his own brogans (for he will not be able to buy boots)–his wife must go herself to the wash-tub–take hold of the scrubbing broom, wash the pots, and cook all that she and her rail-mauler will eat.” If Paul were, as you judge he was, opposed to the abolition of slavery, it is at least certain, from what he says of the character of his life in his address to the Elders, that his opposition did not spring from such considerations as array you against it. In his estimation, manual labor was honorable. In a slaveholding community, it is degrading. It is so in your own judgment, or you would not hold up to ridicule those humble employments, which reflect disgrace, only where the moral atmosphere is tainted by slavery. That the pernicious influences of slavery in this respect are felt more or less, in every part of this guilty nation, is but too true. I put it to your candor, sir, whether the obvious fact, that slavery makes the honest labor of the hands disreputable, is not a weighty argument against the supposition that God approves it? I put it to your candor, sir, whether the fact, which you, at least, cannot gain-say, that slavery makes even ministers of the gospel despise the employments of seven-eighths of the human family, and, consequently, the humble classes, who labor in them–I put it to your candor, whether the institution, which breeds such contempt of your fellow-men and fellow Christians, must not be offensive to Him, who commands us to “Honor all men, and love the brotherhood?”
In another argument, you attempt to show, that Paul’s letter to Philemon justifies slaveholding, and also the apprehension and return of fugitive slaves. After having recited the Resolution of the Chilicothe Presbytery–“that to apprehend a slave who is endeavoring to escape from slavery, with a view to restore him to his master, is a direct violation of the Divine law, and, when committed by a member of the church, ought to subject him to censure”–you undertake to make your readers believe, that Paul’s sending Onesimus to Philemon, is a case coming fairly within the purview of the resolution. Let us see if it does. A man by the name of Onesimus was converted to Christianity, under Paul’s ministry at Rome. Paul learnt that he had formerly been a servant–say a slave–of Philemon, who was a “dearly beloved” Christian: and believing that his return to his old master would promote the cause of Christ, and beautifully exemplify its power, he advised him to return to him. He followed the Apostle’s advice and returned. Now, from this example, you attempt to derive a justification for “a member of a Church” to be engaged in forcibly apprehending and restoring fugitive slaves. I say forcibly–as the apprehension and return, referred to in the Resolution, are clearly forcible. I cannot refrain, sir, from saying, that you greatly wrong the memory of that blessed Apostle of the Lord Jesus, in construing his writings to authorize such violence upon the persons and rights of men. And greatly, also, do you wrong the Resolution in question, by your endeavor to array the Bible against it. The Resolution is right; it is noble–it denotes in the source whence it emanated, a proper sense of the rights and dignity of man. It is all the better for being marked with an honorable contempt of wicked and heaven-daring laws. May I, having the suspicion, or even the certain knowledge, that my fellow man was once held in slavery, and is still _legally_ a slave, seize upon him and reduce him again to slavery? May I thus deal with a guiltless and unaccused brother? Human laws may, it is true, bear me out in this man-stealing, which is not less flagrant than that committed on the coast of Africa:–but, says the Great Law-giver, “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day:”–and, it is a part of this “word,” that “he that stealeth a man shall surely be put to death.” In that last day, the mayors, recorders, sheriffs, and others, who have been engaged, whether in their official or individual capacity, in slave-catching and man-stealing, will find human laws but a flimsy protection against the wrath of Him, who judges his creatures by his own and not by human laws. In that “last day,” all who have had a part, and have not repented of it, in the sin of treating man as property; all, I say, whether slaveholders or their official or unofficial assistants, the drivers upon their plantations, or their drivers in the free States–all, who have been guilty of throwing God’s “image” into the same class with the brutes of the field–will find, that He is the avenger of his poorest, meanest ones–and that the crime of transmuting His image into property, is but aggravated by the fact and the plea that it was committed under the sanction of human laws.
But, to return–wherein does the letter of Paul to Philemon justify slaveholding? What evidence does it contain, that Philemon was a slaveholder at the time it was written? He, who had been his slave “in time past,” had, very probably, escaped before Philemon’s conversion to Christ. This “time past,” may have been a _long_ “time past.” The word in the original, which is translated “in time past,” does not forbid the supposition. Indeed, it is the same word, which the Apostle uses in the thirteenth verse of the first chapter of Galatians; and there it denotes a _long_ “time past”–as much as from fifteen to eighteen years. Besides, Onesimus’ escape and return both favor the supposition, that it was between the two events that Philemon’s conversion took place. On the one hand, he fled to escape from the cruelties of an unconverted master; on the other, he was encouraged to follow the Apostle’s advice, by the consideration, that on his return to Philemon he should not have to encounter again the unreasonableness and rage of a heathen, but that he should meet with the justice and tenderness of a Christian–qualities, with the existence and value of which, he had now come to an experimental acquaintance. Again, to show that the letter in question does not justify slaveholding–in what character was it, that Paul sent Onesimus to Philemon? Was it in that of a slave? Far from it. It was, in that of “a brother beloved,” as is evident from his injunction to Philemon to “receive him forever–not now as a _slave_, but above a _slave_–a brother beloved.”
It is worthy of remark, that Paul’s message to Philemon, shows, not only that he himself was not in favor of slaveholding, but, that he believed the gospel had wrought such an entire change on this subject, in the heart of Philemon, that Onesimus would find on his return to him, the tyrant and the slaveholder sunk in the brother and the Christian.
Paul’s course in relation to Onesimus was such, as an abolitionist would deem it proper to adopt, under the like circumstances. If a fugitive slave, who had become a dear child of God, were near me, and, if I knew that his once cruel master had also become a “dearly beloved” Christian; and if, therefore, I had reason to believe, as Paul had, in the case of Philemon, that he would “receive him forever–not now as a _slave_, but above a _slave_, a brother beloved,” I would advise him to revisit his old master, provided he could do so, without interference and violence from others. Such interference and violence did not threaten Onesimus in his return to Philemon. He was not in danger of being taken up, imprisoned, and sold for his jail fees, as a returning Onesimus would be in parts of this nation.
On the 72d page of your book, you utter sentiments, which, I trust, all your readers will agree, are unworthy of a man, a republican, and a Christian. You there endeavor again to make it appear, that it is not the _relation_ of master and slave, but only the abuse of it, which is to be objected to.–You say: “Independence is a charming idea, especially to Americans: but what gives it the charm? Is it the thing in itself? or is it because it is a release from the control of a bad master? Had Great Britain been a kind master, our ancestors were willing to remain her slaves.” In reply to this I would say, that it must be a base spirit which does not prize “independence” for its own sake, whatever privation and suffering may attend it; and much more base must be that spirit, which can exchange that “independence” for a state of slavish subjection–even though that state abound in all sensual gratifications. To talk of “a kind master” is to talk of a blessing for a dog, but not for a man, who is made to “call no man master.” Were the people of this nation like yourself, they would soon exchange their blood-bought liberties for subjection to any despot who would promise them enough to eat, drink, and wear. But, I trust, that we at the North are “made of sterner stuff.” They, who make slaves of others, can more easily become slaves themselves: for, in their aggressions upon others, they have despised and trampled under foot those great, eternal principles of right, which _not only_ constitute the bulwark of the general freedom; but his respect for which is indispensable to every man’s valuation and protection of his individual liberties. This train of thought associates with itself in my mind, the following passage in an admirable speech delivered by the celebrated William Pinckney, in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1789. Such a speech, made at the present time in a slave State, would probably cost the life of him who should make it; nor could it be delivered in a free States at any less sacrifice, certainly, than that of the reputation of the orator. What a retrograde movement has liberty made in this country in the last fifty years!
