the Bible sanctions Slavery, and that is the highest authority. Now the
Bible is my ultimate appeal in all matters of faith and practice, and it
is to _this test_ I am anxious to bring the subject at issue between us.
Let us then begin with Adam and examine the charter of privileges which
was given to him. "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth." In the eighth Psalm we have a still fuller description of this
charter which through Adam was given to all mankind. "Thou madest him to
have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things
under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field,
the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through
the paths of the seas." And after the flood when this charter of human
rights was renewed, we find _no additional_ power vested in man. "And
the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they
delivered." In this charter, although the different kinds of
_irrational_ beings are so particularly enumerated, and supreme dominion
over _all of them_ is granted, yet _man_ is _never_ vested with this
dominion _over his fellow man_; he was never told that any of the human
species were put _under his feet_; it was only _all things_, and man,
who was created in the image of his Maker, _never_ can properly be
termed a _thing_, though the laws of Slave States do call him "a chattel
personal;" _Man_ then, I assert _never_ was put _under the feet of man_,
by that first charter of human right, which was given by God, to the
Fathers of the Antediluvian and Postdiluvian worlds, therefore this
doctrine of equality is based on the Bible.
But it may be argued, that in the very chapter of Genesis from which I
have last quoted, will be found the curse pronounced upon Canaan, by
which his posterity was consigned to servitude under his brothers Shem
and Japheth. I know this prophecy was uttered, and was most fearfully
and wonderfully fulfilled, through the immediate descendants of Canaan,
i.e. the Canaanites, and I do not know but it has been through all the
children of Ham, but I do know that prophecy does _not_ tell us what
_ought to be_, but what actually does take place, ages after it has been
delivered, and that if we justify America for enslaving the children of
Africa, we must also justify Egypt for reducing the children of Israel
to bondage, for the latter was foretold as explicitly as the former. I
am well aware that prophecy has often been urged as an excuse for
Slavery, but be not deceived, the fulfilment of prophecy will _not cover
one sin_ in the awful day of account. Hear what our Saviour says on this
subject; "it must needs be that offences come, but _woe unto that man
through whom they come_"--Witness some fulfilment of this declaration in
the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, occasioned by that most
nefarious of all crimes the crucifixion of the Son of God. Did the fact
of that event having been foretold, exculpate the Jews from sin in
perpetrating it; No--for hear what the Apostle Peter says to them on
this subject, "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, _ye_ have taken, and by _wicked_ hands have
crucified and slain." Other striking instances might be adduced, but
these will suffice.
But it has been urged that the patriarchs held slaves, and therefore,
slavery is right. Do you really believe that patriarchal servitude was
like American slavery? Can you believe it? If so, read the history of
these primitive fathers of the church and be undeceived. Look at
Abraham, though so great a man, going to the herd himself and fetching a
calf from thence and serving it up with his own hands, for the
entertainment of his guests. Look at Sarah, that princess as her name
signifies, baking cakes upon the hearth. If the servants they had were
like Southern slaves, would they have performed such comparatively
menial offices for themselves? Hear too the plaintive lamentation of
Abraham when he feared he should have no son to bear his name down to
posterity. "Behold thou hast given me no seed, &c., one born in my house
is _mine_ heir." From this it appears that one of his _servants_ was to
inherit his immense estate. Is this like Southern slavery? I leave it to
your own good sense and candor to decide. Besides, such was the footing
upon which Abraham was with _his_ servants, that he trusted them with
arms. Are slaveholders willing to put swords and pistols into the hands
of their slaves? He was as a father among his servants; what are
planters and masters generally among theirs? When the institution of
circumcision was established, Abraham was commanded thus; "He that is
eight days old shall be circumcised among you, _every_ man-child in your
generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any
stranger which is not of thy seed." And to render this command with
regard to his _servants_ still more impressive it is repeated in the
very next verse; and herein we may perceive the great care which was
taken by God to guard the _rights of servants_ even under this "dark
dispensation." What too was the testimony given to the faithfulness of
this eminent patriarch. "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." Now my dear friends many of you
believe that circumcision has been superseded by baptism in the Church;
_Are you_ careful to have _all_ that are born in your house or bought
with money of any stranger, baptized? Are _you_ as faithful as Abraham
to command _your household_ to _keep the way of the Lord?_ I leave it to
your own consciences to decide. Was patriarchal servitude then like
American Slavery?
