Volume 1 — 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.
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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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 17, 19. "For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which REGARDETH NOT PERSONS, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE STRANGER, in giving him food and raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE STRANGER." So Exodus xxii. 21. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him." Exodus xxiii. 9. "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. "If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." [What an absurdity to suppose that this same stranger could be taken by one that feared his God, held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights!]
7. Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in all civil and religious rights. See Numbers xv. 15, 16, 29. Numb. ix. 14. Deut, i. 16, 17. Lev. xxiv. 22.
We argue that they became servants of their own accord,
"But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day, and he that is bought with money, on the day on which the master receives him, unless the slave be unwilling. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long, it is forbidden to keep him, longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the worship of a willing heart."—Maimon, Hilcoth, Miloth, Chap. 1st, Sec. 8th.
The ancient Jewish Doctors agree in the testimony, that the servant from the strangers who at the close of his probationary year still refused to adopt the religion of the Mosaic system, and was on that account cut off from the family, and sent back to his own people, received a full compensation for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But that postponement of the circumcision of the foreign servant for a year (or even at all after he had entered the family of an Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been a mere usage. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly initiatory. Whether it was a rite merely national or spiritual, or both, comes not within the scope of this inquiry. Nor does it at all affect the argument.
Were the servants forced through all these processes? Was the renunciation of idolatry compulsory? Were they dragged into covenant with God? Were they seized and circumcised by main strength? Were they compelled mechanically to chew, and swallow, the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution, despised its ceremonies, spurned the law which enjoined it, detested its author and executors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemmorated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they driven from all parts of the land three times in the year up to the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated? Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations?
We repeat it, to become a servant, was to become a proselyte. And how did God authorize his people to make proselytes? At the point of the sword? By the terror of pains and penalties? By converting men into merchandise? Were proselyte and chattel synonymes, in the Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a thing before taken into covenant with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and the sole passport to the communion of the saints?
2. We argue the voluntariness of servants from Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, "Thou shall not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him."
As though God had said, "To deliver him up would be to recognize the right of the master to hold him. His fleeing "shows his choice—proclaims his wrongs, his master's oppressive acts, and his own claim to legal protection." You shall not force him back, and thus recognize the right of the master to hold him in such a condition as induces him to flee to others for protection." It may be objected, that this command had no reference to servants among the Israelites, but only to those of heathen masters in the surrounding nations. We answer, The regulation has no restriction. Its terms are unlimited. But the objection, even if valid, merely shifts the pressure of the difficulty to another point. Does God array his infinite authority to protect the free choice of a single servant from the heathen, and yet authorize the same persons, to crush the free choice of thousands of servants from the heathen! Suppose a case. A foreign servant flees from his master to the Israelites; God speaks, "He shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best." They were strictly charged not to put him in a condition which he did not choose. Now, suppose this same servant, instead of coming into Israel of his own accord, had been dragged in by some kidnapper who bought him of his master, and forced him into a condition against his will. Would He who forbade such treatment of the stranger, who voluntarily came into the land, sanction the same treatment of the same person, provided in addition to this last outrage, the previous one had been committed of forcing him into the nation against his will?
To commit violence on the free choice of a foreign servant is a horrible enormity, forsooth, PROVIDED you begin the violence after he has come among you. But if you commit the first act, on the other side of the line; if you begin the outrage by buying him from a third person against his will, and then tear him from home, and drag him across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a slave—ah! that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence now with impunity! Would greater favor have been shown to this new comer from the heathen than to the old residents—those who had been servants in Jewish families perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites commanded to exercise toward him, uncircumcised and out of the covenant, a justice and kindness denied to the multitude, who were circumcised, and within the covenant?
Again: the objector finds small gain to his argument on the supposition that the covenant respected merely the fugitives from the surrounding nations, while it left the servants of the Israelites in a condition against their wills—the objector finds small gain to his argument. In that case, the surrounding nations would of course adopt retaliatory measures, and resolve themselves into so many asylums for fugitive Israelitish servants. As these nations were on every side of them such a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men held in a condition which was a constant counteraction of will. Further, the objector's assumption destroys itself; for the same command which protected the foreign servant from the power of his master, protected him equally from the power of an Israelite. It was not merely, "Thou shalt not deliver him to his master," but "he (the servant) shall dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best." Every Israelite was commanded to respect his free choice, and to put him in no condition against his will. What was this but a proclamation, that all who chose to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to their own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to such persons, and in such places as they pleased?