“Whilst a majority of your citizens are accustomed to rule with the authority of despots, within particular limits–while your youths are reared in the habit of thinking that the great rights of human nature are not so sacred, but they may with innocence be trampled on, can it be expected, that the public mind should glow with that generous ardor in the cause of freedom, which can alone save a government, like ours, from the lurking demon of usurpation? Do you not dread the contamination of principle? Have you no alarms for the continuance of that spirit, which once conducted us to victory and independence, when the talons of power were unclasped for our destruction? Have you no apprehension left, that when the votaries of freedom sacrifice also at the gloomy altars of slavery, they will, at length, become apostates from them for ever? For my own part, I have no hope, that the stream of general liberty will flow for ever, unpolluted, through the foul mire of partial bondage, or that they, who have been habituated to lord it over others, will not be base enough, in time, to let others lord it over them. If they resist, it will be the struggle of _pride_ and _selfishness_, not of _principle_.”
Had Edmund Burke known slaveholders as well as Mr. Pinckney knew them, he would not have pronounced his celebrated eulogium on their love of liberty;–he would not have ascribed to them any love of liberty, but the spurious kind which the other orator, impliedly, ascribes to them–that which “pride and selfishness” beget and foster. Genuine love of liberty, as Mr. Pinckney clearly saw, springs from “principle,” and is found no where but in the hearts of those who respect the liberties and the rights of others.
I had reason, in a former part of this communication, to charge some of the sentiments of Professor Hodge with being alike reproachful to the memory of our fathers, and pernicious to the cause of civil liberty. There are sentiments on the 72d page of your book, obnoxious to the like charge. If political “independence”–if a free government–be the poor thing–the illusive image of an American brain–which you sneeringly represent it, we owe little thanks to those who purchased it for us, even though they purchased it with their blood; and little pains need we take in that case to preserve it. When will the people of the Northern States see, that the doctrines now put forth so industriously to maintain slavery, are rapidly undermining liberty?
On the 43d page of your book you also evince your low estimate of man’s rights and dues. You there say, “the fact that the planters of Mississippi and Louisiana, even while they have to pay from twenty to twenty-five dollars per barrel for pork the present season, afford to their slaves from three to four and a half pounds per week, does not show, that they are neglectful in rendering to their slaves that which is just and equal.” If men had only an animal, and not a spiritual and immortal nature also, it might do for you to represent them as well provided for, if but pork enough were flung to them. How preposterous to tell us, that God approves a system which brings a man, as slavery seems to have brought you, to regard his fellow man as a mere animal!
I am happy to find that you are not all wrong. You are no “gradualist.” You are not inconsistent, like those who admit that slavery is sinful, and yet refuse to treat it as sinful. I hope our Northern “gradualists” will profit by the following passage in your book: “If I were convinced by that word (the Bible) that slavery is itself a sin, I trust that, let it cost what it would, I should be an abolitionist, because there is no truth, more clear to my mind, than that the gospel requires an _immediate_ abandonment of sin.”
You have no doubt of your right to hold your fellow men, as slaves. I wish you had given your readers more fully your views of the origin of this right. I judge from what you say, that you trace it back to the curse pronounced by Noah upon Canaan. But was that curse to know no end? Were Canaan’s posterity to endure the entailment of its disabilities and woes, until the end of time? Was Divine mercy never to stay the desolating waves of this curse? Was their harsh and angry roar to reach, even into the gospel dispensation, and to mingle discordantly with the songs of “peace on earth and good will to men?” Was the captivity of Canaan’s race to be even stronger than He, who came “to bind up the broken-hearted, and proclaim liberty to the captives?” But who were Canaan and his descendants? You speak of them, and with singular unfairness, I think, as “_the_ posterity of Ham, from whom, it is supposed, sprang the Africans.” They were, it is true, a part of Ham’s posterity; but to call them “_the_ posterity of Ham,” is to speak as though he had no other child than Canaan. The fifteenth to nineteenth verses of the tenth chapter of Genesis teach us, beyond all question, that Canaan’s descendants inhabited the land of Canaan and adjacent territory, and that this land is identical with the country afterwards occupied by the Jews, and known, in modern times, by the name of Palestine, or the Holy Land. Therefore, however true it may be, that a portion of Ham’s posterity settled in Africa, we not only have no evidence that it was the portion cursed, but we have conclusive evidence that it was not.
But, was it a state of slavery to which Canaanites were doomed? I will suppose, for a moment, that it was: and, then, how does it appear right to enslave them? The curse in question is prophecy. Now prophecy does not say what ought to come to pass: nor does it say, that they who have an agency in the production of the foretold event, will be innocent in that agency. If the prediction of an event justifies those who are instrumental in producing it, then was Judas innocent in betraying our Saviour. “It must needs be that offences come, but wo to that man by whom the offence cometh.” Prophecy simply tells what will come to pass. The question, whether it was proper to enslave Canaanites, depends for its solution not on the curse or prophecy in question. If the measure were in conformity with the general morality of the Bible, then it was proper. Was it in conformity with it? It was not. The justice, equity and mercy which were, agreeable to the Divine command, to characterize the dealings of the Jews with each other, are in such conformity, and these are all violated by slavery. If those dealings were all based on the general morality of the Bible, as they certainly were, then slavery, which, in its moral character, is completely opposite to them, cannot rest on that morality. If that morality did not permit the Jews to enslave Canaanites, how came they to enslave them? You will say, that they had special authority from God to do so, in the words, “Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.” Well, I will admit that God did in one instance, and that He may have done so in others, give special authority to the Jews to do that, which, without such authority, would have been palpably and grossly immoral. He required them to exterminate some of the tribes of the Canaanites. He may have required them to bring other Heathens under a form of servitude violative of the general morality of his word.–Of course, no blame attaches to the execution of such commands. When He specially deputes us to kill for Him, we are as innocent in the agency, notwithstanding the general law, “thou shalt not kill,” as is the earthquake or thunderbolt, when commissioned to destroy. Samuel was as innocent in hewing “Agag in pieces,” as is the tree that falls upon the traveler. It may be remarked, in this connexion, that the fact that God gave a special statute to destroy some of the tribes of the Canaanites, argues the contrariety of the thing required to the morality of the Bible. It argues, that this morality would not have secured the accomplishment of what was required by the statute. Indeed, it is probable that it was, sometimes, under the influence of the tenderness and mercy inculcated by this morality, that the Jews were guilty of going counter to the special statute in question, and sparing the devoted Canaanites, as in the instance when they “spared Agag.” We might reason, similarly to show that a special statute, if indeed there were such a one, authorizing the Jews to compel the Heathen to serve them, argues that compulsory service is contrary to fundamental morality. We will suppose that God did; in the special statute referred to, clothe the Jews with power to enslave Heathens, and now let me ask you, whether it is by this same statute to enslave, that you justify your neighbors and yourself for enslaving your fellow men? But this is a special statute, conferring a power on the Jews only–a power too, not to enslave whomsoever they could; but only a specified portion of the human family, and this portion, as we have seen, of a stock, other than that from which you have obtained your slaves. If the special statutes, by which God clothed the Jews with peculiar powers, may be construed to clothe you with similar powers, then, inasmuch as they were authorized and required to kill Canaanites, you may hunt up for destruction the straggling descendants of such of the devoted ones, as escaped the sword of the Jews. Or, to make a different interpretation of your rights, under this supposition; since the statute in question authorized and required the Jews to kill the heathen, within the borders of what was properly the Jews’ country, then you are also authorized and required to kill the heathens within the limits of your country:–and these are not wanting, if the testimony of your ecclesiastical bodies, before referred to, can be relied on; and, if it be as they say, that the millions of the poor colored brethren in the midst of you are made heathens by the operation of the system, to which, with unparalleled wickedness, they are subjected.
