Volume 1 — 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.
Reading edition
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.
1838.
This No. contains 7 sheets:—Postage, under 100 miles, 10 1/2 cents; over 100 miles, 14 cents.
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CONTENTS.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY,
NEGATIVE, AFFIRMATIVE, LEGAL,
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY
"THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," "THOU SHALT NOT COVET,"
MAN-STEALING—EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 16,
SEPARATION OF MAN FROM BRUTES AND THINGS,
IMPORT OF "BUY" AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY,"
SERVANTS SOLD THEMSELVES,
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED BY LAW TO SERVANTS,
SERVANTS WERE VOLUNTARY,
RUNAWAY SERVANTS NOT TO BE DELIVERED TO THEIR MASTERS,
SERVANTS WERE PAID WAGES,
MASTERS NOT "OWNERS,"
SERVANTS NOT SUBJECTED TO THE USES OF PROPERTY, SERVANTS EXPRESSLY DISTINGUISHED FROM PROPERTY, EXAMINATION OF GEN. xii. 5.—"THE SOULS THAT THEY HAD GOTTEN," &c. SOCIAL EQUALITY OF SERVANTS AND MASTERS, CONDITION OF THE GIBEONITES AS SUBJECTS OF THE HEBREW COMMONWEALTH, EGYPTIAN BONDAGE CONTRASTED WITH AMERICAN SLAVERY, CONDITION OF AMERICAN SLAVES, ILL FED, ILL CLOTHED, OVER-WORKED, THEIR DWELLING UNFIT FOR HUMAN BEINGS, MORAL CONDITION—"HEATHENS,"
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"CURSED BE CANAAN," &c.—EXAMINATION OF GEN. ix. 25,
"FOR HE IS HIS MONEY," &c.—EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 20, 21,
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 44-46,
"BOTH THY BONDMEN, &c., SHALL BE OF THE HEATHEN," "OF THEM SHALL YE BUY," "THEY SHALL BE YOUR BONDMEN FOREVER," "YE SHALL TAKE THEM AS AN INHERITANCE," &c.
EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 39, 40.—THE FREEHOLDER NOT TO "SERVE AS A BOND SERVANT,"
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIRED AND BOUGHT SERVANTS, BOUGHT SERVANTS THE MOST FAVORED AND HONORED CLASS, ISRAELITES AND STRANGERS BELONGED TO BOTH CLASSES, ISRAELITES SERVANTS TO THE STRANGERS, REASONS FOR THE RELEASE OF THE ISRAELITISH SERVANTS IN THE SEVENTH YEAR, REASONS FOR ASSIGNING THE STRANGERS TO A LONGER SERVICE, REASONS FOR CALLING THEM THE SERVANTS, DIFFERENT KINDS OF SERVICE ASSIGNED TO THE ISRAELITES AND STRANGERS,
REVIEW OF ALL THE CLASSES OF SERVANTS WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF EACH,
POLITICAL DISABILITIES OF THE STRANGERS,
EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 2-6.—"IF THOU BUY AN HEBREW SERVANT,"
THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION,
THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
The spirit of slavery never seeks refuge in the Bible of its own accord. The horns of the altar are its last resort—seized only in desperation, as it rushes from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other unclean spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, glowing on every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons quailed before the Son of God, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away under the types of the Mosaic system, and seeks to burrow out of sight among their shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It flies from light into the sun; from heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice of God into the thickest of His thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must determine what slavery is. An element, is one thing; a relation, another; an appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose other things to which they belong. To regard them as the things themselves, or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. Mere political disabilities are often confounded with slavery; so are many relations, and tenures, indispensible to the social state. We will specify some of these.
1. PRIVATION OF SUFFRAGE. Then minors are slaves.
2. INELIGIBILITY TO OFFICE. Then females are slaves.
3. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Then slaveholders in the District of Columbia are slaves.
4. PRIVATION OF ONE'S OATH IN LAW. Then atheists are slaves.
5. PRIVATION OF TRIAL BY JURY. Then all in France are slaves.
6. BEING REQUIRED TO SUPPORT A PARTICULAR RELIGION. Then the people of England are slaves.
7. APPRENTICESHIP. The rights and duties of master and apprentice are correlative. The claim of each upon the other results from his obligation to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed while the law is just to the former it is benevolent to the latter; its main design being rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. To the master it secures a mere compensation—to the apprentice, both a compensation and a virtual gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law not only recognizes the right of the apprentice to a reward for his labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master. Neither can hold the other as property; but each holds property in the services of the other, and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
8. FILIAL SUBORDINATION AND PARENTAL CLAIMS. Both are nature's dictates, and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural affections which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, and are a shield for mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the child's services, is a slight return for the care and toil of his rearing, exclusively of outlays for support and education. This provision is, with the mass of mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the family state. The child, in helping his parents, helps himself—increases a common stock, in which he has a share; while his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot cancel.
9. CLAIMS OF GOVERNMENT ON SUBJECTS. Governments owe their subjects protection; subjects owe just governments allegiance and support. The obligations of both are reciprocal, and the benefits received by both are mutual, equal, and voluntarily rendered.
10. BONDAGE FOR CRIME. Must innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without pay; and well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not pay its drafts on him. He will die a public defaulter. Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? The law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its product. Are children born of convicts, government property? Besides, can property be guilty? Can chattels deserve punishment?
11. RESTRAINTS UPON FREEDOM. Children are restrained by parents, pupils, by teachers, patients, by physicians, corporations, by charters, and legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Restraints are the web of civilized society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then a government of LAW, is the climax of slavery!
12. INVOLUNTARY OR COMPULSORY SERVICE. A juryman is empannelled against his will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders must turn in. Men are compelled to remove nuisances, pay fines and taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the law directs," however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves? To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a condition. The slave's feelings toward it cannot alter its nature. Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder's guilt. Suppose he should really believe himself a chattel, and consent to be so regarded by others, would that make him a chattel, or make those guiltless who hold him as such? I may be sick of life, and I tell the assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does my consent to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt, blot out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far from lessening the guilt of his "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that cheats him out of his birthright—the consciousness of his worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions are appendages of slavery, but no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging element.
[West India apprenticeship is now (August 1838) abolished. On the first of the present month, every slave in every British island and colony stood up a freeman!—Note to fourth edition.]
That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states. Judge Stroud, in his "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says, "The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things—obtains as undoubted law in all of these [the slave] states." The law of South Carolina says, "Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER." Brev. Dig., 229. In Louisiana, "A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs; the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but what must belong to his master."—Civ. Code, Art. 35.