Besides, grant that this command prohibited the sending back of foreign servants merely, was the any law requiring the return of servants who had escaped from the Israelites? There was a statute requiring the return of property lost, and cattle escaped, but none requiring the return of escaped servants.
Finally, these verses contain, first, a command, "Thou shalt not deliver," &c. Secondly, a declaration of the fugitive's right of free choice, and of God's will that he should exercise it at his own discretion; and thirdly, a command guarding this right, namely, "Thou shalt not oppress him," as though God had said, If you forbid him to exercise his own choice, as to the place and condition of his residence, it is oppression, and I will not tolerate it.
3. We argue the voluntariness of servants from their peculiar opportunities and facilities for escape. Three times every year, all the males over twelve years of age, were required to attend the public festivals. The main body were thus absent from their homes not less than three weeks each time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the way, to intercept deserters?—a corporal's guard stationed at each pass of the mountains, sentinels pacing the hill-tops, and light horse scouring the defiles? What safe contrivance had the Israelites for taking their "slaves" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back? When a body of slaves is moved any distance in our free and equal republic, they are handcuffed to keep them from running away, or beating their drivers' brains out. Was this the Mosaic plan, or an improvement left for the wisdom of Solomon? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venerable and biblical! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and transported in bundles, or caged up, and trundled on wheels to and fro, and while at the Holy City, "lodged in jail for safe keeping," religions services extra being appointed, and special "ORAL instruction" for their benefit. But meanwhile, what became of the sturdy handmaids left at home? What hindered them from marching off in a body? Perhaps the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, to pick up stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets as city guards, keeping a sharp look-out at night.
4. Their continuance in Jewish families depended upon the performance of various rites and ceremonies necessarily VOLUNTARY.
Suppose a servant from the heathen should, upon entering a Jewish family, refuse circumcision; the question whether he shall remain a servant, is in his own hands. If a slave, how simple the process of emancipation! His refusal did the job. Or, suppose that, at any time, he should refuse to attend the tri-yearly feasts, or should eat leavened bread during the Passover, or compound the ingredients of the anointing oil, he is "cut off from the people;" excommunicated.
5. We infer the voluntariness of the servants of the Patriarchs from the impossibility of their being held against their wills. The servants of Abraham are an illustration. At one time he had three hundred and eighteen young men "born in his house," and probably many more not born in his house. The whole number of his servants of all ages, was probably MANY THOUSANDS. Doubtless, Abraham was a man of a million, and Sarah too, a right notable housekeeper; still, it is not easy to conceive how they contrived to hold so many thousand servants against their wills, unless the patriarch and his wife took turns in performing the Hibernian exploit of surrounding them! The neighboring tribes, instead of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants, would have been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, as they did Lot and his household. Besides, Abraham had neither "Constitution," nor "compact," nor statutes, nor judicial officers to send back his fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon panic-stricken women, nor gentleman-kidnappers, suing for patronage, volunteering to howl on the track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging their "honor" to hunt down and "deliver up," provided they had a description of the "flesh marks," and were stimulated in their chivalry by pieces of silver. Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, when we consider his faithful discharge of responsibilities to his household, though so deplorably destitute of the needful aids.
6. We infer that servants were voluntary, from the fact that there is no instance of an Israelitish master ever SELLING a servant. Abraham had thousands of servants, but appears never to have sold one. Isaac "grew until he became very great," and had "great store of servants." Jacob's youth was spent in the family of Laban, where he lived a servant twenty-one years. Afterward he had a large number of servants.
When Joseph sent for Jacob to come into Egypt, the words are, "thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks and thy herds, and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Jacob took his flocks and herds but no servants. Gen xlv. 10; xlvii. 6; xlvii. 1. His servants doubtless, served under their own contracts, and when Jacob went into Egypt, they chose to stay in their own country.