If then, neither Noah’s curse, nor the special statute in question, authorize you to enslave your fellow men, there is, probably, but one ground on which you will contend for authority to do so–and this is the ground of the general morality of the Christian religion–of the general principles of right and duty, in the word of God. Do you find your authority on this ground? If you do, then, manifestly, you have a right to enslave me, and I a right to enslave you, and every man has a right to enslave whomsoever he can;–a right as perfect, as is the right to do good to one another. Indeed, the enslavement of each other would, under this construction of duty, _be_ the doing of good to one another. Think you, sir, that the universal exercise of this right would promote the fulfilment of the “new commandment that ye love one another?” Think you, it would be the harbinger of millenial peace and blessedness? Or, think you not, rather, that it would fully and frightfully realize the prophet’s declaration: “They all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his neighbor with a net.”
If any people have a right to enslave their fellow men, it must be the Jews, if they once had it. But if they ever had it, it ceased, when all their peculiar rights ceased. In respect to rights from the Most High, they are now on the same footing with other races of men. When “the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom,” then that distinction from the Gentile, in which the Jew had gloried, ceased, and the partition wall between them was prostrate for ever. The Jew, as well as the Gentile, was never more to depart from the general morality of the Bible. He was never again to be under any special statutes, whose requirements should bring him into collision with that morality: He was no more to confine his sympathies and friendships within the narrow range of the twelve tribes: but every son and daughter of Adam were thenceforth entitled to claim from him the heart and hand of a brother. “Under the glorious dispensation of the gospel,” says the immortal Granville Sharp, “we are absolutely bound to consider ourselves as citizens of the world; every man whatever, without any partial distinction of nation, distance, or complexion, must necessarily be esteemed our neighbor and our brother; and we are absolutely bound, in Christian duty, to entertain a disposition towards all mankind, as charitable and benevolent, at least, as that which was required of the Jews under the law towards their brethren; and, consequently, it is absolutely unlawful for those who call themselves Christians, to exact of their brethren (I mean their brethren of the universe) a more burthensome service, than that to which the Jews were limited with respect to their brethren of the house of Israel; and the slavery or involuntary bondage of a brother Israelite was absolutely forbid.”
It occurs to me, that after all which has been said to satisfy you, that compulsory servitude, if such there were among the Jews, cannot properly be pleaded in justification of yours; a question may still be floating in your mind whether, if God directed his chosen people to enslave the Heathen, slavery should not be regarded as a good system of servitude? Just as pertinently may you ask, whether that is not a good system of servitude, which is found in some of our state prisons. Punishment probably–certainly not labor–is the leading object in the one case as well as the other: and the labor of the bondman in the one, as well as of the convict in the other, constitutes but a subordinate consideration. To suppose that God would, with every consideration out of view, but that of having the best relation of employer and laborer, make choice of slavery–to suppose that He believes that this state of servitude operates most beneficially, both for the master and the servant–is a high impeachment of the Divine wisdom and goodness. But thus guilty are you, if you are unwilling to believe, that, if He chose the severe servitude in question, He chose it for the punishment of his enemies, or from some consideration, other than its suitableness for the ordinary purposes of the relation of master and servant.
But it has been for the sake of argument only, that I have admitted that God authorized the Jews to enslave the heathen. I now totally deny that He did so. You will, of course, consent that if He did so, it was in a special statute, as was the case when He authorized them to exterminate other heathen: and you will as readily consent that He enacted the statutes, in both instances, with the view of punishing his enemies. Now, in killing the Canaanites, the Jew was constituted, not the owner of his devoted fellow man, but simply the executioner of God’s vengeance: and evidently, such and no other was his character when he was reducing the Canaanite to involuntary servitude–that he did so reduce him, and was commissioned by God to do so, is the supposition we make for the sake of argument. Had the Jews been authorized by God to shut up in dungeons for life those of the heathen, whom they were directed to have for bondmen and bondmaids, you would not claim, that they, any more than sheriffs and jailers in our day, are to be considered in the light of owners of the persons in their charge. Much less then, can the Jews be considered as the owners of any person whom they held in servitude: for, however severe the type of that servitude, the liberty of its subject was not restricted, as was that of the prisoners in question:–most certainly, the power asserted over him is not to be compared in extent with that asserted by the Jew over the Canaanite, whom he slew;–a case in which he was, indisputably, but the executioner of the Divine wrath. The Canaanite, whether devoted to a violent death or to an involuntary servitude, still remained the property of God: and God no more gave him up to be the property of the executioner of his wrath, than the people of the State of New York give up the offender against public justice to be the property of the ministers of that justice. God never suspends the accountability of his rational creatures to himself: and his rights to them, He never transfers to others. He could not do so consistently with his attributes, and his indissoluble relations to man. But slavery claims, that its subjects are the property of man. It claims to turn them into mere chattels, and to make them as void of responsibility to God, as other chattels. Slavery, in a word, claims to push from his throne the Supreme Being, who declares, “all souls are mine.” That it does not succeed in getting its victim out of God’s hand, and in unmanning and _chattelizing_ him–that God’s hold upon him remains unbroken, and that those upward tendencies of the soul, which distinguish man from the brute, are not yet entirely crushed in him–is no evidence in favor of its nature:–it simply proves, that its power is not equal to its purposes. We see, then, that the Jews–if it be true that they reduced their fellow men to involuntary servitude, and did so as the Heaven-appointed ministers of God’s justice,–are not to be charged with slaveholding for it. There may be involuntary servitude where there is no slavery. The essential and distinguishing feature of slavery is its reduction of man to property–to a thing. A tenant of one of our state prisons is under a sentence of “hard labor for life.” But he is not a slave. That is, he is not the _thing_ which slavery would mark its subject. He is still a man. Offended justice has placed him in his present circumstances, because he is a man: and, it is because he is a _man_ and not a _thing_–a responsible, and not an irresponsible being, that he must continue in his present trials and sufferings.
God’s commandments to the Jews, respecting servants and strangers, show that He not only did not authorize them to set up the claim of property in their fellow men, but that He most carefully guarded against such exercises of power, as might lead to the assumption of a claim so wrongful to Himself. Some of these commandments I will bring to your notice. They show that whatever was the form of servitude under which God allowed the Jews to hold the heathen, it was not slavery. Indeed, if all of the Word of God which bears on this point were cited and duly explained, it would, perhaps, appear that He allowed no involuntary servitude whatever amongst the Jews. I give no opinion whether he allowed it or not. There are strong arguments which go to show, that He did not allow it; and with these arguments the public will soon be made more extensively acquainted. It is understood, that the next number of the Anti-Slavery Examiner will be filled with them.
1st. So galling are the bonds of Southern slavery, that it could not live a year under the operation of a law forbidding the restoration of fugitive servants to their masters. How few of the discontented subjects of this oppressive servitude would agree with Hamlet, that it is better to
–“bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.”
What a running there would be from the slave States to the free!–from one slave State to another!–from one plantation to another! Now, such a law–a solemn commandment of God–many writers on slavery are of the opinion, perhaps too confident opinion, was in force in the Jewish nation (Deut. xxiii, 15); and yet the system of servitude on which it bore, and which you cite as the pattern and authority for your own, lived in spite of it. How could it? Manifestly, because its genius was wholly unlike that of Southern slavery; and because its rigors and wrongs, if rigors and wrongs there were in it, bear no comparison to those which characterize Southern slavery; and which would impel nine-tenths of its adult subjects to fly from their homes, did they but know that they would not be obliged to return to them. When Southern slaveholders shall cease to scour the land for fugitive servants, and to hunt them with guns and dogs, and to imprison, and scourge, and kill them;–when, in a word, they shall subject to the bearing of such a law as that referred to their system of servitude, then we shall begin to think that they are sincere in likening it to the systems which existed among the Jews. The law, enacted in Virginia in 1705, authorizing any two justices of the peace “by proclamation to _outlaw_ runaways, who might thereafter be killed and destroyed by any person whatsoever, by such ways and means as he might think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for so doing,” besides that it justifies what I have just said about hunting fugitive servants, shows, 1st. That the American Anti-Slavery Society is of too recent an origin to be the occasion, as slaveholders and their apologists would have us believe, of all the cruel laws enacted at the South. 2d. That Southern slaveholders would be very unwilling to have their system come under the operation of such a law as that which allowed the Jewish servant to change his master. 3d. That they are monsters, indeed, into which men may be turned by their possession of absolute power.