This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a thing, trampled under foot—the crowning distinction of all others—alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value—the rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God to universal homage in a baptism of glory and honor, by the gift of his Son, his Spirit, his word, his presence, providence, and power; his shield, and staff, and sheltering wing; his opening heavens, and angels ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great voice in heaven proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the word with signs following.
THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY.
Just after the Israelites were emancipated from their bondage in Egypt, while they stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and the mount quaked and blazed, God spake the ten commandments from the midst of clouds and thunderings. Two of those commandments deal death to slavery. "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," or, "thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him." All man's powers are God's gift to HIM. Each of them is a part of himself, and all of them together constitute himself. All else that belongs to man, is acquired by the use of these powers. The interest belongs to him, because the principal does; the product is his, because he is the producer. Ownership of any thing, is ownership of its use. The right to use according to will, is itself ownership. The eighth commandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right to himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic—his right to anything else is merely relative to this, is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the foundation right—the post in the middle, to which all other rights are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slave-holder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that a man belongs to himself—that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own title, he makes out the title of every human being. As the fact of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common title deed. If one man's title is valid, all are valid. If one is worthless, all are. To deny the validity of the slave's title is to deny the validity of his own; and yet in the act of making a man a slave, the slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him as his property who has the same title. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely disfranchise of humanity one individual, but UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates all rights. He attacks not only the human race, but universal being, and rushes upon JEHOVAH. For rights are rights; God's are no more—man's are no less.
The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the whole. Does the same Bible which prohibits the taking of any thing from him, sanction the taking of every thing! Does it thunder wrath against the man who robs his neighbor of a cent, yet commission him to rob his neighbour of himself? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eight commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the earner, is a compound, life-long theft—supreme robbery that vaults up the climax at a leap—the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies a solitary horror. The eight commandment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, "Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbor's;" thus guarding every man's right to himself and property, by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state of mind which would tempt to it. Who ever made human beings slaves, without coveting them? Why take from them their time, labor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire property, to worship according to conscience, to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies, if they do not desire them? They COVET them for purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification, of pride and ostentation. THEY BREAK THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book. Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty. Two of these brand slavery as sin.
The word Gānābh here rendered stealeth, means, the taking of what belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eight commandment, and prohibits both robbery and theft.
The crime specified, is that of depriving SOMEBODY of the ownership of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a servant, not "he that stealeth a man." If the crime had been the taking of an individual from another, then the term used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and proprietor!
If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any other kind of property? Why punish with death for stealing a very little of that sort of property, and make a mere fine the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property—especially if by his own act, God had annihilated the difference between man and property, by putting him on a level with it?
The guilt of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the nature of the article, but in taking as mine what is his. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and then my property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner to another of that which is already property, but the turning of personality into property. True, the attributes of man remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is the first law both of reason and revelation, to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the nature of a man—to his intrinsic value as a rational being. In the verse preceding the one under consideration, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Verse. 17, "He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given to a parent, it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the centre of human society. God guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever tramples on that, shows that no relation has any sacredness in his eyes—that he is unfit to move among human relations who violates one so sacred and tender. Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.
Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. 1. The relation violated was obvious—the distinction between parents and others self-evident, dictated by a law of nature. 2. The act was violence to nature—a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities. 3. The parental relation then, as now, was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safe-guards. "Honor thy father and thy mother," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and throughout the Bible, the parental state is God's favorite illustration of his own relations to the human family. In this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a man, but a parent—a distinction made sacred by God, and fortified by a bulwark of defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but violence to an immortal nature, the blotting out of a sacred distinction—making MEN "chattels."
Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain terms which describe the mode of procuring them.
IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."
As the Israelites were commanded to "buy" their servants, and as Abraham had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants were articles of property! The sole ground for this belief is the terms themselves! How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to be proved were always assumed! To beg the question in debate, is vast economy of midnight oil, and a wholesale forestaller of wrinkles and gray hairs. Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, painfully collating passages, to settle the meaning of terms, let every man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning, and every man have an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, in the dialect of his own neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon, to take it for granted that the sense in which words are now used, is the inspired sense. David says, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." What, stop the earth in its revolution! Two hundred years ago, prevent was used in its strict Latin sense, to come before, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly, or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally opposite to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I purposed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." "And the four beasts (living ones) fell down and worshiped God,"—"Whosoever shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"—Go out into the highways and compel (urge) them to come in,"—Only let your conversation (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"—"The Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick (living) and the dead,"—They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me," So when tribulation or persecution ariseth by-and-by (immediately) they are offended." Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for a modern Bible-Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency now "showing off" on promenade, was the very style of dress in which the modest and pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels. Since such a fashion flaunts along Broadway now, it must have trailed over Canaan four thousand years ago!
This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac, the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as the 16th century, the common record of marriages in the old German Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B."
The word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by the nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have gotten (bought) a man from the Lord." She named him Cain, that is bought. "He that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 32. So in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to buy) the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. "He brought them to his mountain which his right hand had purchased," (gotten.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our ability have redeemed (bought) our brethren the Jews, that were sold unto the heathen." Here "bought" is not applied to persons reduced to servitude, but to those taken out of it. Prov. viii. 22. "The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. xix. 8. "He that getteth (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Finally, to buy is a secondary meaning of the Hebrew word kānā.
"NOTICE—The poor of the town of Chatham will be SOLD on the first Monday in April, 1837, at the house of F. Penfield, Esq., at 9 o'clock in the forenoon,"—[Middletown Sentinel, Feb. 3, 1837.]
The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use of "buy" and "bought with money." Gen. xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, "Behold I have bought you this day," and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons bought as articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine. The idea attached by both parties to "buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return, for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this buying of services (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in Scripture usage, buying the persons. This case claims special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is detailed—the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the mere fact is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open. 1. The persons "bought," sold themselves, and of their own accord. 2. Paying for the permanent service of persons, or even a portion of it, is called "buying" those persons; just as paying for the use of land or houses for a number of years in succession is called in Scripture usage buying them. See Lev. xxv. 28, 33, and xxvii. 24. The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were bought of third persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer assumptions. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which a master sold his servant.
We now proceed to inquire into the condition of servants under the patriarchal and Mosaic systems.
I. THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF SERVANTS.
The leading design of the laws defining the relations of master and servant, was the good of both parties—more especially the good of the servants. While the master's interests were guarded from injury, those of the servants were promoted. These laws made a merciful provision for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Strangers, not laying on burdens, but lightening them—they were a grant of privileges and favors.
I. BUYING SERVANTS WAS REGARDED AS A KINDNESS TO THE PERSONS BOUGHT, and as establishing between them and their purchasers a bond of affection and confidence. This is plain from the frequent use of it to illustrate the love and care of God for his chosen people. Deut. xxxii. 6; Ex. xv. 16; Ps. lxxiv. 2; Prov. viii. 22.