The government might sell thieves, if they had no property, until their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex. xxii. 3. But masters seem to have had no power to sell their servants—the reason is obvious. To give the master a right to sell his servant, would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own disposal; but says the objector, To give the master a right to buy a servant, equally annihilates the servant's right of choice. Answer. It is one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a very different thing to have a right to buy him of another man.
"A Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed."—Maimonides—Hilcoth—Obedim, Ch. IV. Sec. XI.
Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her and take her to be his wife for the money of her purchase is the money of her espousals."
7. We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his service, because he was pre-eminently so IN CONTINUING it. If, at the year of release, it was the servant's choice to remain with his master, so did the law guard his free will, that it required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for the servant to be held in an involuntary condition. Yea, so far was his free choice protected, that his master was compelled to keep him, however much he might wish to get rid of him.
9. Various incidental expressions throughout the Bible, corroborate the idea that servants became such by virtue of their own contract. Job xli. 4. is an illustration, "Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a SERVANT forever?"
10. The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHAROAH, shows entire voluntariness throughout. It is detailed in Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord, they came to Joseph and said, "We have not aught left but our bodies and our lands; buy us;" then in the 25th verse, "Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my Lord, and we will be servants to Pharaoh."
11. We argue that the condition of servants was an OPTIONAL one from the fact that RICH strangers did not become servants. Indeed, so far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47.
12. The sacrifices and offerings which ALL were required to present, were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2, 3.
13. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants where they were manifestly and pre-eminently VOLUNTARY. The case of the Prophet Elisha is one. 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his master. The original word, translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost every instance where masters are spoken of throughout the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. It is translated master eighty-five times in our English version. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Exodus iii. 1. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Numbers xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of Laban. Genesis xxix, 18-27.
IV. WERE THE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY?
Having already shown that the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive.
That they were paid for their labor, we argue,
1. Because, while Israel was under the Mosaic system, God rebuked in thunder, the sin of using the labor of others without wages. "Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work." Jer. xxii. 13. Here God testifies that to use the service of others without wages is "unrighteousness," and He commissions his "wo" to burn upon the doer of the "wrong." This "wo" was a permanent safeguard of the Mosaic system. The Hebrew word Rea, here translated neighbor, does not mean one man, or class of men, in distinction from others, but any one with whom we have to do—all descriptions of persons, not merely servants and heathen, but even those who prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of fighting us—"As when a man riseth against his NEIGHBOR and slayeth him." Deut. xxii. 26. "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy NEIGHBOR hath put thee to shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy NEIGHBOR." Exod. xx. 16. "If any man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR to slay him with guile." Exod. xxi. 14. In these, and in scores of similar cases, Rea is the original word.
2. We have the testimony of God, that in our duty to our fellow men, ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS hang upon this command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Our Saviour, in giving this command, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses commands obedience to this law in all the treatment of strangers, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and clothing, as well as wages, would be a stranger illustration still of the law of love! Super-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing to others as we would have them do to us, to make them work for our own good alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard sayings against human nature, especially for that libellous matter in Ephes. v. 29, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it."
3. As persons became servants FROM POVERTY, we argue that they were compensated, since they frequently owned property, and sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David a princely present, "An hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he still employed twenty servants, of whom he was the master.
A case is stated in Leviticus xxv. 47-55, where a servant, reduced to poverty, sells himself; and it is declared that afterward he may be redeemed, either by his kindred, or by HIMSELF. As he was forced to sell himself from sheer poverty he must not only have acquired property after he became a servant, but a considerable sum.
4. Heirship—Servants frequently inherited their master's property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. This seems to have been a general usage.
The cases of Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, Jarha an Egyptian, the servant of Sheshan, and the husband of his daughter; 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35, and of the husbandmen who said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS." Mark xii. 7, are illustrations. Also the declaration in Prov. xvii. 2—"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage seems to give servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?
5. ALL were required to present offerings and sacrifices. Deut. xvi. 15, 17. 2 Chron. xv. 9-11. Numb. ix. 13.
Servants must have had permanently, the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.
