6. If a Hebrew had sold himself to a rich Gentile, he might be
redeemed by one of his brethren at any time the money was offered; and
he who redeemed him, was _not_ to take advantage of the favor thus
conferred, and rule over him with rigor. Lev. xxv, 47-55.
Before going into an examination of the laws by which these servants
were protected, I would just ask whether American slaves have become
slaves in any of the ways in which the Hebrews became servants. Did
they sell themselves into slavery and receive the purchase money into
their own hands? No! Did they become insolvent, and by their own
imprudence subject themselves to be sold as slaves? No! Did they steal
the property of another, and were they sold to make restitution for
their crimes? No! Did their present masters, as an act of kindness,
redeem them from some heathen tyrant to whom _they had sold
themselves_ in the dark hour of adversity? No! Were they born in
slavery? No! No! not according to _Jewish Law_, for the servants who
were born in servitude among them, were born of parents who had _sold
themselves_ for six years: Ex. xxi, 4. Were the female slaves of
the South sold by their fathers? How shall I answer this question?
Thousands and tens of thousands never were, _their_ fathers _never_
have received the poor compensation of silver or gold for the tears
and toils, the suffering, and anguish, and hopeless bondage of _their_
daughters. They labor day by day, and year by year, side by side, in
the same field, if haply their daughters are permitted to remain on
the same plantation with them, instead of being as they often are,
separated from their parents and sold into distant states, never again
to meet on earth. But do the _fathers of the South ever sell their
daughters_? My heart beats, and my hand trembles, as I write the awful
affirmative, Yes! The fathers of this Christian land often sell
their daughters, _not_ as Jewish parents did, to be the wives and
daughters-in-law of the man who buys them, but to be the abject slaves
of petty tyrants and irresponsible masters. Is it not so, my friends?
I leave it to your own candor to corroborate my assertion. Southern
slaves then have _not_ become slaves in any of the six different ways
in which Hebrews became servants, and I hesitate not to say that
American masters _cannot_ according to _Jewish law_ substantiate their
claim to the men, women, or children they now hold in bondage.
But there was one way in which a Jew might illegally be reduced to
servitude; it was this, he might be _stolen_ and afterwards sold as a
slave, as was Joseph. To guard most effectually against this dreadful
crime of manstealing, God enacted this severe law. "He that stealeth a
man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be
put to death." [1] As I have tried American Slavery by _legal_ Hebrew
servitude, and found, (to your surprise, perhaps,) that Jewish law
cannot justify the slaveholder's claim, let us now try it by _illegal_
Hebrew bondage. Have the Southern slaves then been, stolen? If they
did not sell themselves into bondage; if they were not sold as
insolvent debtors or as thieves; if they were not redeemed from a
heathen master to whom _they had sold themselves_; if they were not
born in servitude according to Hebrew law; and if the females were
not sold by their fathers as wives and daughters-in-law to those who
purchased them; then what shall we say of them? what can we say of
them but that according _to Hebrew Law they have been stolen_.
But I shall be told that the Jews had other servants who were absolute
slaves. Let us look a little into this also. They had other servants
who were procured in two different ways.
1. Captives taken in war were reduced to bondage instead of being
killed; but we are not told that their children were enslaved Deut.
xx, 14.
2. Bondmen and bondmaids might be bought from the heathen round about
them; these were left by fathers to their children after them, but
it does not appear that the _children_ of these servants ever were
reduced to servitude. Lev. xxv, 44.
I will now try the right of the southern planter by the claims of
Hebrew masters over their _heathen_ slaves. Were the southern slaves
taken captive in war? No! Were they bought from the heathen? No! for
surely, no one will _now_ vindicate the slave-trade so far as to
assert that slaves were bought from the heathen who were obtained by
that system of piracy. The _only_ excuse for holding southern slaves
is that they were born in slavery, but we have seen that they were
_not_ born in servitude as Jewish servants were, and that the children
of heathen slaves were not legally subjected to bondage even under the
Mosaic Law. How then have the slaves of the South been obtained?
