their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time.
They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of their house of bondage
were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with
thronging horrors. They had just witnessed God's testimony against
oppression in the plagues of Egypt--the burning blains on man and beast;
the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon every living
thing; the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up
with the carcases of things abhorred; the kneading troughs and ovens,
the secret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolving with the
putrid death; the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the
devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born
death-struck, and the waters blood; and last of all, that dread high
hand and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and
strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon;
earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation,
and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand-writing of
God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood--a blackened monument
of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No wonder that
God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should
uprear on its foreground a blazing beacon to flash terror on
slaveholders. "_He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be
found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."_ Ex. xxi. 16. Deut.
xxiv, 7[A]. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to
the Mosaic system!
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who
wrote seven hundred years ago, in his comment on this stealing and
making merchandize of men, gives the meaning thus:--"Using a man against
his will, as a servant lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his
services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his
arm to lean on to support him, _if he be forced so to act as a servant_,
the person compelling him but once to do so, shall die as a thief,
whether he has sold him or not."]
The word _Ganabh_ 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!_
The crime is stated in a three-fold form--man _stealing_, _selling_, and
_holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one
penalty--DEATH[A]. This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of a man,
is the _man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed
I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How
_stolen?_ His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast
this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing, Ex.
xxii. 14. If a man had stolen an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to
restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But
in the case of stealing a _man_, the _first_ act drew down the utmost
power of punishment; however often repeated or aggravated the crime,
human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for
_man_-stealing was death, and the penalty for _property_-stealing, the
mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on
totally different principles. The man stolen might be diseased or
totally past labor, consequently instead of being profitable to the
thief, he would be a tax upon him, yet death was still the penalty,
though not a cent's worth of _property-value_ was taken. The penalty for
stealing property was a mere property-penalty. However large the theft,
the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money
value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming,
nor braiding, nor even stripes, but double _of the same kind_. Why was
not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why was not the thief
required to restore double of the same kind--two men, or if he had sold
him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not _have_ them? So
the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But
if God permitted men to hold _men_ as property, equally with oxen, the
man-thief, could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the
ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the legal penalty was
a compensation to the person injured. But when a _man_ was stolen, no
property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent,
would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations.
Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against
immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To
have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double,
would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the
infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of
reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the
testimony of blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth
of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS
INVIOLABLE."--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--"I
die accursed, and God is just."
[Footnote A: "Those are _men-stealers_ who abduct, _keep_, sell, or buy
slaves or freemen." GROTIUS.]
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."
The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings
from brutes and things, shows God's regard for this, his own
distinction. "In the beginning" he proclaimed it to the universe as it
rose into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it
homage. It paused in adoration while God ushered forth its crowning
work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career
and that high conference in the godhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE
after OUR LIKENESS, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the
earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and
firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning
stars--then God created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
created he him." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATED
HE HIM. This distinction is often repeated and always with great
solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms. In Gen.
v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE HIM." In Gen.
ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving
thing that liveth," it is added, "_Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed, for_ IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As
though it had been said, "All these creatures are your property,
designed for your use--they have the likeness of earth, and their
spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness: IN
THE IMAGE OF GOD made I man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent,
invited to all that I can give and he can be. So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18,
21, "He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that
killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth
a MAN he shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, we have an
enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes
and things! 1. "_Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels."_
Slavery drags him down among _brutes._ 2. _"And hast crowned him with
glory and honor."_ Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a _yoke_. 3.
_"Thou madest him to have dominion_[A] OVER _the works of thy hands."_
Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down _among_ those works--yea,
_beneath them_. 4. _"Thou hast put all things under his feet_." Slavery
puts HIM under the feet of an "owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dare
thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the
Holy One, who saith, _"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of
these, ye did it unto ME._"
[Footnote A: "Thou madest him to have dominion." In Gen. i. 28, God says
to man, _"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," thus
vesting in _every_ human being the right of ownership over the earth,
its products and animal life, and in _each_ human being the _same_
right. By so doing God prohibited the exercise of ownership by man over
_man_; for the grant to _all_ men of _equal_ ownership, for ever _shut_
out the possibility of their exercising ownership over _each other_, as
whoever is the owner of a _man_, is the owner of his _right of
property_--in other words, when one man becomes the property of another
his rights become such too, his _right of property_ is transferred to
his "owner," and thus as far as _himself_ is concerned, is annihilated.