But I shall be told, God sanctioned Slavery, yea commanded Slavery under
the Jewish Dispensation. Let us examine this subject calmly and
prayerfully. I admit that a species of _servitude_ was permitted to the
Jews, but in studying the subject I have been struck with wonder and
admiration at perceiving how carefully the servant was guarded from
violence, injustice, and wrong. I will first inform you how these
servants became servants, for I think this a very important part of our
subject. From consulting Horne, Calmet, and the Bible, I find there were
six different ways by which the Hebrews became servants legally.
1. A Hebrew, whose father was still alive, and who on that account had
not inherited his patrimonial estate, might sell himself, i.e., his
services, for six years, in which case _he_ received the purchase money
_himself_. Ex. xxi, 2.
2. A father might sell his children as servants, i.e., his _daughters_,
in which circumstance it was understood the daughter was to be the wife
or daughter-in-law of the man who bought her, and the _father_ received
the price. In other words, Jewish women were sold as _white women_ were
in the first settlement of Virginia--as _wives, not_ as slaves. Ex. xxi,
7-11.
3. Thieves not able to make restitution for their thefts, were sold for
the benefit of the injured person. Ex. xxii, 3.
4. They might be born in servitude. Ex. xxi, 4.
5. If reduced to extreme poverty, a Hebrew might sell himself; but in
such a case he was to serve, not as a bondsman, whose term of service
was only six years, nor was he to serve as a hired servant, who received
his wages every evening, nor yet as a sojourner or temporary resident in
the family, but he was to serve his master until the year of Jubilee[A].
Lev. xxv, 39, 40.
[Footnote A: If the reader will leave out the italicised words--But and
And, in the 40th verse--he will find that I am fully authorized in the
meaning I have attached to it. But and And are _not_ in the original
Hebrew; have been introduced by the translators, and entirely destroy
the true sense of the passage.]
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! 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_: Ex. xxi, 4; Lev. xxv, 39, 40. 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 men who buy 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." And again, "If a man be found stealing any of his
brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or
selleth him; then _that thief shall die_; and thou shalt put away evil
from among you." Deut. xxiv, 7. 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
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 from the heathen.
Bondmen and bondmaids might be bought of the heathen round about them.
Lev. xxv, 44.
I will now try the right of the southern planter by the claims of Hebrew
masters to their _heathen_ servants. Were the southern slaves 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 servants 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_ were 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. And when thou
sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:
Thou shalt furnish him _liberally_ out of thy flock and out of thy
floor, and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee, shalt thou give unto him. Deut. xv, 13, 14.
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. Ex. xxi, 3.
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. Ex. xxi, 4.
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 _for ever_. 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 Weeks, 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 one class of 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 in subserviency to the law of God; for let it
be remembered, that the door-post was covered with the precepts of that
law. Deut. vi, 9. xi, 20: _for ever_, 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. The other
class, when they first sold themselves, agreed to remain until the year
of Jubilee. 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? Let us then examine
this passage with the help of the context. In the 18th and 19th verses
we have a law which was made for _freemen_ who strove together. Here we
find, that if one man smote another, so that he died not, but only kept
his bed from being disabled, and he rose again and walked abroad upon
his staff, then _he_ was to be paid for the loss of his time, and all
the expenses of his sickness were to be borne by the man who smote him.
The freeman's time was _his own_, and therefore he was to be remunerated
for the loss of it. But _not_ so with the _servant_, whose time was, as
it were, _the money of his master_, because he had already paid for it:
If he continued a day or two after being struck, to keep his bed in
consequence of any wound received, then his lost time was _not_ to be
paid for, because it was _not his own_, but his master's, who had
already paid him for it. The loss of his time was the _master's loss_,
and _not_ the servant's. This explanation is confirmed by the fact, that
the Hebrew word translated continue, means "to stand still;" _i.e._, to
be unable to go out about his master's work.
Here then we find this stronghold of slavery completely demolished.
Instead of its being a license to inflict such chastisement upon a
servant as to cause even death itself, it is in fact a law merely to
provide that a man should not be required to pay his servant twice over
for his time. It is altogether an unfounded assumption on the part of
the slaveholder, that this servant _died_ after a day or two; the text
does not say so, and I contend that he _got well_ after a day or two,
just as the man mentioned in the 19th verse recovered from the effects
of the blows he received. The cases are completely parallel, and the
first law throws great light on the second. This explanation is far more
consonant with the character of God, and were it not that our vision has
been so completely darkened by the existence of slavery in our country,
we never could so far have dishonored Him as to have supposed that He
sanctioned the murder of a servant; although slaveholding legislators
might legalize the killing of a slave in _four_ different
ways.--(_Stroud's Sketch of Slave Laws_.)
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 shalt 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 shalt _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 shalt _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.