I will next proceed to an examination of those laws which were enacted
in order to protect the Hebrew and the Heathen servant; for I wish you
to understand that _both_ are protected by Him, of whom it is said
"his mercies are over _all_ his works." I will first speak of those
which secured the rights of Hebrew servants. This code was headed
thus:
1. Thou shalt _not_ rule over him with _rigor_, but shalt fear thy
God;
2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in
the seventh year he shall go out free for nothing. Ex. xxi, 2. [2]
3. If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were
married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4. If his master have given him a wife and she have borne him sons and
daughters, the wife and her children shall be his master's, and he
shall go out by himself.
5. If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my
children; I will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto
the Judges, and he shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post,
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall
serve him _forever_. Ex. xxi, 5-6.
6. If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that
it perish, he shall let him go _free_ for his eye's sake. And if he
smite out his man servant's tooth or his maid servant's tooth, he
shall let him go _free_ for his tooth's sake. Ex. xxi, 26, 27.
7. On the Sabbath rest was secured to servants by the fourth
commandment. Ex. xx, 10.
8. Servants were permitted to unite with their masters three times in
every year in celebrating the Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and
the feast of Tabernacles; every male throughout the land was to appear
before the Lord at Jerusalem with a gift; here the bond and the free
stood on common ground. Deut. xvi.
9. If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under
his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue
a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money. Ex. xxi,
20, 21.
From these laws we learn that Hebrew men servants were bound to serve
their masters _only six_ years, unless their attachment to their
employers their wives and children, should induce them to wish
to remain in servitude, in which case, in order to prevent the
possibility of deception on the part of the master, the servant was
first taken before the magistrate, where he openly declared his
intention of continuing in his master's service, (probably a public
register was kept of such) he was then conducted to the door of the
house, (in warm climates doors are thrown open,) and _there_ his ear
was _publicly_ bored, and by submitting to this operation he testified
his willingness to serve him _forever_, i.e. during his life, for
Jewish Rabbins who must have understood Jewish _slavery_, (as it is
called,) "affirm that servants were set free at the death of their
masters and did _not_ descend to their heirs:" or that he was to
serve him until the year of Jubilee, when _all_ servants were set at
liberty. To protect servants from violence, it was ordained that if a
master struck out the tooth or destroyed the eye of a servant, that
servant immediately became _free_, for such an act of violence
evidently showed he was unfit to possess the power of a master, and
therefore that power was taken from him. All servants enjoyed the rest
of the Sabbath and partook of the privileges and festivities of the
three great Jewish Feasts; and if a servant died under the infliction
of chastisement, his master was surely to be punished. As a tooth
for a tooth and life for life was the Jewish law, of course he was
punished with death. I know that great stress has been laid upon the
following verse: "Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he
shall not be punished, for he is his money."
Slaveholders, and the apologists of slavery, have eagerly seized upon
this little passage of scripture, and held it up as the masters' Magna
Charta, by which they were licensed by God himself to commit the
greatest outrages upon the defenceless victims of their oppression.
But, my friends, was it designed to be so? If our Heavenly Father
would protect by law the eye and the tooth of a Hebrew servant, can we
for a moment believe that he would abandon that same servant to the
brutal rage of a master who would destroy even life itself. Do we not
rather see in this, the _only_ law which protected masters, and was
it not right that in case of the death of a servant, one or two days
after chastisement was inflicted, to which other circumstances might
have contributed, that the master should be protected when, in all
probability, he never intended to produce so fatal a result? But the
phrase "he is his money" has been adduced to show that Hebrew servants
were regarded as mere _things_, "chattels personal;" if so, why were
so many laws made to _secure their rights as men_, and to ensure their
rising into equality and freedom? If they were mere _things_, why were
they regarded as responsible beings, and one law made for them as well
as for their masters? But I pass on now to the consideration of how
the _female_ Jewish servants were protected by _law_.
1. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself,
then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto another nation he
shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
2. If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after
the manner of daughters.
3. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of
marriage, shall he not diminish.
4. If he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out _free_
without money.
