Note A — THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER NO 4. THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY. AN INQUIRY INTO THE PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS. Fourth Edition—Enlarged. (continued 2)

Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely political, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than even the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought servants. The Israelite was to serve six years—the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor houses, except within walled towns, they would naturally attach themselves to Israelitish families. Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of sixA years; as, during that time—if of the first class—the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service;B and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies—a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Stranger, it was a permanent employment, pursued both as a means of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.