III. EXPULSION FROM THE FAMILY WAS THE DEPRIVATION OF A PRIVILEGE IF NOT A PUNISHMENT. When Sarah took umbrage at the conduct of Hagar and Ishmael, her servants, "She said unto Abraham cast out this bond-woman and her son." * * And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave it unto Hagar and the child, and sent her away. Gen. xxi. 10, 14; in Luke xvi. 1-8, our Lord tells us of the steward or head-servant of a rich man who defrauded his master, and was, in consequence, excluded from his household. The servant anticipating such a punishment, says, "I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses." The case of Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, appears to be a similar one. He was guilty of fraud in procuring a large sum of money from Naaman, and of deliberate lying to his master, on account of which Elisha seems to have discarded him. 2 Kings v. 20-27. In this connection we may add that if a servant neglected the observance of any ceremonial rite, and was on that account excommunicated from the congregation of Israel, such excommunication excluded him also from the family of an Israelite. In other words he could be a servant no longer than he was an Israelite. To forfeit the latter distinction involved the forfeiture of the former privilege—which proves that it was a privilege.
IV. THE HEBREW SERVANT COULD COMPEL HIS MASTER TO KEEP HIM.
When the six years' contract had expired, if the servant demanded it, the law obliged the master to retain him permanently, however little he might need his services. Deut. xv. 12-17; Ex. xxi. 2-6. This shows that the system was framed to advance the interest and gratify the wishes of the servant quite as much as those of the master.
V. SERVANTS WERE ADMITTED INTO COVENANT WITH GOD. Deut. xxix. 10-13.
VI. THEY WERE GUESTS AT ALL NATIONAL AND FAMILY FESTIVALS Ex. xii. 43-44; Deut xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10-16.
VII. THEY WERE STATEDLY INSTRUCTED IN MORALITY AND RELIGION. Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Josh. viii. 33-35; 2 Chron. xvii. 8-9, xxxv. 3, and xxxiv. 30. Neh. viii. 7, 8.
VIII. THEY WERE RELEASED FROM THEIR REGULAR LABOR NEARLY ONE HALF OF THE WHOLE TIME. During which they had their entire support, and the same instruction that was provided for the other members of the Hebrew community. The Law secured to them,
1. Every seventh year; Lev. xxv. 3-6; thus giving to those who were servants during the entire period between the jubilees, eight whole years, (including the jubilee year,) of unbroken rest.
2. Every seventh day. This in forty-two years, the eight being subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just six years.
3. The three annual festivals. Ex. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23. The Passover, which commenced on the 15th of the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the 6th day of the 3d month, and lasted seven days. Deut. xvi. 10, 11. The Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th month, and lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15; Lev. xxiii. 34-39. As all met in one place, much time would be spent on the journey. Cumbered caravans move slowly. After their arrival, a day or two would be requisite for divers preparations before the celebration, besides some time at the close of it, in preparations for return. If we assign three weeks to each festival—including the time spent on the journeys, and the delays before and after the celebration, together with the festival week, it will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the servants would be absent from their stated employments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days.
4. The new moons. The Jewish year had twelve; Josephus says that the Jews always kept two days for the new moon. See Calmet on the Jewish Calendar, and Horne's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx, 18, 19, 27. This, in forty-two years, would be two years 280 days.
5. The feast of trumpets. On the first day of the seventh month, and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.
6. The atonement day. On the tenth of the seventh month Lev. xxiii. 27.
These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not reckoned above.
Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the period between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this calculation, besides making a donation of all the fractions to the objector, we have left out those numerous local festivals to which frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19; 1 Sam. ix. 12. 22. etc., and the various family festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at circumcisions; at the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam, xx. 6. 28, 29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later period of the Jewish history—the feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and of the Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.
Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time which, if distributed, would be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR. Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction. If this time were distributed over every day, the servants would have to themselves nearly one half of each day.
The service of those Strangers who were national servants or tributaries, was regulated upon the same benevolent principle, and secured to them TWO-THIRDS of the whole year. "A month they were in Lebanon, and two months they were at home." 1 Kings, v. 13-15. Compared with 2 Chron. 11. 17-19, viii. 7-9; 1 Kings, ix 20. 22. The regulations under which the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth and Kirjath-jearim, (afterwards called Nethinims) performed service for the Israelites, must have secured to them nearly the whole of their time. If, as is probable, they served in courses corresponding to those of their priests whom they assisted, they were in actual service less than one month annually.
"Question. Does holy writ any where make a difference between the Israelite and the other who is no Israelite, in those laws and prohibitions which forbid us the committal of any thing against our fellow men?"
"Answer. No where we do find a trace of such a difference. See Lev. xix. 33-36."
"God says thou shalt not murder, steal, cheat, &c. In every place the action itself is prohibited as being an abomination to God without respect to the persons against whom it is committed."
X. THE MOSAIC SYSTEM ENJOINED THE GREATEST AFFECTION AND KINDNESS TOWARDS SERVANTS, FOREIGN AS WELL AS JEWISH.
"The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Lev. xix. 34. "For the Lord your God * * REGARDETH NOT PERSONS. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and LOVETH THE STRANGER, in giving him food and raiment, LOVE YE THEREFORE THE STRANGER." Deut. x. 17, 19. "Thou shalt neither vex a STRANGER nor oppress him." Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt not oppress a STRANGER, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Ex. xxiii. 9. "If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a STRANGER or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights?
XI. SERVANTS WERE PLACED UPON A LEVEL WITH THEIR MASTERS IN ALL CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14; Deut. i. 16, 17; Lev. xxiv. 22. To these may be added that numerous class of passages which represents God as regarding alike the natural rights of all men, and making for all an equal provision. Such as, 2 Chron. xix. 7; Prov. xxiv. 23, xxviii. 21; Job. xxxiv. 19, 2 Sam. xiv. 14; Acts x. 35; Eph. vi. 9.
Finally—With such watchful jealousy did the Mosaic Institutes guard the rights of servants, as to make the mere fact of a servant's escape from his master presumptive evidence that his master had oppressed him; and on that presumption, annulled his master's authority over him, gave him license to go wherever he pleased, and commanded all to protect him. Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. As this regulation will be examined under a subsequent head, where its full discussion more appropriately belongs, we notice it here merely to point out its bearings on the topic under consideration.
THESE ARE REGULATIONS OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
We argue that they became servants of their own accord, because,
"Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant.
"But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day, and he that is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be unwilling. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long, it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the worship of a willing heart."—Maimon, Hilcoth Miloth, Chap. 1, Sec. 8.