On these laws I will give you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not
sell his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she
was at the age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost
indigence. Besides when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was
_always_ with the presumption that he would take her to wife. Hence
Moses adds, 'if she please not her master, and he does not think
fit to marry her, he shall set her at liberty,' or according to the
Hebrew, 'he shall let her be redeemed.' 'To sell her to another nation
he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her;' as
to the engagement implied, at least of taking her to wife. 'If he have
betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of
daughters, i.e. he shall take care that his son uses her as his wife,
that he does not despise or maltreat her. If he make his son
marry another wife, he shall give her her dowry, her clothes and
compensation for her virginity; if he does none of these three, she
shall _go out free_ without money." Thus were the _rights of female
servants carefully secured by law_ under the Jewish Dispensation; and
now I would ask, are the rights of female slaves at the South thus
secured? Are _they_ sold only as wives and daughters-in-law, and when
not treated as such, are they allowed to _go out free?_ No! They have
_all_ not only been illegally obtained as servants according to Hebrew
law, but they are also illegally _held_ in bondage. Masters at the
South and West have all forfeited their claims, (_if they ever had
any_,) to their female slaves.
We come now to examine the case of those servants who were "of the
heathen round about;" Were _they_ left entirely unprotected by law?
Horne in speaking of the law, "Thou shalt not rule over him with
rigor, but shall fear thy God," remarks, "this law Lev. xxv, 43, it
is true speaks expressly of slaves who were of Hebrew descent; but
as _alien born_ slaves were ingrafted into the Hebrew Church by
circumcision, _there is no doubt_ but that it applied to _all_
slaves;" if so, then we may reasonably suppose that the other
protective laws extended to them also; and that the only difference
between Hebrew and Heathen servants lay in this, that the former
served but six years unless they chose to remain longer, and were
always freed at the death of their masters; whereas the latter served
until the year of Jubilee, though that might include a period of
forty-nine years,--and were left from father to son.
There are however two other laws which I have not yet noticed. The
one effectually prevented _all involuntary_ servitude, and the other
completely abolished Jewish servitude every fifty years. They were
equally operative upon the Heathen and the Hebrew.
1. "Thou shall _not_ deliver unto his master the servant that 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 shall _not_ oppress him." Deut. xxiii,
15, 16.
2. "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim _Liberty_
throughout _all_ the land, unto _all_ the inhabitants thereof: it
shall be a jubilee unto you." Lev. xxv, 10.
Here, then, we see that by this first law, the _door of Freedom was
opened wide to every servant who_ had any cause whatever for
complaint; if he was unhappy with his master, all he had to do was to
leave him, and _no man_ had a right to deliver him back to him again,
and not only so, but the absconded servant was to _choose_ where he
should live, and no Jew was permitted to oppress him. He left his
master just as our Northern servants leave us; we have no power to
compel them to remain with us, and no man has any right to oppress
them; they go and dwell in that place where it chooseth them, and live
just where they like. Is it so at the South? Is the poor runaway slave
protected _by law_ from the violence of that master whose oppression
and cruelty has driven him from his plantation or his house? No! no!
Even the free states of the North are compelled to deliver unto his
master the servant that is escaped from his master into them. By
_human_ law, under the _Christian Dispensation_, in the _nineteenth
century we_ are commanded to do, what _God_ more than _three thousand_
years ago, under the _Mosaic Dispensation, positively commanded_ the
Jews _not_ to do. In the wide domain even of our free states, there is
not _one_ city of refuge for the poor runaway fugitive; not one spot
upon which he can stand and say, I am a free man--I am protected in my
rights as a _man_, by the strong arm of the law; no! _not one_. How
long the North will thus shake hands with the South in sin, I know
not. How long she will stand by like the persecutor Saul, _consenting_
unto the death of Stephen, and keeping the raiment of them that slew
him. I know not; but one thing I do know, the _guilt of the North_ is
increasing in a tremendous ratio as light is pouring in upon her on
the subject and the sin of slavery. As the sun of righteousness climbs
higher and higher in the moral heavens, she will stand still more and
more abashed as the query is thundered down into her ear, "_Who_ hath
required _this_ at thy hand?" It will be found _no_ excuse then that
the Constitution of our country required that _persons bound to
service_ escaping from their masters should be delivered up; no more
excuse than was the reason which Adam assigned for eating the forbidden
fruit. _He_ was _condemned and punished because_ he hearkened to the
voice of _his wife_, rather than to the command of his Maker; and _we_
will assuredly be condemned and punished for obeying _Man_ rather than
_God_, if we do not speedily repent and bring forth fruits meet for
repentance. Yea, are we not receiving chastisement even _now_?