Finally, by originally vesting _all_ men with dominion or ownership over
property, God proclaimed the _right of all_ to exercise it, and
pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade.
Such is every slaveholder.]
In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems
will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and
as many regulations of the latter are mere _legal_ forms of Divine
institutions previously existing. As a _system_, the latter alone is of
Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs God has not
made them our exemplars.[B] The question to be settled by us, is not
what were Jewish _customs_, but what were the rules that God gave for
the regulation of those customs.
[Footnote B: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit
with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good
old slaveholders and patriarchs," might at small cost greatly augment
their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal _concubinage_,
winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal _drunkenness_, would
be a trumpet-call, summoning from brothels, bush and brake, highway and
hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each
claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is
legion." A myriad choir and thunderous song!]
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!
The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of
servants, means procuring them as _chattels_, seems based upon the
fallacy, that whatever _costs_ money _is_ money; that whatever or
whoever you pay money _for_, is an article of property, and the fact of
your paying for it, _proves_ it property. 1. The children of Israel were
required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the
priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20.
This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word _buy_ is still
used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their firstborn
were or are, held as property? They were _bought_ as really as were
_servants_. 2. The Israelites were required to pay money for their own
souls. This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were
their souls therefore marketable commodities? 3. When the Israelites set
apart themselves or their children to the Lord by vow, for the
performance of some service, an express statute provided that a _price_
should be set upon the "_persons_," and it prescribed the manner and
_terms_ of the "estimation" or valuation, by the payment of which, the
persons might be _bought off_ from the service vowed. The _price_ for
males from one month old to five years, was five shekels, for females,
three; from five years old to twenty, for males, twenty shekels, for
females, ten; from twenty years old to sixty, for males, fifty shekels,
for females, thirty; above sixty years old, for males, fifteen shekels,
for females, ten, Lev. xxvii. 2-8. What egregious folly to contend that
all these descriptions of persons were goods and chattels because they
were _bought_ and their _prices_ regulated by law! 4. Bible saints
_bought_ their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. "Moreover Ruth the Moabitess,
the wife of Mahlon, have I _purchased_ (bought) to be my wife." Ruth iv.
10.[A] Hosea bought his wife. "So I _bought_ her to me for fifteen
pieces of silver, and for an homer of Barley, and an half homer of
barley." Hosea iii. 2. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah, and not
having money, paid for them in labor--seven years a piece. Gen. xxix.
15-23. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her
by his labor, as the servant of her father.[B] Exod. ii. 21. Shechem,
when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, says, "Ask me never
so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto
me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michael, and Othniel, Achsah,
by performing perilous services for the fathers of the damsels. 1 Sam.
xviii. 25-27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the purchase of wives, either with
money or by service, was the general practice, is plain from such
passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews
this usage exists, though now a mere form, there being no _real_
purchase. Yet among their marriage ceremonies, is one called "marrying
by the penny." The similarity in the methods of procuring wives and
servants, in the terms employed in describing the transactions, and in
the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of
wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut, xxii. 28, 29, and
Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price of wives and
servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems
to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the
Israelitish female bought-servants were _wives_, their husbands and
masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If
_buying_ servants proves them property, buying wives proves _them_
property. Why not contend that the _wives_ of the ancient fathers of the
faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and
thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and
prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to
their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies
in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to
do, is questioning the morality of those "good old slaveholders and
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
[Footnote A: In the verse preceding, Boaz says, "I have _bought_ all
that was Elimelech's * * * of the hand of Naomi." In the original, the
same word (_kana_) is used in both verses. In the 9th, "a parcel of
land" is "bought," in the 10th a "wife" is "bought." If the Israelites
had been as profound at inferences as our modern Commentators, they
would have put such a fact as this to the rack till they had tortured
out of it a divine warrant for holding their wives as property and
speculating in the article whenever it happened to be scarce.]
[Footnote B: This custom still prevails in some eastern countries. The
Crim Tartars, who are poor, serve an apprenticeship for their wives,
during which they live under the same roof with them and at the close of
it are adopted into the family.]
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 _kana_.