You, perhaps, suppose, (and I frankly admit to you, that there is some room for the supposition,) that the servants referred to in the 15th and 16th verses of the 23d chapter of Deuteronomy, were such as had escaped from foreign countries to the country of the Jews. But, would this view of the matter help you? By taking it, would you not expose yourself to be most pertinently and embarrassingly asked, for what purpose these servants fled to a strange and most odious people?–and would not your candid reply necessarily be, that it was to escape from the galling chains of slavery, to a far-famed milder type of servitude?–from Gentile oppression, to a land in which human rights were protected by Divine laws? But, as I have previously intimated, I have not the strongest confidence in the anti-slavery argument, so frequently drawn from this passage of the Bible. I am not sure that a Jewish servant is referred to: nor that on the supposition of his being a foreigner, the servant came under any form of servitude when entering the land of the Jews. Before leaving the topic, however, let me remark, that the passage, under any construction of it, makes against Southern slavery. Admit that the fugitive servant was a foreigner, and that he was not reduced to servitude on coming among the Jews, let me ask you whether the law in question, under this view of it, would be tolerated by the spirit of Southern slavery?–and whether, before obedience would be rendered to it, you would not need to have a different type of servitude, in the place of slavery? You would–I know you would–for you have been put to the trial. When, by a happy providence, a vessel was driven, the last year, to a West India island, and the chains of the poor slaves with which it was filled fell from around them, under freedom’s magic power, the exasperated South was ready to go to war with Great Britain. _Then_, the law against delivering up foreign servants to their masters was not relished by you. The given case comes most strikingly within the supposed policy of this law. The Gentile was to be permitted to remain in the land to which he had fled, and where he would have advantages for becoming acquainted with the God of the Bible. Such advantages are they enjoying who escaped from the confessed heathenism of Southern slavery to the island in question. They are now taught to read that “Book of life,” which before, they were forbidden to read. But again, suppose a slave were to escape from a West India island into the Southern States–would you, with your “domestic institutions,” of which you are so jealous, render obedience to this Divine law? No; you would subject him _for ever_ to a servitude more severe than that, from which he had escaped. Indeed, if a _freeman_ come within a certain portion of our Southern country, and be so unhappy as to bear a physical resemblance to the slave, he will be punished for that resemblance, by imprisonment, and even by a reduction to slavery.
2d. Southern slaveholders, who, by their laws, own men as absolutely as they own cattle, would have it believed, that Jewish masters thus owned their fellow-men. If they did, why was there so wide a difference between the commandment respecting the stray man, and that respecting the stray ox or ass? The man was not, but the beasts were, to be returned; and that too, even though their owner was the enemy of him who met them. (Ex. 23. 4.) I repeat the question;–why this difference? The only answer is, because God made the brute to be the _property_ of man; but He never gave us our noble nature for such degradation. Man’s title deed, in the eighth Psalm, extends his right of property to the inanimate and brute creation only–not to the flesh and bones and spirit of his fellow-man.
3d. The very different penalties annexed to the crime of stealing a man, and to that of stealing a thing, shows the eternal and infinite difference which God has established between a man and property. The stealing of a man was _surely_ to be punished with death; whilst mere property was allowed to atone for the offence of stealing property.
4th. Who, if not the slave, can be said to be vexed and oppressed! But God’s command to his people was, that they should neither “vex a stranger, nor oppress him.”
5th. Such is the nature of American slavery, that not even its warmest friends would claim that it could recover itself after such a “year of jubilee” as God appointed. One such general delivery of its victims would be for ever fatal to it. I am aware that you deny that all the servants of the Jews shared in the blessings of the “year of jubilee.” But let me ask you, whether if one third or one half of your servants were discharged from servitude every fiftieth year–and still more, whether if a considerable proportion of them were thus discharged every sixth year–the remainder would not be fearfully discontented? Southern masters believe, that their only safety consists in keeping down the discontent of their servants. Hence their anxious care to withhold from them the knowledge of human rights. Hence the abolitionist who is caught in a slave state, must be whipped or put to death. If there were a class of servants amongst the Jews, who could bear to see all their fellow servants go free, whilst they themselves were retained in bondage, then that bondage was of a kind very different from what you suppose it to have been. Had its subjects worn the galling chains of American slavery, they would have struggled with bloody desperation for the deliverance which they saw accorded to others.
I scarcely need say, that the Hebrew words rendered “bondmen” and “bondmaids,” do not, in themselves considered, and independently of the connexion in which they are used, any more than the Greek words _doulos_ and _doule_, denote a particular kind of servant. If the servant was a slave, because he was called by the Hebrew word rendered “bondman,” then was Jacob a slave also:–and even still greater absurdities could be deduced from the position.
I promised, in a former part of this communication, to give you my reasons for denying that you are at liberty to plead in behalf of slavery, the example of any compulsory servitude in which Jews may have held foreigners. My promise is now fulfilled, and I trust that the reasons are such as not to admit of an answer.
Driven, as you now are, from every other conceivable defence of slaveholding it may be (though I must hope better things of you), that you will fly to the ground taken by the wicked multitude–that there is authority in the laws of man for being a slaveholder. But, not only is the sin of your holding slaves undiminished by the consideration, that they are held under human laws; but, your claiming to hold them under such laws, makes you guilty of an additional sin, which, if measured by its pernicious consequences to others, is by no means inconsiderable. The truth of these two positions is apparent from the following considerations.
1st. There is no valid excuse to be found, either in man’s laws or any where else, for transgressing God’s laws. Whatever may be thought, or said to the contrary, it still remains, and for ever will remain true, that under all circumstances, “sin is the transgression of the (Divine) law.”
2d. In every instance in which a commandment of God is transgressed, under the cover and plea of a human law, purporting to permit what that commandment forbids, there is, in proportion to the authority and influence of the transgressor, a fresh sanction imparted to that law; and consequently, in the same proportion the public habit of setting up a false standard of right and wrong is promoted. It is this habit–this habit of graduating our morality by the laws of the land in which we live–that makes the “mischief framed by a law” so much more pernicious than that which has no law to countenance it, and to commend it to the conscience. Who is unaware, that nothing tends so powerfully to keep the traffic in strong drink from becoming universally odious, as the fact, that this body and soul destroying business finds a sanction in human laws? Who has not seen the man, authorized by these laws to distribute the poison amongst his tippling neighbors, proof against all the shafts of truth, under the self-pleasing and self-satisfying consideration, that his is a lawful business.
This habit of setting up man’s law, instead of God’s law, as the standard of conduct, is strikingly manifested in the fact, that on the ground, that the Federal Constitution binds the citizens of the United States to perpetuate slavery, or at least, not to meddle with it, we are, both at the North and the South, called on to forbear from all efforts to abolish it. The exertions made to discover in that instrument, authority for slavery, and authority against endeavors to abolish it, are as great, anxious, and unwearied, as if they who made them, thought that the fortunate discovery would settle for ever the great question which agitates our country–would nullify all the laws of God against slavery–and make the oppression of our colored brethren, as long as time shall last, justifiable and praiseworthy. But this discovery will never be made; for the Constitution is not on the side of the slaveholder. If it were, however, it would clothe him with no moral right to act in opposition to the paramount law of God. It is not at all necessary to the support of my views, in this communication, to show that the Constitution was not designed to favor slavery; and yet, a few words to this end may not be out of place.