But by the second of these laws a still more astonishing fact is
disclosed. If the first effectually prevented _all involuntary
servitude_, the last absolutely forbade even _voluntary servitude
being perpetual_. On the great day of atonement every fiftieth year
the Jubilee trumpet was sounded throughout the land of Judea, and
_Liberty_ was proclaimed to _all_ the inhabitants thereof. I will not
say that the servants' _chains_ fell off and their _manacles_ were
burst, for there is no evidence that Jewish servants _ever_ felt the
weight of iron chains, and collars, and handcuffs; but I do say that
even the man who had voluntarily sold himself and the _heathen_ who
had been sold to a Hebrew master, were set free, the one as well as
the other. This law was evidently designed to prevent the oppression
of the poor, and the possibility of such a thing as _perpetual
servitude_ existing among them.
Where, then, I would ask, is the warrant, the justification, or the
palliation of American Slavery from Hebrew servitude? How many of
the southern slaves would now be in bondage according to the laws of
Moses; Not one. You may observe that I have carefully avoided using
the term _slavery_ when speaking of Jewish servitude; and simply for
this reason, that _no such thing_ existed among that people; the word
translated servant does _not_ mean _slave_, it is the same that is
applied to Abraham, to Moses, to Elisha and the prophets generally.
Slavery then never existed under the Jewish Dispensation at all, and
I cannot but regard it as an aspersion on the character of Him who is
"glorious in Holiness" for any one to assert that "_God sanctioned,
yea commanded slavery_ under the old dispensation." I would fain
lift my feeble voice to vindicate Jehovah's character from so foul a
slander. If slaveholders are determined to hold slaves as long as
they can, let them not dare to say that the God of mercy and of truth
_ever_ sanctioned such a system of cruelty and wrong. It is blasphemy
against Him.
We have seen that the code of laws framed by Moses with regard to
servants was designed to protect them as men and women, to secure to
them their rights as human beings, to guard them from oppression and
defend them from violence of every kind. Let us now turn to the Slave
laws of the South and West and examine them too. I will give you the
substance only, because I fear I shall tresspass too much on your
time, were I to quote them at length.
1. _Slavery_ is hereditary and perpetual, to the last moment of the
slave's earthly existence, and to all his descendants to the latest
posterity.
2. The labor of the slave is compulsory and uncompensated; while the
kind of labor, the amount of toil, the time allowed for rest, are
dictated solely by the master. No bargain is made, no wages given.
A pure despotism governs the human brute; and even his covering and
provender, both as to quantity and quality, depend entirely on the
master's discretion. [3]
3. The slave being considered a personal chattel may be sold or
pledged, or leased at the will of his master. He may be exchanged for
marketable commodities, or taken in execution for the debts or
taxes either of a living or dead master. Sold at auction, either
individually, or in lots to suit the purchaser, he may remain with his
family, or be separated from them for ever.
4. Slaves can make no contracts and have no _legal_ right to any
property, real or personal. Their own honest earnings and the legacies
of friends belong in point of law to their masters.
5. Neither a slave nor a free colored person can be a witness against
any _white_, or free person, in a court of justice, however atrocious
may have been the crimes they have seen him commit, if such testimony
would be for the benefit of a _slave_; but they may give testimony
_against a fellow slave_, or free colored man, even in cases affecting
life, if the _master_ is to reap the advantage of it.
6. The slave may be punished at his master's discretion--without
trial--without any means of legal redress; whether his offence be real
or imaginary; and the master can transfer the same despotic power to
any person or persons, he may choose to appoint.
7. The slave is not allowed to resist any free man under _any_
circumstances, _his_ only safety consists in the fact that his _owner_
may bring suit and recover the price of his body, in case his life is
taken, or his limbs rendered unfit for labor.
8. Slaves cannot redeem themselves, or obtain a change of masters,
though cruel treatment may have' rendered such a change necessary for
their personal safety.