The ancient Jewish Doctors assert that the servant from the Strangers who at the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish religion and was on that account sent back to his own people, received a full compensation for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But that postponement of the circumcision of the foreign servant for a year (or even at all after he had entered the family of an Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been a mere usage. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly initiatory. Whether it was a rite merely national or spiritual, or both, comes not within the scope of this inquiry.
II. THE SURRENDER OF FUGITIVE SERVANTS TO THEIR MASTERS WAS PROHIBITED. "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.
III. THE SERVANTS HAD PECULIAR OPPORTUNITIES AND FACILITIES FOR ESCAPE. Three times every year, all the males over twelve years, were required to attend the national feasts. They were thus absent from their homes not less than three weeks at each time, making nine weeks annually. As these caravans moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the way, to intercept deserters?—a corporal's guard at each pass of the mountains, sentinels pacing the hilltops, and light-horse scouring the defiles? The Israelites must have had some safe contrivance for taking their "slaves" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back. When a body of slaves is moved any distance in our republic, they are handcuffed and chained together, to keep them from running away, or beating their drivers' brains out. Was this the Mosaic plan, or an improvement introduced by Samuel, or was it left for the wisdom of Solomon? The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less venerable and biblical! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and transported in bundles, or caged up and trundled on wheels to and fro, and while at the Holy City, "lodged in jail for safe keeping," the Sanhedrim appointing special religious services for their benefit, and their "drivers" officiating at "ORAL instruction." Meanwhile, what became of the sturdy handmaids left at home? What hindered them from stalking off in a body? Perhaps the Israelitish matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while the young ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, picking up stragglers by day, and patrolled the streets, keeping a sharp look-out at night!
IV. WILFUL NEGLECT OF CEREMONIAL RITES DISSOLVED THE RELATION.
Suppose the servants from the heathen had, upon entering Jewish families, refused circumcision; if slaves, how simple the process of emancipation! Their refusal did the job. Or, suppose they had refused to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten leavened bread during the Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the anointing oil, or had touched a dead body, a bone, or a grave, or in any way had contracted ceremonial uncleanness, and refused to be cleansed with the "water of separation," they would have been "cut off from the people;" excommunicated. Ex. xii. 19; xxx. 33; Num. xix. 16.
"IMPORTANT TO THE SOUTH.—F.H. Pettis, native of Orange County, Va., being located in the city of New York, in the practice of law, announces to his friends and the public in general, that he has been engaged as Counsel and Adviser in General for a party whose business it is in the northern cities to arrest and secure runaway slaves. He has been thus engaged for several years, and as the act of Congress alone governs now in this city, in business of this sort, which renders it easy for the recovery of such property, he invites post paid communications to him, inclosing a fee of $20 in each case, and a power of Attorney minutely descriptive of the party absconded, and if in the northern region, he, or she will soon be had.
"Mr. Pettis will attend promptly to all law business confided to him.
"N.B. New York City is estimated to contain 5,000 Runaway Slaves.
"PETTIS."
Probably Job had even more servants than Abraham. See Job. i. 3, 14-19, and xlii. 12. That his thousands of servants staid with him entirely of their own accord, is proved by the fact of their staying with him. Suppose they had wished to quit his service, and so the whole army had filed off before him in full retreat, how could the patriarch have brought them to halt? Doubtless with his wife, seven sons, and three daughters for allies, he would have soon out-flanked the fugitive host and dragged each of them back to his wonted chain and staple.
But the impossibility of Job's servants being held against their wills, is not the only proof of their voluntary condition. We have his own explicit testimony that he had not "withheld from the poor their desire." Job. xxxi. 16. Of course he could hardly have made them live with him, and forced them to work for him against their desire.
When Isaac sojourned in the country of the Philistines he "had great store of servants." And we have his testimony that the Philistines hated him, added to that of inspiration that they "envied" him. Of course they would hardly volunteer to organize patroles and committees of vigilance to keep his servants from running away, and to drive back all who were found beyond the limits of his plantation without a "pass!" If the thousands of Isaac's servants were held against their wills, who held them?
The servants of the Jews, during the building of the wall of Jerusalem, under Nehemiah, may be included under this head. That they remained with their masters of their own accord, we argue from the fact, that the circumstances of the Jews made it impossible for them to compel their residence and service. They were few in number, without resources, defensive fortifications, or munitions of war, and surrounded withal by a host of foes, scoffing at their feebleness and inviting desertion from their ranks. Yet so far from the Jews attempting in any way to restrain their servants, or resorting to precautions to prevent escape, they put arms into their hands, and enrolled them as a night-guard, for the defence of the city. By cheerfully engaging in this service and in labor by day, when with entire ease they might all have left their masters, marched over to the enemy, and been received with shoutings, the servants testified that their condition was one of their own choice, and that they regarded their own interests as inseparably identified with those of their masters. Neh. iv. 23.
VI. NO INSTANCES OF ISRAELITISH MASTERS SELLING SERVANTS. Neither Abraham nor Isaac seem ever to have sold one, though they had "great store of servants." Jacob was himself a servant in the family of Laban twenty-one years. He had afterward a large number of servants. Joseph invited him to come into Egypt, and to bring all that he had with him—"thou and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks and thy herds, and ALL THAT THOU HAST." Gen. xlv. 10. Jacob took his flocks and herds but no servants. Yet we are told that Jacob "took his journey with all that he had." Gen. xlvi. 1. And after his arrival in Egypt, Joseph said to Pharaoh "my father, and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds and all that they have, are come." Gen. xlvii. 1. The servants doubtless, served under their own contracts, and when Jacob went into Egypt, they chose to stay in their own country.
VII. VOLUNTARY SERVANTS FROM THE STRANGERS.
We infer that all the servants from the Strangers were voluntary in becoming such, since we have direct testimony that some of them were so. "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, OR OF THY STRANGERS that are in thy land within thy gates." Deut. xxiv. 14. We learn from this that some of the servants, which the Israelites obtained from the strangers were procured by presenting the inducement of wages to their free choice, thus recognizing their right to sell their services to others, or not, at their own pleasure. Did the Israelites, when they went among the heathen to procure servants, take money in one hand and ropes in the other? Did they ask one man to engage in their service, and drag along with them the next that they met, in spite of his struggles. Did they knock for admission at one door and break down the next? Did they go through one village with friendly salutations and respectful demeanor, and with the air of those soliciting favors, offer wages to the inhabitants as an inducement to engage in their service—while they sent on their agents to prowl through the next, with a kidnapping posse at their heels, to tear from their homes as many as they could get within their clutches?
VIII. HEBREW SERVANTS VOLUNTARY.
We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in COMMENCING his service, because he was preeminently so IN CONTINUING it. If, at the year of release, it was the servant's choice to remain with his master, the law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for him to be held against his will. Yea more, his master was compelled to keep him, however much he might wish to get rid of him.