A treaty between Great Britain and Turkey, by the terms of which the latter should be prohibited from allowing slaves to be brought within her dominions, after twenty years from its date, would, all will admit, redound greatly to the credit of Great Britain. To be sure, she would not have done as much for the cause of humanity, as if she had succeeded in bringing the further indulgence of the sin within the limits of a briefer period, and incomparably less than if she had succeeded in reconciling the Sublime Porte to her glorious and emphatically English doctrines of immediate emancipation. But still she would deserve some praise–much more than if she had done nothing in this respect. Now, for my present purpose, and many of our statesmen say, for nearly all purposes, the Federal Constitution is to be regarded as a treaty between sovereign States. But how much more does this treaty do for the abolition of slavery, than that on which we were, a moment since, bestowing our praise! It imposes a prohibition similar to that in the supposed treaty between Great Britain and Turkey, so that no slaves have been allowed to be introduced into the United States since the year 1808. It goes further, and makes ample provision for the abolition and prevention of slavery in every part of the nation, save these States; so that the District of Columbia and the national territories can be cleared forever of slavery, whenever a majority of the parties, bound by the treaty, shall desire it. And it goes still farther, and clothes this majority with the power of regulating commerce between the States, and consequently, of prohibiting their mutual traffic in “the bodies and souls of men.” Had this treaty gone but one step farther, and made an exception, as it should have done, in behalf of slaves, in the clause making necessary provision for the return of fugitives held to service in the States from which they flee, none but those who think it is fairly held responsible for the twenty years indulgence of the unholy traffic, would have claimed any thing more from it in relation to slavery. Now, this instrument, which contains nothing more, bearing on the subject of slavery, than what I have referred to, and whose pages are not once polluted with the words “slave” and “slavery,” is abundantly and triumphantly cited, as conclusive authority in favor of slavery, and against endeavors to abolish it. Whilst we regret, that the true-hearted sons of freedom in the Convention which formed it, could obtain no more concessions from the advocates of slavery, let us honor their sacred memory, and thank God for those they did obtain.
I have supposed it possible, that you might number yourself with those, who defend slavery on the ground of its alleged conformity with human laws. It occurs to me, that you may, also, take hope, that slavery is defensible in the supposed fact, that a considerable share of the professing Christians, in the free States, are in favor of it. “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” If all professing Christians were for slavery, yet, if God is against it, that is reason enough why you also should be against it. It is not true, however, that a considerable share of our professing Christians are on the side of slavery. Indeed, until I read Professor Hodge’s article, I had not supposed that any of them denied its sinfulness. It is true, that a large proportion of them refuse to take a stand against it. Let them justify to their consciences, and to their God, as they can, the equivocal silence and still more equivocal action on this subject, by which they have left their Southern brethren to infer, that Northern piety sanctions slavery. It is the doctrine of expediency, so prevalent and corrupting in the American Church, which has deceived you into the belief, that a large share of the professing Christians in the free States, think slavery to be sinless. This share, which you have in your eye, is, as well as the remainder, convinced that slavery is sinful–_only they think it inexpedient to say so_. In relation to other sins, they are satisfied with God’s way of immediate abandonment. But, in relation to slavery, they flatter themselves that they have discovered “a more excellent way”–that of leaving the sin untouched, and simply hoping for its cessation, at some indefinite period in the distant future. I say hoping, instead of praying, as prayer for an object is found to be accompanied by corresponding efforts. But for this vile doctrine of expediency, which gives to our ecclesiastical bodies, whenever the subject of such a giant and popular sin as slavery is broached in them, the complexion of a political caucus steeped in unprincipled policy, rather than that of a company of the Saviour’s disciples, inquiring “in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom,” the way of the Lord;–but for this doctrine, I say, you would, long ago, have heard the testimony of Northern Christians against Southern slavery;–and not only so, but you would long ago have seen this Dagon fall before the power of that testimony. I trust, however, that this testimony will not long be withheld; and that Northern Christians will soon perceive, that, in relation to slavery, as well as every other sin, it is the safest and wisest, as well as the holiest course, to drop all carnal policy–to “trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
Not only are Northern Christians, with very rare exceptions, convinced of the sin of slavery; but even your slaveholders were formerly accustomed, with nearly as great unanimity, to admit, that they themselves thought it to be sinful. It is only recently, and since they have found that their system must be tested by the Bible, thoroughly and in earnest–not merely for the purpose, as formerly, of determining without any practical consequences of the determination, what is the moral character of slavery–but, for the purpose of settling the point, whether the institution shall stand or fall,–it is only, I say, since the civilized world has been fast coming to claim that it shall be decided by the Bible, and by no lower standard, whether slavery shall or shall not exist–that your slaveholders have found it expedient to take the ground, that slavery is not sin.
It probably has not occurred to you, how fairly and fully you might have been stopped, upon the very threshold of your defence of slavery. The only witness you have called to the stand to sustain your sinking cause, is the Bible. But this is a witness, which slavery has itself impeached, and of which, therefore, it is not entitled to avail itself. It is a good rule in our civil courts, that a party is not permitted to impeach his own witness; and it is but an inconsiderable variation of the letter of this rule, and obviously no violation of its spirit and policy to say, that no party is permitted to attempt to benefit his cause by a witness whom he has himself impeached. Now, the slaveholder palpably violates this rule, when he presumes to offer the Bible as a witness for his cause:–for he has previously impeached it, by declaring, in his slave system, that it is not to be believed–that its requirements are not to be obeyed–that they are not even to be read (though the Bible expressly directs that they shall be)–that concubinage shall be substituted for the marriage it enjoins–and that its other provisions for the happiness, and even the existence, of the social relations, shall be trampled under foot. The scene, in which a lawyer should ask the jury to believe what his witness is saying at one moment, and to reject what he is saying at another, would be ludicrous enough. But what more absurdity is there in it than that which the pro-slavery party are guilty of, when they would have us deaf, whilst their witness is testifying in favor of marriage and searching the Scriptures; and, all ears, whilst that same witness is testifying, as they construe it, in favor of slavery! No–before it will be competent for the American slaveholder to appeal to the Bible for justification of his system, that system must be so modified, as no longer to make open, shameless war upon the Bible. I would recommend to slaveholders, that, rather than make so unhallowed a use of the Bible as to attempt to bolster up their hard beset cause with it, they should take the ground, which a very distinguished slaveholding gentleman of the city of Washington took, in a conversation with myself on the subject of slavery. Feeling himself uncomfortably plied by quotations from the word of God, he said with much emphasis, “Stop, Sir, with that, if you please–SLAVERY IS A SUBJECT, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIBLE.”
This practice of attempting to put the boldest and most flagrant sins under the wing and sanction of the Bible, is chargeable on others as well as on the advocates of slavery. Not to speak of other instances of it–it is sought to justify by this blessed book the most despotic forms of civil government, and the drinking of intoxicating liquors. There are two evils so great, which arise from this perversion of the word of God, that I cannot forbear to notice them. One is, that the consciences of men are quieted, when they imagine that they have found a justification in the Bible for the sins of which they are guilty. The other is, that infidels are multiplied by this perversion. A respectable gentleman, who edits a newspaper in this neighborhood, and who, unhappily, is not established in the Christian faith, was asked, a few months since, to attend a meeting of a Bible Society. “I am not willing,” said he, in reply, “to favor the circulation of a volume, which many of its friends claim to be on the side of slavery.” Rely on it, Sir, that wherever your book produces the conviction that the Bible justifies slavery, it there weakens whatever of respect for that blessed volume previously existed. Whoever is brought to associate slavery with the Bible, may, it is true, think better of slavery; but he will surely think worse of the Bible. I hope, therefore, in mercy to yourself and the world, that the success of your undertaking will be small.