8. We infer that servants were paid, because we find masters at one time having a large number of servants, and afterwards none, without any intimation that they were sold. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being the servant of Laban for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and was the master of many servants. Gen. xxx. 43, and xxxii. 15. But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11, and xlvi. 1-7, 32.
9. God's testimony to the character of Abraham. Genesis xviii. 19. "For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." We have here God's testimony, that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth his neighbor's service without wages!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." ROM. xiii. 7. "The laborer is worthy of his hire." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others? By doing injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back their own? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs? Did he beget in them a reverence for the eighth commandment by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then an illustrious example, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!
10. Specific precepts of the Mosaic law enforcing general principles. Out of many, we select the following:
(1.) "Thou shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," or literally, while he thresheth. Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. Isaiah xxx. 24. A particular kind of service—all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,—a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law was, not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us, showing that they who labor for others, are entitled to what is just and equal in return; and if such care is enjoined, by God, not merely for the ample sustenance, but for the present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man? MAN, with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul tells us expressly, that the principle which we have named, lies at the bottom of the statute. See 1 Corinthians ix. 9, 10—"For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR sakes? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE."
(2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. YEA, THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER OR a SOJOURNER, that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Or, in other words, "relief at your hands is his right, and your duty—you shall not take advantage of his necessities, but cheerfully supply them." Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this benevolent regulation can be made to be in keeping with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his services without wages;" force him to work, and ROB HIM OF ALL HIS EARNINGS? Judge ye.
V.—WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS THEIR LEGAL PROPERTY?
The discussion of this topic has been already somewhat anticipated under the preceding heads; but a variety of considerations, not within the range of our previous inquiries, remain to be noticed.
1. Servants were not subjected to the uses, nor liable to the contingencies of property.
(1.) They were never taken in payment for their masters' debts, though children were sometimes taken (without legal authority) for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9; Isaiah l. 1; Matt. xviii. 25.
Cases are recorded to which creditors took from debtors property of all kinds, to satisfy their demands. In Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; in Prov. xxii 27, household furniture; in Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions of the soil; in Lev. xxv. 27-30, houses; in Exodus xxii. 26-29, and Deut. xxiv. 10-13, and Matt. v. 40, clothing; but servants were taken in no instance.
(2.) Servants were never given as pledges. Property of all sorts was given and held in pledge. We find in the Bible, household furniture, clothing, cattle, money, signets, and personal ornaments, with divers other articles of property, used as pledges for value received. But no servants.
(3.) All lost PROPERTY was to be restored. "Oxen, asses, sheep, raiment, and whatsoever lost things," are specified—servant not. Deut. xxii. 13. Besides, the Israelites were expressly forbidden to take back the runaway servant to his master. Deut. xxiii. 15.
(4.) The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents. They made princely presents of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of animals, merchandize, family utensils, precious metals, and grain, armor, &c. are among their recorded gifts. Giving presents to superiors and persons of rank when visiting them, and at other times, was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27; 1 Sam. xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt. Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pileser, 2 Kings xvi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings, x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. But no servants were given as presents—though that was a prevailing fashion in the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16; Gen. xx. 14.
OBJECTION 1. Laban GAVE handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives. Without enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent, it is enough to say that the handmaids of wives, at that time, were themselves regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and authority. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse upon Reuben, (Gen. xlix. 4, and Chron. v. 1) also by the equality of their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had it been otherwise—had Laban given them as articles of property, then, indeed, the example of this "good old patriarch and slaveholder," Saint Laban, would have been a fore-closer to all argument.
Ah! We remember his jealousy for religion—his holy indignation when he found that his "GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and plunged over the desert in hot pursuit, seven days, by forced marches; how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent, little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for lo! the zeal of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up!
No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled before the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a pious worthy to haul up and refit; invoking his protection, and the benediction of his "GODS!"