X. INCIDENTAL CORROBORATIVES. Various incidental expressions corroborate the idea that servants became such by their own contract. Job. xli. 4, is an illustration, "Will he (Leviathan) make a COVENANT with thee? wilt thou take him for a SERVANT forever?" Isa. xiv. 1, 2 is also an illustration. "The strangers shall be joined with them (the Israelites) and they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord, for servants and handmaids."
The transaction which made the Egyptians the SERVANTS OF PHARAOH was voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18-26. Of their own accord they came to Joseph and said, "There is not aught left but our bodies and our lands; buy us;" then in the 25th verse, "We will be Pharaoh's servants." To these it may be added, that the sacrifices and offerings which ALL were required to present, were to be made VOLUNTARILY. Lev. i. 2. 3.
The pertinence and point of our Lord's declaration in Luke xvi. 13, is destroyed on the supposition that servants did not become such by their own choice. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other." Let it be kept in mind, that our Lord was a Jew. The lost sheep of the house of Israel were his flock. Wherever he went, they were around him: whenever he spake, they were his auditors. His public preaching and his private teaching and conversation, were full of references to their own institutions, laws and usages, and of illustrations drawn from them. In the verse quoted, he illustrates the impossibility of their making choice of God as their portion, and becoming his servants, while they chose the world, and were its servants. To make this clear, he refers to one of their own institutions, that of domestic service, with which, in all its relations, incidents and usages, they were perfectly familiar. He reminds them of the well-known impossibility of any person being the servant of two masters, and declares the sole ground of that impossibility to be, the fact that the servant chooses the service of the one, and spurns that of the other. "He shall hold to the one and despise (reject) the other." As though our Lord had said, "No one can become the servant of another, when his will revolts from his service, and when the conditions of it tend to make him hate the man." Since the fact that the servant spurns one of two masters, makes it impossible for him to serve that one, if he spurned both it would make it impossible for him to serve either. So, also, if the fact that an individual did not "hold to" or choose the service of another, proves that he could not become his servant, then the question, whether or not he should become the servant of another was suspended on his own will. Further, the phraseology of the passage shows that the choice of the servant decided the question. "He will HOLD TO the one,"—hence there is no difficulty in the way of his serving him; but "no servant can serve" a master whom he does not "hold to," or cleave to, whose service he does not choose. This is the sole ground of the impossibility asserted by our Lord.
The last clause of the verse furnishes an application of the principle asserted in the former part, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Now in what does the impossibility of serving both God and the world consist? Solely in the fact that the will which chooses the one refuses the other, and the affections which "hold to" the one, reject the other. Thus the question, Which of the two is to be served, is suspended alone upon the choice of the individual.
XI. RICH STRANGERS DID NOT BECOME SERVANTS. Indeed, so far were they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47. Since rich strangers did not become servants to the Israelites, we infer that those who did, became such not because they were strangers, but because they were poor,—not because, on account of their being heathen, they were compelled by force to become servants, but because, on account of their poverty, they chose to become servants to better their condition.
XII. INSTANCES OF VOLUNTARY SERVANTS. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants who were manifestly VOLUNTARY. As the Prophet Elisha. 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his master. 2 Kings ii. 5. The word translated master, is the same that is so rendered in almost every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. Ex. iii. 1; iv. 10. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Ex. xxxiii. 11. Num. xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18-27. See also the case of the Gibeonites who voluntarily became servants to the Israelites and afterwards performed service for the "house of God" throughout the subsequent Jewish history, were incorporate with the Israelites, registered in the genealogies, and manifestly of their own accord remained with them, and "clave" to them. Neh. x. 28, 29; xi. 3; Ez. vii. 7.
Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service, no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that servants were made such, and held in that condition by force. Add to this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and incidents of compulsion.
Again, the voluntariness of servants is a natural inference from the fact that the Hebrew word ebēdh, uniformly rendered servant, is applied to a great variety of classes and descriptions of persons under the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, all of whom were voluntary and most of them eminently so. For instance, it is applied to persons rendering acts of worship about seventy times, whereas it is applied to servants not more than half that number of times.
To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition and service of servants and the ideas which the term servant is employed to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the will of the servant resisted his service, and he performed it only by compulsion. Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Bible. We give a single example. "To whom YE YIELD YOURSELVES servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey." Rom. vi. 16. It would hardly be possible to assert the voluntariness of servants more strongly in a direct proposition than it is here asserted by implication.
III. WERE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT PAY
As the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That they were paid for their labor, we argue.
II. GOD TESTIFIES THAT IN OUR DUTY TO OUR FELLOW MEN, ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS HANG UPON THIS COMMAND, "THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses applies this law to the treatment of strangers, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and clothing also, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of love! Super-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing unto others as we would have them do to us, to make them work for our own good alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard sayings against human nature, especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."
Again. The Israelites often hired servants from the strangers. Deut. xxiv. 17.
Since then it is certain that they gave wages to a part of their Canaanitish servants, thus recognizing their right to a reward for their labor, we infer that they did not rob the rest of their earnings.
If God gave them a license to make the strangers work for them without pay—if this was good and acceptable in His sight, and right and just in itself, they must have been great fools to have wasted their money by paying wages when they could have saved it, by making the strangers do all their work for nothing! Besides, by refusing to avail themselves of this "Divine license," they despised the blessing and cast contempt on the giver! But far be it from us to do the Israelites injustice; perhaps they seized all the Canaanites they could lay their hands on, and forced them to work without pay, but not being able to catch enough to do their work, were obliged to offer wages in order to eke out the supply!
The parable of our Lord, contained in Mat. xviii. 23-34, not only derives its significance from the fact, that servants can both own and owe and earn property, over which they had the control, but would be made a medley of contradictions on any other supposition.—1. Their lord at a set time proceeded to "take account" and "reckon" with his servants; the phraseology itself showing that the relations between the parties, were those of debt and credit. 2. As the reckoning went on, one of his servants was found to owe him ten thousand talents. From the fact that the servant owed this to his master, we naturally infer, that he must have been at some time, and in some way, the responsible owner of that amount, or of its substantial equivalent. Not that he had had that amount put into his hands to invest, or disburse, in his master's name, merely as his agent, for in that case no claim of debt for value received would lie, but, that having sustained the responsibilities of legal proprietorship, he was under the liabilities resulting therefrom. 3. Not having on hand wherewith to pay, he says to his master "have patience with me and I will pay thee all." If the servant had been his master's property, his time and earnings belonged to the master as a matter of course, hence the promise to earn and pay over that amount, was virtually saying to his master, "I will take money out of your pocket with which to pay my debt to you," thus adding insult to injury. The promise of the servant to pay the debt on condition that the time for payment should be postponed, not only proceeds upon the fact that his time was his own, that he was constantly earning property or in circumstances that enabled him to earn it, and that he was the proprietor of his earnings, but that his master had full knowledge of that fact.—In a word, the supposition that the master was the owner of the servant, would annihilate all legal claim upon him for value received, and that the servant was the property of the master, would absolve him from all obligations of debt, or rather would always forestall such obligations—for the relations of owner and creditor in such case, would annihilate each other, as would those of property and debtor. The fact that the same servant was the creditor of one of his fellow servants, who owed him a considerable sum, and that at last he was imprisoned until he should pay all that was due to his master, are additional corroborations of the same point.