But oftentimes the same providence has a bright, as well as a gloomy, aspect. It is so in the case before us. The common attempt, in our day, to intrench great sins in the authority of the Bible, is a consoling and cheering evidence, that this volume is recognised as the public standard of right and wrong; and that, whatever may be their private opinions of it who are guilty of these sins, they cannot hope to justify themselves before the world, unless their lives are, apparently, at least, conformed, in some good degree, to this standard. We may add, too, that, as surely as the Bible is against slavery, every pro-slavery writer, who like yourself appeals to it as the infallible and only admissible standard of right and wrong, will contribute to the overthrow of the iniquitous system. His writings may not, uniformly, tend to this happy result. In some instances, he may strengthen confidence in the system of slavery by producing conviction, that the Bible sanctions it;–and then his success will be, as before remarked, at the expense of the claims and authority of the Bible:–but these instances of the pernicious effects of his writings will be very rare, quite too rare we may hope, to counterbalance the more generally useful tendency of writings on the subject of slavery, which recognise the paramount authority of God’s law.
Having completed the examination of your book, I wish to hold up to you, in a single view, the substance of what you have done. You have come forth, the unblushing advocate of American slavery;–a system which, whether we study its nature in the deliberate and horrid enactments of its code, or in the heathenism and pollution and sweat and tears and blood, which prove, but too well, the agreement of its practical character with its theory–is, beyond all doubt, more oppressive and wicked than any other, which the avaricious, sensual, cruel heart of man ever devised. You have come forth, the unblushing advocate of a system under which parents are daily selling their children; brothers and sisters, their brothers and sisters; members of the Church of Christ, their fellow-members–under which, in a word, immortal man, made “in the image of God,” is more unfeelingly and cruelly dealt with, than the brute. I know that you intimate that this system would work well, were it in the hands of none but good men. But with equal propriety might you say, that the gaming-house or the brothel would work well in such hands. You have attempted to sustain this system by the testimony of the Bible. The system, a part only of the crimes of which, most of the nations of Christendom have declared to be piracy;–against which, the common sense, the philosophy, the humanity, the conscience of the world, are arrayed;–this system, so execrable and infamous, you have had the presumption to attempt to vindicate by that blessed book, whose Author “is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and (who) cannot look upon iniquity”–and who “has magnified his word above all his name.”
And now, Sir, let me solemnly inquire of you, whether it is right to do what you have done?–whether it is befitting a man, a Christian, and a minister of the gospel?–and let me, further, ask you, whether you have any cheering testimony in your heart that it is God’s work you have been doing? That you and I may, in every future work of our hands, have the happiness to know, that the approbation of our employer comes from the upper, and not from the under world, is the sincere desire of
Your friend,
GERRIT SMITH.
No. 4
THE
ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
THE
BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
AN INQUIRY
INTO THE
PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS
ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1837.
POSTAGE–This periodical contains five and a half sheets. Postage under 100 miles, 8-1/2 cts over 100 miles, 14 cents.
_Please read and circulate._
PIERCY & REED. PRINTERS,
7 Theatre Alley.
CONTENTS.
Definition of Slavery
Man-stealing–Examination of Ex. xxi. 16
Import of “Bought with money,” etc.
Rights and privileges of servants
No involuntary servitude under the Mosaic system
Servants were paid wages
Masters, not owners
Servants distinguished from property
Social equality of servants with their masters
Condition of the Gibeonites, as subjects of the Hebrew Commonwealth
Egyptian bondage analyzed
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
“Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be,” etc. Gen. ix. 25
“For he is his money,” Examination of, Ex. xxi. 20, 21
“Bondmen and bondmaids” bought of the heathen. Lev. xxv. 44-46
“They shall be your bondmen forever.” Lev. xxv. 46
“Ye shall take them as an inheritance,” etc. Lev. xxv. 46
The Israelite to serve as a hired servant. Lev. xxv. 39, 40
Difference between bought and hired servants
Bought servants the most privileged class
Summary of the different classes of servants
Disabilities of the servants from the heathen
Examination of Exodus xxi. 2-6
The Canaanites not sentenced to unconditional extermination
INQUIRY, &c.
* * * * *
The spirit of slavery never takes refuge in the Bible _of its own accord._ The horns of the altar are its last resort. It seizes them, if at all, 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 breaks at last into the sacred enclosure, and courses up and down the Bible, “seeking rest, and finding none.” THE LAW OF LOVE, streaming from every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons recoiled from the Son of God, and shrieked, “Torment us not.” At last, it slinks away among the shadows of the Mosaic system, and thinks to burrow out of sight among its types and shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It rushes 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 is the charter of slavery, we must first determine _just what slavery is_. The thing itself must be separated from its appendages. A constituent element is one thing; a relation another; an appendage another. Relations and appendages presuppose _other_ things, of which there are relations and appendages. To regard them as _the things_ to which they pertain, 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 is deemed quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify some of the things which are often confounded with slavery.
1. _Privation of the right of suffrage_. Then _minors_ are slaves.
2. _Ineligibility to office_. Then _females_ are slaves.
3. _Taxation without representation_. Then three-fourths of the people of Rhode Island are slaves, and _all_ in the District of Columbia.
4. _Privation of one’s oath in law_. Then the _free_ colored people of Ohio are slaves. So are disbelievers in a future retribution, generally.
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 are often cruelly treated; hired domestics are often oppressed; but these forms of oppression 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 the _obligation_ of each to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured, and his interests are promoted equally with those of the master. Indeed, while the law of apprenticeship 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 it guards from injury those of the latter in doing it. It secures to the master a mere legal compensation, while it secures to the apprentice both a legal compensation, and a virtual gratuity in addition, the apprentice being of the two decidedly 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. The master cannot hold the apprentice as property, nor the apprentice the master; 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 indispensable to the existence of the social state; their _design_ the promotion of mutual welfare; and the _means_, those natural affections created by the relation of parent and child, and blending them in one by irrepressible affinities; and thus, while exciting each to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, they constitute a shield for mutual protection. The parent’s legal claim to the services of his children, while minors, is a slight boon for the care and toil of their rearing, to say nothing of outlays for support and education. This provision for the good of the _whole_, is, with the greater part 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, or governmental claims on criminals._ 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?_ Besides, the law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty; it 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. _Restrictions upon freedom._ Children are restrained by parents, wards by guardians, pupils by teachers, patients by physicians and nurses, corporations by charters, and legislators 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 civilized society is a mammoth slave–a government of LAW, _the climax of slavery_, and its executive a king among slaveholders.
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, are one thing; the condition itself, the object of these feelings, is _another_ thing; his feelings cannot alter the nature of that condition. Whether he _desire_ or _detest_ it, the _condition_ remains the same. The slave’s _willingness_ to be a slave is no palliation of his master’s guilt in holding him. Suppose the slave verily thinks himself a chattel, and consents that others may so regard him, 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 because I _consent_ to be made a corpse? Does my partnership in his guilt blot out his part of it? If the slave were willing to be a slave, his _voluntariness_, so far from _lessening_ the guilt of the “owner,” _aggravates_ it. If slavery has so palsied his mind and 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 in holding him as property, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that binds his soul, cheating it of its birth-right, and the consciousness of its worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions and relations are _appendages_ of slavery, and some of them inseparable from it. 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 intelligence, accountability, immortality, into _merchandise_. A _slave_ is one held in this condition. He is a mere tool for another’s use and benefit. In law “he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing.” _His right to himself is abrogated._ He is another’s property. 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 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 sold, 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 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 his human comforts, but abrogating his _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 man from an END to a _means_, or in other words, whatever transforms him from an object of instrumentality into a mere instrumentality _to_ an object, just so far makes him a _slave_. Hence West India apprenticeship retains in _one_ particular 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 all 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_–is an article of property, a chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law in all of these states,” (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.” Civil 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–their centre and circumference–the source, the test, and the measure of their value–the rational, immortal principle, embalmed by God in everlasting remembrance, consecrated 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 protecting shield, upholding 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][A]? To the _law_ and the _testimony_. First, the moral law, or the ten commandments. 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. Look at the eighth, “_Thou shall not steal_,” or, thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him. All man’s powers of body and mind are God’s gift to _him_. That they are _his own_, and that he has a right to them, 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 his right to himself–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, the world over, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always assume _their own right to themselves_. What slaveholder ever undertook to prove his own 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. The slaveholder, in making out his own title to himself, makes out the title of every human being to _himself_. 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 him 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 unhumanize _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.