OBJECTION 2. Servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If that proves servants property, it proves wives property. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's WIFE, nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's" EXODUS xx. 17. An examination of all the places in which servants are included among beasts, chattels, &c., will show, that in inventories of mere property, servants are not included, or if included, it is in such a way, as to show that they are not regarded as property. Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But when the design is to show, not merely the wealth but the greatness of any personage, that he is a man of distinction, a ruler, a prince, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word, if riches alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants; if greatness, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2. "And Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold." No mention of servants. So in the fifth verse; Lot's riches are enumerated, "And Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse servants are mentioned, "And there was a strife between the HERDMEN of Abraham's cattle and the HERDMEN of Lot's cattle". See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen. xxxiv. 23; Job. xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job 1. 3-5; Deut. viii. 12-17; Gen. xxiv. 35, and xxvi. 13, and xxx. 43.
Divers facts dropped incidentally, show that when servants are mentioned in connection with property, it is in such a way as to distinguish them from it. When Jacob was about to leave Laban, his wives say, "All the riches which thou hast taken from our father, that is ours and our children's." Then follows an inventory of property. "All his cattle," "all his goods," "the cattle of his getting," &c. He had a large number of servants at the time, but they are not included with his property. Compare Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16-18.
When he sent messengers to Esau, in order to secure his respect, and impress him with an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him not only of his RICHES, but of his GREATNESS; that Jacob had "oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men servants, and maid servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which he sent, there were no servants; though he seems to have aimed to give it as much variety as possible. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7; Gen. xxxiv. 23. As flocks and herds were the staples of wealth, a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of cattle, which would require many herdsmen. Further. When servants are spoken of in connection with mere property, the terms used to express the latter do not include the former.
The Israelites, during their long captivity in Babylon, lost as a body, their knowledge of their own language. These translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of the case.
2. The condition of servants in their masters' families, the privileges which they shared in common with the children, and their recognition as equals by the highest officers of the government—make the doctrine that they were mere COMMODITIES, an absurdity. The testimony of Paul, in Gal. iv. 1, gives an insight into the condition of servants. "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all."
That Abraham's servants were voluntary,—that their interests were identified with those of their master's family—that they were regarded with great affection by the household, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in the arming of 318 of them for the recovery of Lot and his family from captivity. See Gen. xiv. 14, 15.
When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebekah did not disdain to say to him, "Drink, MY Lord," as "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink," and "she hasted and emptied her pitcher, and ran again unto the well, and drew for all his camels." Laban, the brother of Rebekah, prepared the house for his reception, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!"
In the 9th chapter of 1 Samuel, we have an account of a high festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel, the chief judge and ruler in Israel, presided. None sat down at the feast but those that were bidden. And only "about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a select party!—the elite of the city of Zuph! Saul and his servant arrived at Zuph just as the party was assembling; and both of them, at Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR(!) and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time anointed King of Israel; and this servant introduced by Samuel into the PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the chiefest seat at the table! This was "one of the servants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the steward or the chief of them—not at all a picked man, but "one of the servants;" any one that could be most easily spared, as no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking after asses.
Again: we learn from 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9, that Elah, the King of Israel, was slain by Zimri, one of his chief officers, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. Without detailing other cases, we refer the reader to the intercourse between Gideon and his servant.—Judges vii. 10, 11.—Jonathan and his servant.—1 Samuel xiv. 1-14.—Elisha and his servant.
3. The condition of the Gibeonites, as subjects of the Hebrew commonwealth, shows that they were neither articles of property, nor even INVOLUNTARY servants. The condition of the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Israelites, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron, could not extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the Israelites?
(1.) It was voluntary. It was their own proposition to Joshua to become servants. Joshua ix. 8, 11. Their proposition was accepted, but the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in the tabernacle.
(2.) They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites. They still continued to reside in their own cities, cultivating their own fields, tending their flocks and herds, and exercising the functions of a distinct, though not independent community. They were subject to the Jewish nation as tributaries. So far from being distributed among the Israelites, their family relations broken up, and their internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they seem to have remained a separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many centuries. When they were attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid—it was promptly rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in the occupation of their cities, while all Israel returned to Gilgal. Joshua x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord?" At their demand, he delivered up to them, seven of the royal family, five of them the sons of Michal, his own former wife. 2 Samuel xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a separate people. There is no intimation that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at Gilgal, a day's journey from the cities of the Gibeonites; and then at Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them; where it continued about 350 years. During all this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent from their cities at any one time in attendance on the tabernacle.