IV. HEIRSHIP.—Servants frequently inherited their master's property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, Gen. xv. 23; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth; Jarha, the servant of Sheshan, who married his daughter, and thus became his heir, he having no sons, and the husbandmen who said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xxx. 23, an handmaid (or maid-servant,) that is heir to her mistress; also Prov. xvii. 2—"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?
V. ALL WERE REQUIRED TO PRESENT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES. Deut. xvi. 16, 17; 2 Chron. xv. 9-11; Numb. ix. 13, 14. Beside this, "every man" from twenty years old and above, was required to pay a tax of half a shekel at the taking of the census; this is called "an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls." Ex. xxx. 12-16. See also Ex. xxxiv. 20. Servants must have had permanently the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.
VIII. THE RIGHT OF SERVANTS TO COMPENSATION IS RECOGNISED IN Ex. xxi. 27. "And if he smite out his man-servant's, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." This regulation is manifestly based upon the right of the servant to the use of himself and all this powers, faculties and personal conveniences, and consequently his just claim for remuneration, upon him, who should however unintentionally, deprive him of the use even of the least of them. If the servant had a right to his tooth and the use of it, upon the same principle, he had a right to the rest of his body and the use of it. If he had a right to the fraction, and if it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for; he had a right to the sum total, and it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for.
IX. WE FIND MASTERS AT ONE TIME HAVING A LARGE NUMBER OF SERVANTS, AND AFTERWARDS NONE, WITH NO INTIMATION IN ANY CASE THAT THEY WERE SOLD. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and had many servants. Gen. xxx. 43; xxxii. 16. But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32. The case of Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, who had twenty servants, has been already mentioned.
X. GOD'S TESTIMONY TO THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth this neighbor's service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY of HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others? By doing injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back their own? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs? Did he beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!
XI. SPECIFIC PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC LAW ENFORCING GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular kind of service, all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,—a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man?—MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR sakes? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE." In the context, Paul innumerates the four grand divisions of labor among the Jews in illustration of the principle that the laborer, whatever may be the service he performs, is entitled to a reward. The priests, Levites and all engaged in sacred things—the military, those who tended flocks and herds, and those who cultivated the soil. As the latter employment engaged the great body of the Israelites, the Apostle amplifies his illustration under that head by much detail—and enumerates the five great departments of agricultural labor among the Jews—vine-dressing, plowing, sowing, reaping and threshing, as the representatives of universal labor. In his epistle to Timothy. 1 Tim. v. 18. Paul quotes again this precept of the Mosaic law, and connects with it the declaration of our Lord. Luke x. 7. "The laborer is worthy of his hire,"—as both inculcating the same doctrine, that he who labors, whatever the employment, or whoever the laborer, is entitled to a reward. The Apostle thus declares the principle of right respecting the performance of service for others, and the rule of duty towards those who perform it, to be the same under both dispensations. (2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, YEA THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this regulation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his service without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM OF HIS EARNINGS?
This topic has been unavoidably somewhat anticipated, in the foregoing discussion, but a variety of additional considerations remain to be noticed.
II. THE CONDITION AND SOCIAL ESTIMATION OF SERVANTS MAKE THE DOCTRINE THAT THEY WERE COMMODITIES, AN ABSURDITY. As the head of a Jewish family possessed the same power over his wife, children, and grandchildren (if they were in his family) as over his servants, if the latter were articles of property, the former were equally such. If there were nothing else in the Mosaic Institutes or history establishing the social equality of the servants with their masters and their master's wives and children, those precepts which required that they should be guests at all the public feasts, and equal participants in the family and social rejoicings, would be quite sufficient to settle the question. Deut. xii. 12, 18; xvi. 10, 11, 13, 14. Ex. xii. 43, 44. St. Paul's testimony in Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." That the interests of Abraham's servants were identified with those of their master's family, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed. Gen. xiv. 14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebecca did not disdain to say to him. "Drink, MY LORD," as "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!" In the arrangements of Jacob's household on his journey from Padanaram to Canaan, we find his two maid servants treated in the same manner and provided with the same accommodations as Rachel and Leah. Each of them had a separate tent appropriated to her use. Gen. xxxi. 33. The social equality of servants with their masters and other members of their master's families, is an obvious deduction from Ex. xxi. 7, 10, from which we learn that the sale of a young Jewish female as a servant, was also betrothed as a wife, either to her master, or to one of his sons. In 1 Sam. ix. is an account of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel presided. None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only "about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a select party!—the elite of the city. Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and both of them, at Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR (!) and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time anointed King of Israel! and this servant introduced by Samuel into the PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the chiefest seat at the table! This was "one of the servants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the steward or the chief of them—not at all a picked man, but "one of the servants;" any one that could be most easily spared, as no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking after asses. David seems to have been for a time in all respects a servant in Saul's family. He "stood before him." "And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me." He was Saul's personal servant, went on his errands, played on the harp for his amusement, bore his armor for him, and when he wished to visit his parents, asked permission of Jonathan, Saul's son. Saul also calls him "my servant." 1 Sam. xvi. 21-23; xviii. 5; xx. 5, 6; xxii. 8. Yet David sat with the king at meat, married his daughter, and lived on terms of the closest intimacy with the heir apparent of the throne. Abimelech, who was first elected king of Shechem, and afterwards reigned over all Israel, was the son of a MAID-SERVANT. His mother's family seems to have been of much note in the city of Shechem, where her brothers manifestly held great sway. Judg. ix. 1-6, 18. Jarha, an Egyptian, the servant of Sheshan, married his daughter. Tobiah, "the servant" and an Ammonite married the daughter of Shecaniah one of the chief men among the Jews in Jerusalem and was the intimate associate of Sanballat the governor of the Samaritans. We find Elah, the King of Israel, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9. See also the intercourse between Gideon and his servants. Judg. vi. 27, and vii. 10, 11. The Levite of Mount Ephraim and his servant. Judg. xx. 3, 9, 11, 13, 19, 21, 22. King Saul and his servant Doeg, one of his herdmen. 1 Sam. xx. 1, 7; xxii. 9, 18, 22. King David and Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth. 2 Sam. xvi. 1-4. Jonathan and his servant. 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14. Elisha and his servant, Gehazi. 2 Kings iv. v. vi. Also between Joram king of Israel and the servant of Elisha. 2 Kings viii. 4, 5, and between Naaman "the Captain of the host of the king of Syria" and the same person. 2 Kings v. 21-23. The fact stated under a previous head that servants were always invited guests at public and social festivals, is in perfect keeping with the foregoing exemplifications of the prevalent estimation in which servants were held by the Israelites.