[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 eighth commandment forbids the taking of _any_ part of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the _whole_. Does the same Bible which forbids the taking of _any_ thing belonging to him, sanction the taking of _every_ thing? Is it such a medley of absurdities as to thunder wrath against him who robs his neighbor of a _cent_, while it bids God speed to him who robs his neighbor of _himself_? Slavery is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the _earner_, is compound, superlative, perpetual theft. It is to be a thief by profession. It is a trade, a life of robbery, that vaults through all the gradations of 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, or held them as slaves without _coveting_ them? Why do they take from them their time, their labor, their liberty, their 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? Why do they _take_ them, 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 and institutions, 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.” See Exodus, 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 cleaving in swarms to every living thing–the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcasses of things abhorred–even 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 in 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 be surely put to death_.” Ex. xxii. 16. God’s cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system! See also Deut. xxiv. 7[A].
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish writers, (if we except perhaps the Egyptian Maimonides,) 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 Hebrew word, _Gaunab_, here rendered _stealeth_, means the taking from another what _belongs_ to him, whether it be 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 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, as stated in the passage, is three-fold–man _stealing_, _selling_ and _holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty–DEATH. This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of man, is the _man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said to the servants of Pharoah, “Indeed I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews.” Gen. xl. 15. How _stolen_? His brethren took him and sold him as an _article of merchandize_. Contrast this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing. Exod. xxii. If a man stole an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, the penalty was two oxen. The selling or the killing being virtually a deliberate repetition of the crime, the penalty was more than doubled.
But in the case of stealing a _man_, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated, or however 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 amount stolen, the payment of _double_ wiped out the score. It might have a greater _money_ value than a _thousand_ men, yet _death_ was never the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even _stripes_. Whatever the kind, or the amount stolen, the unvarying penalty was double of _the same kind_. Why was not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why not require the thief 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 whole of 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 the intolerable aggravations of supreme insult and impiety. Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such outrage and blasphemy. 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 from the guilty wretch the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from him, 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, that 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, perhaps not a sixpence worth, 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 greatly 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 the _nature_ of the article, but in _shifting its external 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 a mere appendage. The sin in stealing a man does not consist in transferring, from its owner to another, that which is _already property_, but in turning _personality_ into _property_. True, the _attributes_ of man still remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are _annihilated_. It is the first law 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 nature and 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 in its “scarlet dye.” The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the _nature_ of a _man_–his _intrinsic value_ and relations 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 then 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 that same blow were given to a _parent_, the law struck the smiter _dead_. Why this difference in the punishment of the same act, inflicted on different persons? Answer–God guards the parental relation with peculiar care. It is the _centre_ of human relations. 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.
But why the difference in the penalty since the _act_ was the same? The sin had divers aggravations.
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 centre 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 relation is God’s favorite illustration, of his own relations to the whole family of man. In this case, death is inflicted not at all for the act of _smiting_, nor for smiting a _man_, but a _parent_–for violating a vital and sacred relation–a _distinction_ cherished by God, and around which, both in the moral and ceremonial law, 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 here punished with death, is not the mere act of taking property from its owner, but the disregarding of _fundamental relations_, doing violence to an _immortal nature_, making war on a _sacred distinction_ of priceless worth. That distinction which is cast headlong by the principle of American slavery; which makes MEN “_chattels_.”
The incessant pains-taking throughout the old Testament, in the separation of human beings from brutes and things, shows God’s regard for the sacredness of his own distinction.
“In the beginning” the Lord uttered it in heaven, and proclaimed it to the universe as it rose into being. He arrayed creation at the instant of its birth, to do it reverent homage. It paused in adoration while He 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, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth_.”
_Then_ while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to catch and 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 cry all together, “Amen, alleluia”–“_Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive blessing and honor”–“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. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth_.” Psalms viii. 5, 6, 9. The frequent and solemn repetition of this distinction by God proclaims his infinite regard. The 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 1st chapter of Genesis are little else than the repetition of it in various forms. In the 5th chapter, 1st verse, we find it again–“In the day that God created man, IN THE LIKENESS of GOD MADE HE MAN.” In the 9th chapter, 6th verse, we find it 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 he had said, “All these other 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 Levit. xxiv. 17, 18, “_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 the passage quoted above, 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 his 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_, with beasts and creeping things. Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith to those that grind his poor, “_Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me_.”
But time would fail us to detail the instances in which this distinction is most impressively marked in the Bible.
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_, however, the latter alone is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the _patriarchs_, God has not made them our examplars[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, let us settle the import of certain terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF THE WORD “BUY,” AND THE PHRASE “BOUGHT WITH MONEY.”
From the direction to the Israelites to “buy” their servants, and from the phrase “bought with money,” applied to Abraham’s servants, it is argued that they were articles of _property_. The sole ground for this belief is the _terms_ “buy” and “bought with money,” and such an import to these terms when applied to servants is assumed, not only in the absence of all proof, but in the face of evidence to the contrary. How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved was always _assumed_. To _beg_ the question in debate, what economy of midnight oil! what a forestaller of premature wrinkles, and grey hairs! Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, and painful collating of passages, and cautiously tracing minute relations, to find the meaning of Scripture terms, let every man boldly resolve to interpret the language of the oldest book in the world, by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then what a march of mind! Instead of _one_ revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning! Every man might take orders as an inspired interpreter, with an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, if he only understood the dialect of his own neighborhood! We repeat it, the only ground of proof that these terms are to be interpreted to mean, when applied to servants in the Bible, the same that they mean when applied to our _slaves, is the terms themselves._
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 a miracle-worker, to stop the earth in its revolution! Rather too fast. Two hundred years ago, _prevent_ was used in the 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, is, “Before the dawning of the morning I cried,” or, I began to cry before day-break. “So my prayer shall _prevent_ thee.” “Let us _prevent_ his face with thanksgiving.” “Mine eyes _prevent_ the night watches.” “We shall not _prevent_ them that are asleep,” &c. 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: “Oftentimes 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 high ways and _compel_ (urge) them to come in,”–Only let your _conversation_ (habitual conduct or course of life) be as becometh the Gospel,”–They that seek me _early_ (earnestly) shall find me,–Give me _by and by_ (now) in a charger, the head of John the Baptist,”–So when tribulation or persecution ariseth _by-and-by_ (immediately) they are offended. Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are continually throwing off 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 hyper-fashionable mantuamakers and milliners were not a little quicker at taking hints from some of our Doctors of Divinity. How easily they could save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by demonstrating that the last importation of Parisian indecency, just now flaunting here on promenade, was the identical style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham’s servants. Since such fashions are rife in Chestnut-street and Broadway _now_, they _must_ have been in Canaan and Pandanaram four thousand years ago!
II. 1. 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_ that it is property. The children of Israel were required to _purchase_ their first-born out from under the obligations of the priesthood, Numb. xviii. 15, 16; Exod. xxxiv. 20. This custom is kept up to this day 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_. So 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?