(1.) Whenever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home.
(2.) It is preposterous to suppose that their tabernacle services could have furnished employment for all the inhabitants of these four cities. One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes, and thus ministered at the tabernacle in rotation—each class a few days or weeks at a time. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, rendered for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to have been required of the females. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition, hypocrisy, and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels and property, if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.
7. Because, throughout the Mosaic system, God warns them against holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are the Israelites pointed back to the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened judgements; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"—waking anew the memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them.
That the argument derived from the condition of the Israelites in Egypt, and God's condemnation of it, may be appreciated, it is important that the Egyptian bondage should be analyzed. We shall then be able to ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what they retained.
(3.) They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, not tents. In Ex. xii. 6, the two side posts, and the upper door posts of the houses are mentioned, and in the 22d, the two side posts and the lintel. Each family seems to have occupied a house by itself—Acts vii. 20, Ex. xii. 4—and from the regulation about the eating of the Passover, they could hardly have been small ones—Ex. xii. 4—and probably contained separate apartments, and places for seclusion. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. To have had their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv. 11.
(4.) They owned "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds," and "very much cattle." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38.
(5.) They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and tributary to it. Ex. ii. 1, and xii. 19, 21, and vi. 14, 25, and v. 19, and iii. 16, 18.
(6.) They seem to have had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own time,—Ex. xxiii. 4, and iii. 16, 18, and xii. 6, and ii. 9, and iv. 27, 29-31. Also to have practised the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4, and xxxv. 32-35.
(7.) They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27.
(8.) All the females seem to have known something of domestic refinements; they were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20, and 35, 36.
(9.) They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as inviolable. This we infer from the fact that there is no intimation that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of property.
(10.) Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be inferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29.
(11.) So far from being fed upon a given allowance, their food was abundant, and had great variety. "They sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3, and xxiv. 1, and xvii. 5, and iv. 29, and vi. 14. Also, "they did eat fish freely, and cucumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5, and x. 18, and xx. 5.
(12.) That the great body of the people were not in the service of the Egyptians, we infer (1) from the fact, that the extent and variety of their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have furnished constant employment for the main body of the nation.
(2.) During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were there to enjoy it.
(3.) It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex. iv. 29-31.
Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was, as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the nation would be absent at any one time.
Probably there was the same requisition upon the Israelites for one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor, that was laid upon the Egyptians. See Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it out of their crops, (Goshen being better for pasturage than crops) they exacted it of them in brick making; and it is quite probable that only the poorer Israelites were required to work for the Egyptians at all, the wealthier being able to pay their tribute, in money. See Exod. iv. 27-31.
This was the bondage in Egypt. Contrast it with American slavery. Have our slaves "very much cattle," and "a mixed multitude of flocks and herds?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own? Do they "sit by the flesh-pots," "eat fish freely," and "eat bread to the full?" Do they live in a separate community, at a distance from their masters, in their distinct tribes, under their own rulers and officers? Have they the exclusive occupation of an extensive and fertile tract of country for the culture of their own crops, and for rearing immense herds of their own cattle—and all these held independently of their masters, and regarded by them as inviolable? Are our female slaves free from all exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage?—and whenever employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman, when employed by the king's daughter? Exod. ii. 9. Have the females entirely, and the males to a considerable extent, the disposal of their own time? Have they the means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and for intellectual and moral improvement?
If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy, who cloak with religion, a system, in comparison with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing?
Let those believe who can, that God gave his people permission to hold human beings, robbed of all their rights, while he threatened them with wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the far lighter oppression of Egypt—which robbed its victims of only the least and cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered even of these. What! Is God divided against himself? When he had just turned Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He license the VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As Lawgiver, did he create a system tenfold more grinding than that, for which he had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and cloven down his princes, and overwhelmed his hosts, and blasted them with His thunder, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming?"