Probably no one of the Old Testament patriarchs had more servants than Job; "This man was the greatest man of all the men of the east." Job, i. 3. We are not left in the dark as to the condition of his servants. After asserting his integrity, his strict justice, honesty, and equity, in his dealings with his fellow men, and declaring "I delivered the poor," "I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame," "I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out," * * * he says "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my maid-servant when they CONTENDED with me * * * then let mine arm fall from the shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone." Job. xxix. 12, 15, 16; xxxi. 13, 22. The language employed in this passage is the phraseology applied in judicial proceedings to those who implead one another, and whether it be understood literally or figuratively, shows that whatever difference existed between Job and his servants in other respects, so far as rights are concerned, they were on equal ground with him, and that in the matter of daily intercourse, there was not the least restraint on their free speech in calling in question all his transactions with them, and that the relations and claims of both parties were adjudicated on the principles of equity and reciprocal right. "If I despised the cause of my man-servant," &c. In other words, if I treated it lightly, as though servants were not men, had not rights, and had not a claim for just dues and just estimation as human beings. "When they contended with me," that is, when they plead their rights, claimed what was due to them, or questioned the justice of any of my dealings with them.
In the context Job virtually affirms as the ground of his just and equitable treatment of his servants, that they had the same rights as he had, and were, as human beings, entitled to equal consideration with himself. By what language could he more forcibly utter his conviction of the oneness of their common origin and of the identity of their common nature, necessities, attribute and rights? As soon as he has said, "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant," &c., he follows it up with "What then shall I do when God raiseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb." In the next verse Job glories in the fact that he has not "withheld from the poor their desire." Is it the "desire" of the poor to be compelled by the rich to work for them, and without pay?
III. THE CASE OF THE GIBEONITES. The condition of the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Hebrew commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron could not extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the Israelites? 1. It was voluntary. Their own proposition to Joshua was to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was accepted, but the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in the Tabernacle. 2. They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites. They still resided in their own cities, cultivated their own fields, tended their flocks and herds, and exercised the functions of a distinct, though not independent community. They were subject to the Jewish nation as tributaries. So far from being distributed among the Israelites and their internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they remained a separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many centuries. When attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid—it was rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in their cities. Josh. x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them seven of Saul's descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no intimation that they served either families or individuals of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at Gilgal, a days' journey from their cities; and then at Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them; where it continued about 350 years. During this period the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home. It is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes, ministering in rotation—each class a few days or weeks at a time. As the priests whose assistants they were, served by courses in rotation a week at a time; it is not improbable that their periods of service were so arranged as to correspond. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to have been required of the females. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels, if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.
IV. EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"—waking anew the memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them. But what was the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt? Of what rights were they plundered and what did they retain?
The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser of May 30, 1788, says, "a single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a hard-working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though rarely, added."
The Gradual Emancipation Society of North Carolina, in their Report for 1836, signed Moses Swaim, President, and William Swaim, Secretary, says, in describing the condition of slaves in the Eastern part of that State, "The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part of them go half naked and half starved much of the time." See Minutes of the American Convention, convened in Baltimore, Oct. 25, 1826.
Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee, and for many years a preacher in slave states, says of the food of slaves, "It often happens that what will barely keep them alive, is all that a cruel avarice will allow them. Hence, in some instances, their allowance has been reduced to a single pint of corn each, during the day and night. And some have no better allowance than a small portion of cotton seed; while perhaps they are not permitted to taste meat so much as once in the course of seven years. Thousands of them are pressed with the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives." Rankin's Letters on Slavery, pp. 57, 58.
Hon. Robert J. Turnbull, of Charleston, S.C., a slaveholder, says, "The subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called hominy, or baked into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of indulgence or favor." See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian. Charleston, 1822.
Asa A. Stone, a theological student, residing at Natchez, Mississippi, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Evangelist in 1835, in which he says, "On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a good deal of suffering from hunger. On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of almost utter famishment during a great portion of the year."
At the commencement of his letter, Mr. S. says, "Intending, as I do, that my statements shall be relied on, and knowing that, should you think fit to publish this communication, they will come to this country, where their correctness may be tested by comparison with real life, I make them with the utmost care and precaution."
President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon preached half a century ago, at New Haven, Conn., says, speaking of the allowance of food given to slaves—"They are supplied with barely enough to keep them from starving."
In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20, the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged, among other grounds as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south. Mr. Smyth, a member of Congress, from Virginia, and a large slaveholder, said, "The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity and hunger. Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR."—[Speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]—See National Intelligencer.
Rev. John Rankin says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, "In every slaveholding state, many slaves suffer extremely, both while they labor and while they sleep, for want of clothing to keep them warm. Often they are driven through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe, until the path they tread is died with their blood. And when they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver while they slumber."
"The labor of Slaves in Louisiana is not severe, unless it be at the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, then they work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire to rest during the whole period." See page 81. On the 87th page of the same work, the writer says, "Both in summer and winter the slaves must be in the field by the first dawn of day." And yet he says, "the labor of the slave is not severe, except at the rolling of sugars!" The work abounds in eulogies of slavery.
In the "History of South Carolina and Georgia," vol. 1, p. 120, is the following: "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens of thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED."
In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second number of the "Western Review" is the following:—"The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY."
Mr. Philemon Bliss, of Ohio, in his letters from Florida, in 1835, says, "The negroes commence labor by daylight in the morning, and excepting the plowboys, who must feed and rest their horses, do not leave the field till dark in the evening."
Mr. Stone, in his letter from Natchez, an extract of which was given above, says, "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves rise in season in the morning, to be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work, and remain there until it is so dark that they cannot see. This is the case at all seasons of the year."
President Edwards, in the sermon already extracted from, says, "The slaves are kept at hard labor from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night, excepting time to eat twice during the day."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: "All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition." * * * See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian.