2. 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 Rachel 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, “What ye shall say unto me, I will _give_. 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, Saul’s daughter, and Othniel, Achsab, the daughter of Caleb, by performing perilous services for the benefit of their fathers-in-law. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judges i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with money or by service was the general practice, is plain from such passages as Exod. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the Jews of the present day this usage exists, though it is now a mere form, there being no _real_ purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called “marrying by the penny.” The coincidences, not only in the methods of procuring wives and servants, and in the terms employed in describing the transactions, but in the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Compare Deut. xxii. 28, 29, and Exod. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price of wives and servants was the same. Compare Hosea iii. 2, with Exod. xxi. 2. Hosea appears to have paid one half in money and the other in grain. Further, the Israelitish female bought-servants were _wives_, their husbands and their masters being the same persons. Exod. xxi. 8, and Judges xix. 3, 27. If _buying_ servants among the Jews shows that they were property, then buying _wives_ shows that _they_ were property. The words in the original used to describe the one, describe the other. 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. How far gone is the Church from primitive purity! How slow to emulate illustrious examples! 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! Surely professors of religion now, are _bound_ to buy and hold their wives as property! Refusing so to do, is to question the morality of those “good old” wife-trading “patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” with the prophets, and a host of whom the world was not worthy.
The use of the word buy, to describe the procuring of wives, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac language, the common expression for “the married,” or “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 Hebrew word translated _buy_, is, like other words, modified by the nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve says, “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_, i.e. 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 who were made slaves, but to those taken _out_ of slavery. Prov. 8. 22. “The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way before his works of old.” Prov. xix. 8. “He that _getteth_ (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul.” Prov. xvi. 16. “How much better is it to _get_ (buy) wisdom than gold?” Finally, to _buy_ is a _secondary_ meaning of the Hebrew word _Kana_.
4. 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 now the current word in West India newspapers. So a few years since in New-York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and even now in New-Jersey servants are “_bought_” as really as in Virginia. And the different senses in which the same word is used in the two states, puts no man in a quandary, whose common sense amounts to a modicum.
So under the system of legal _indenture_ in Illinois, servants now are “_bought_.”[A] A short time since, hundreds of foreigners who came to this country were “bought” annually. By voluntary contract they engaged to work for their purchasers 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, and remove into free states. Under the same roof with the writer is a “servant bought with money.” A few weeks since, she was a slave. As soon as “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 were “bought” by the administration with the surplus revenue; and the other party, that Clay and Webster were “bought” by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was “bought” by British gold. Did that make him an article of property? When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip hits off the indecency with this current phrase, “The cotton bags _bought_ him.” When Robert Walpole said, “Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it can _buy_ him,” and when John Randolph said, while the Missouri question was pending, “The northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough, and I can _buy_ them,” they both meant _just what they said_. When 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_, we have no floating visions of “chattels personal,” man auctions, or coffles.
[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the 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 meaning attached to “buy” and “bought with money.” See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants, and that he should _buy_ them. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, “Behold I have _bought you_ this day,” and yet it is plain that neither of the parties dreamed that the persons _bought_ were in any sense articles of property, but merely that they became thereby obligated to labor for the government on certain conditions, as a _compensation_ for the entire support of themselves and families during the famine. And that the idea attached to “buy us,” and “behold I have bought you,” was merely the procuring of services voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, as a 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_ (they were to give one-fifth part of their crops to Pharaoh) is called in Scripture usage, _buying the persons_. This case deserves 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 entering into 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, assumes that servants were bought of _third_ persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property. This is sheer _assumption_. Not a single instance is recorded, of a servant being sold by any one but himself; not a case, either under the patriarchal, or the Mosaic systems, in which a _master sold his servant_. That the 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 the 47th verse, is rendered _sell himself_, is in the 39th verse of the same chapter, rendered _be sold_; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered “_be sold_.” Here it is the Hithpael conjugation, which is reflexive in its force, and, like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an individual does for himself; or in his own concerns; and should manifestly have been rendered, ye shall _offer yourselves_ for sale. 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, Jeremiah xxxiv. 14–Romans vii. 14, and vi. 16–John viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted.
Again, if servants were _bought of third persons_, where are the instances? In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of _third_ persons. Is it not a fair inference, if servants were bought of third persons, that there would _sometimes_ have been such an intimation?
II.-THE LEADING DESIGN OF THE MOSAIC LAWS RELATING TO MASTERS AND SERVANTS, WITH AN ENUMERATION OF THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED TO SERVANTS.
The general object of those statutes, which prescribed the relations of master and servant, was the good of both parties–but more especially the good of the _servants_. While the interests of the master were specially guarded from injury, those of the servants were _promoted_.
These laws were 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_–a bestowment of _favors_.
1. _No servant from the Strangers, could remain a servant in the family of an Israelite, without becoming a proselyte_. Compliance with this condition was the _price of the privilege_.–Genesis xvii. 9-14, 23, 27.
2. _Excommunication from the family was a_ PUNISHMENT.–Genesis xxi. 14-Luke xvi. 2-4.
3. _The fact that every Hebrew servant could_ COMPEL _his master to keep him after the six years contract had, expired_, 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 in his household, however little he might need his services, or great his dislike to the individual. Deut. xv. 12-17, and Exodus xxi. 2-6.
4. _The rights and privileges guaranteed 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 of the household in which they resided._ Exodus xii. 43-44; Deut. xii. 12, 18, and xvi. 10-16.
(3.) _They were statedly instructed in morality and religion._ Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Joshua viii. 33-35; 2 Chronicles xvii. 8-9.
(4.) _They were released from their regular labor nearly_ ONE HALF OF THE WHOLE TIME. During which, the law secured to them their entire support; and the same public and family 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 servants that remained such 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 great 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 sixth day of the third month, and lasted seven days. Lev. xxiii. 15-21. And the Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the seventh 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. Their cumbered caravans moved slowly. After their arrival at the place of sacrifice, a day or two at least, would be requisite for divers preparations, before entering upon the celebration of the festival, besides some time at the close of it, in preparations for their return. If we assign three weeks to each festival–including the time spent on the journey going and returning, 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.
(e.) _The new moons_. The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus tells us that the Jews always kept _two_ days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish Calender, and Horne’s Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx, 18, 19, 27. This would amount in forty-two years, to two years, two hundred and eighty days, after the necessary subtractions.
(f.) _The feast of trumpets_. On the first day of the seventh month, and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
(g.) _The day of atonement_. On the tenth of the seventh month. Lev. xxiii. 27-32.
These two last feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days of time not otherwise reckoned.
Thus it appears that those persons who continued servants during the whole 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 the foregoing calculation, besides making a generous donation of all the _fractions_ to the objector, we have left out of the account, those numerous _local_ festivals to which frequent allusion is made, as in Judges xxi. 19; 1 Sam. 9th chapter. And the various _family_ festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1st Sam. xx. 28, 29. Neither have we included those memorable festivals instituted at a later period of the Jewish history. The feast of Purim, Esther, ix. 28, 29; and the feast 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 on an average be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR. Meanwhile, they and their families were supported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this amount of time were distributed over _every day_, the servants would have _to themselves_, all but a _fraction of_ ONE HALF OF EACH DAY, and would labor for their masters the remaining fraction and the other half of the day.
THIS REGULATION IS A PART OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE GREAT PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
5. _The servant was protected by law equally with the other members of the community_.
Proof–“_Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his neighbor, 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, 17. Also in Lev. xxiv. 22. “_Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country, for I am the Lord your God_.” So Numbers 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, _the fatherless and the widow_.”
6. _The Mosaic system enjoined upon the Israelites the greatest affection and kindness toward their 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 shalt love him as thyself_.” Also Deut. x.