"This form of disease deserves more attention from the medical profession than it has heretofore elicited. Among the causes may be named the mode and manner in which the negroes live. They are crowded together in a small hut, sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor—and seldom raised from the ground, illy ventilated, and surrounded with filth. Their diet and clothing, are also causes which might be enumerated as exciting agents. They live on a coarse, crude and unwholesome diet, and are imperfectly clothed, both summer and winter; sleeping upon filthy and frequently damp beds."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, of South Carolina, whose testimony on another point has been given above, says of the slaves, that they live in "clay cabins, with clay chimneys," &c. Mr. Clay, a Georgia slaveholder, from whom an extract has been given already, says, speaking of the dwellings of the slaves, "Too many individuals of both sexes are crowded into one house, and the proper separation of apartments cannot be observed. That the slaves are insensible to the evils arising from it, does not in the least lessen the unhappy consequences." Clay's Address before the Presbytery of Georgia.—P. 13.
In a sermon preached by Mr. Jones, before two associations of planters, in Georgia, in 1831, speaking of the slaves he says, "They are a nation of HEATHEN in our very midst." "What have we done for our poor negroes? With shame we must confess that we have done NOTHING!" "How can you pray for Christ's kingdom to come while you are neglecting a people perishing for lack of vision around your very doors." "We withhold the Bible from our servants and keep them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it read and explained to them." Jones' Sermon, pp. 7, 9.
An official report of the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, adopted at its session in Columbia, S.C., and published in the Charleston Observer of March 22, 1834, speaking of the slaves, says, "There are over two millions of human beings, in the condition of HEATHEN, and, in some respects, in a worse condition!" * * * "From long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such, as that they may justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world." * * * "The negroes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, and ever will be under the present state of things." Report, &c., p. 4.
A writer in the Church Advocate, published in Lexington, Ky., says, "The poor negroes are left in the ways of spiritual darkness, no efforts are being made for their enlightenment, no seed is being sown, nothing but a moral wilderness is seen, over which the soul sickens—the heart of Christian sympathy bleeds. Here nothing is presented but a moral waste, as extensive as our influence, as appalling as the valley of death."
The following is an extract of a letter from Bishop Andrew of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to Messrs. Garrit and Maffit, editors of the "Western Methodist," then published at Nashville, Tennessee.
"Augusta, Jan. 29, 1835.
"The Christians of the South owe a heavy debt to slaves on their plantations, and the ministers of Christ especially are debtors to the whole slave population. I fear a cry goes up to heaven on this subject against us; and how, I ask, shall the scores who have left the ministry of the Word, that they may make corn and cotton, and buy and sell, and get gain, meet this cry at the bar of God? and what shall the hundreds of money-making and money-loving masters, who have grown rich by the toil and sweat of their slaves, and left their souls to perish, say when they go with them to the judgment of the great day?"
"The Kentucky Union for the moral and religious improvement of the colored race,"—an association composed of some of the most influential ministers and laymen of Kentucky, says in a general circular to the religious public, "To the female character among the black population, we cannot allude but with feelings of the bitterest shame. A similar condition of moral pollution, and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous reputation, is to be found only without the pale of Christendom. That such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation, without calling forth any particular attention to its existence, though ever before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once unaccountable and disgraceful."
Rev. James A. Thome, a native of Kentucky, and still residing there, said in a speech in New York, May 1834, speaking of licentiousness among the slaves, "I would not have you fail to understand that this is a general evil. Sir, what I now say, I say from deliberate conviction of its truth; that the slave states are Sodoms, and almost every village family is a brothel. (In this, I refer to the inmates of the kitchen, and not to the whites.)"
A writer in the "Western Luminary," published in Lexington, Ky., made the following declaration to the same point in the number of that paper for May 7, 1835: "There is one topic to which I will allude, which will serve to establish the heathenism of this population. I allude to the UNIVERSAL LICENTIOUSNESS which prevails. Chastity is no virtue among them—its violation neither injures female character in their own estimation, or that of their master or mistress—no instruction is ever given, no censure pronounced. I speak not of the world. I SPEAK OF CHRISTIAN FAMILIES GENERALLY."
Rev. Mr. Converse, long a resident of Virginia, and agent of the Colonization Society, said, in a sermon before the Vt. C.S.—"Almost nothing is done to instruct the slaves in the principles and duties of the Christian religion. * * * The majority are emphatically heathens. * * Pious masters (with some honorable exceptions) are criminally negligent of giving religious instruction to their slaves. * * * They can and do instruct their own children, and perhaps their house servants; while those called "field hands" live, and labor, and die, without being told by their pious masters (?) that Jesus Christ died to save sinners."
The page is already so loaded with references that we forbear. For testimony from the mouths of slaveholders to the terrible lacerations and other nameless outrages inflicted on the slaves, the reader is referred to the number of the Anti-Slavery Record for Jan. 1837.
We now proceed to examine the various objections which will doubtless be set in array against all the foregoing conclusions.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
"Resolved, That slavery has existed from the days of those GOOD OLD SLAVEHOLDERS AND PATRIARCHS, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are now in the kingdom of Heaven."
Abraham receives abundant honor at the hands of slave-holding divines. Not because he was the "father of the faithful," forsook home and country for the truth's sake, was the most eminent preacher and practiser of righteousness in his day; nay, verily, for all this he gets faint praise; but then he had "SERVANTS BOUGHT WITH MONEY!!!" This is the finishing touch of his character, and its effect on slaveholders is electrical. Prose fledges into poetry, cold compliments warm into praise, eulogy rarifies into panegyric and goes off in rhapsody. In their ecstasies over Abraham, Isaac's paramount claims to their homage are lamentably lost sight of. It is quite unaccountable, that in their manifold oglings over Abraham's "servants bought with money," no slaveholder is ever caught casting loving side-glances at Gen. xxvii. 29, 37, where Isaac, addressing Jacob, says, "Be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee." And afterwards, addressing Esau, he says, speaking of the birth-right immunities confirmed to Jacob, "Behold I have made him thy Lord and all his brethren have I GIVEN TO HIM FOR SERVANTS!"
Here is a charter for slaveholding, under the sign manual of that "good old slaveholder and patriarch, Isaac." Yea, more—a "Divine Warrant" for a father holding his children as slaves and bequeathing them as property to his heirs! Better still, it proves that the favorite practice amongst our slaveholders of bequeathing their colored children to those of a different hue, was a "Divine institution," for Isaac "gave" Esau, who was "red all over," to Jacob, "as a servant." Now gentlemen, "honor to whom honor." Let Isaac no longer be stinted of the glory that is his due as the great prototype of that "peculiar domestic institution," of which you are eminent patrons, that nice discrimination, by which a father, in his will, makes part of his children property, and the rest, their proprietors, whenever the propriety of such a disposition is indicated, as in the case of Jacob and Esau, by the decisive tokens of COLOR and HAIR, (for, to show that Esau was Jacob's rightful property after he was "given to him" by Isaac "for a servant," the difference in hair as well as color, is expressly stated by inspiration!)