The Bible no Refuge for Slavery.
2. Hebrew servants were bought with money and it is admitted on all hands, that they were not chattel slaves. "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing." Ex. xxi, 2. The man is clearly bought in the sense of Jewish law, and yet he clearly owns himself again on the seventh year and makes his own appropriation of himself thereafter. This buying men, instead of proving American slavery, would overthrow the whole system if incorporated into the slave code. If slaves are held by right of the Mosaic law they should have the privileges of that law. "If thy brother by thee be waxen poor and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant. Lev. xxv, 39. (For the meaning of bond-servant see hereafter on verses 44-46.) "If a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee and thy brother by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger and sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family." Verse 47. A man is here spoken of as selling himself, but that is not now the point. Also a distinction is made between a Jew thus sold, and a bond-servant, in the 39th verse, but that difference is not now the question, but shall be attended to in its place. The only point is that Jews were bought and sold under the Mosaic law, in the sense of buy and sell in the language of that law. This the texts above quoted clearly prove. But Jews could not be chattel slaves, for two reasons. First, the Jubilee set every one of them free. "Ye shall proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." Lev. xxv, 10. "He shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of Jubilee, and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him." Verses 40, 41. Secondly, every Jew had a right in the soil, and must be returned to its possession and enjoyment at the Jubilee. "In the year of this Jubilee ye shall return every man to his possession." Verse 13. "Ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." Verse 10. The point is then clear that no Jew could be a chattel slave, in the sense of American slavery, for the two reasons that all were free the seventh year, or at farthest every fiftieth year, and all at the same time were returned to a freehold estate. The argument then stands thus:—Jews were bought and sold for money; but Jews could not be chattel slaves after the pattern of American slavery; and, therefore, the simple fact that servants were bought with money, does not and cannot prove the existence of chattel slavery. 3. Wives were bought for money, or in exchange for other commodities, and yet it would not be regarded as sound to argue from thence that they were chattel slaves, or the absolute property of their husbands, in our sense of property. I will open this argument with a remarkable statute on the subject. "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.
"If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed; to sell her to a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
"And if he hath betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
"If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
"And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money."—Ex. xxi, 7-11. The comment of Dr. Adam Clarke on the text is so peculiar that I will introduce it. Of a man's selling his daughter the Dr. says, "This the Jews allowed no man to do but in extreme distress—when he had no goods, either movable or immovable left, even to the clothes on his back; and he had this privilege only while she was unmarriageable. It may appear strange that such a law should have been given; but let it be remembered that this servitude could extend, at the utmost, only to six years; and that it was nearly the same as in some cases of apprenticeship among us, where the parents bind the child for seven years, and have from the master so much per week during that period." Where is the wonder that such a statute should have been given, if the code, of which it is a part, contained and enforced the system of chattel slavery, after the American model? The law must authorize the constant sale of somebodies' daughters, not for six years, but life long, to contain anything like American slavery, and it is no wonder to me, that a man should be authorized to sell his own daughters, rather than another man's daughters. I am not sure that the Dr. is right in saying that the sale was only for six years. He no doubt grounds this upon the second verse which concerns men-servants, but it is said of the daughter sold as above, she shall not go out as the men-servants do, which was at the end of the sixth year. As to what Dr. Clarke says of its being like an apprenticeship, if the remark was made of bought servants in general, I have no doubt it would be much nearer the truth, than to suppose it was like American slavery. But I believe he has entirely mistaken the design and spirit of the statute regulating the sale of daughters, as above, and will now state my own humble opinion of the text. I believe the sale of daughters named in the text, was exclusively for wives. It is true the language is, "If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant," but she was no doubt at the same time sold as a prospective wife of the purchaser or his son. According to Dr. Clarke, the sale was allowed only while the daughter was unmarriageable, and only in case of extreme poverty. Of course such sales would take place only among the poorest of the laboring classes; and such purchases would be made, as a general rule, only by the laboring classes, as the rich would seek wives for themselves and sons among the rich. As the daughter sold belonged to the laboring class, and was sold to a purchaser of the laboring class, she must be expected to labor both before and after the sale. She is then sold as a maid-servant, but is sold at the same time as the prospective wife of the man who buys her, or of his son. She is an apprenticed wife on trial, and hence the expression, "if she please not her master who hath betrothed her." He buys her unmarriageable, and she serves a few years and becomes a woman, and he finds she will not answer for a wife and the design of the law is to provide for just this case. He has not yet married her, or the case would fall under the law of divorce. There are two cases provided for as follows: (1.) "If she please not her master who hath betrothed her to himself," that is the purchaser, a provision is made to protect her. The manner in which this is introduced in connection with the sale, without explanation, proves that, in the eye of the law, to purchase, was to betroth. It is taken for granted that he who has purchased a female under that law, had betrothed her. To betroth is to contract, in order to a future marriage. If after he has thus purchased, thus betrothed, she please him not, if he find that she will not make him such a wife as he thinks he needs, he shall let her be redeemed; that is, her father may buy her back, or any of his friends that may desire her, may redeem her by paying what he gave for her, after deducting a fair proportion for what she may have earned as a servant. He shall have no right to sell her to a strange nation, but only to take the price he paid for her as a redemption by her friends. (2.) In case she had been betrothed to his son, and the son did not like her, when she became marriageable, the law provides for her protection. The father is held responsible to treat her as a daughter, and the son to discharge to her all the duties of a husband, and if this be not attended to, she shall go out free without money. That is, the purchaser shall not be entitled122to receive back the money he paid for her, but she shall be free without being redeemed. Here then are provisions for selling persons without making chattel slaves of them. They were bought with money, without being chattels personal, as are the slaves of this country, and therefore the fact of selling and buying under the Mosaic law, does not prove that slavery existed under that law. But the object of quoting the above text has been to prove that wives were bought, and this it proves beyond doubt. That I have not mistaken the law, in supposing the sale was a betrothing of the female sold, is clear from the fact that in other cases female servants went out at the end of the sixth year, as is seen from Ex. xxi, 12-17. From these references it is clear that according to the general law, female servants were released at the end of the sixth year, but in the case under consideration, it is said they shall not go out as the men servants do; in the place of this another provision is made, founded upon the ground that they are betrothed. But there is other proof that wives were bought. Jacob bought both his wives of Laban their father. Gen. xxix, 18-27. David purchased Michal, Saul's daughter to be his wife. 1 Sam. xviii, 27. Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, wished to purchase Dinah, Jacob's daughter for a wife, and offered any price they should demand. Gen. xxxiv, 11, 12. Hosea bought a wife and paid for her, part in silver and the balance in barley. Hosea, iii, 2. Boaz said, "Ruth the Moabite, have I purchased to be my wife." Ruth, iv, 10. The word purchased, is rendered bought in the margin. Enough has been said to show that it was a common thing to purchase wives, that they were bought with money. The evidence that slavery existed in the fact that servants were bought with money, but wives were also bought with money from which it must follow either that the fact that servants were bought does not prove that they were slaves, or else the fact that wives were bought must prove that they were slaves. If servants were slaves because they were bought, then wives were slaves because they were bought. If wives were not chattel slaves, though bought with money, then servants were not necessarily chattel slaves because they were bought with money. If a wife could be bought with money without becoming a chattel slave, then buying with money does not constitute or prove the existence of chattel slavery, and the argument in proof that slavery existed, founded upon the fact that servants were bought with money, must fall to the ground. It must be true that servants were not slaves because they were bought, or else that wives were slaves because they were bought. If the ground be taken, as a last resort to support slavery, that such wives as were bought with money, were the absolute property of their husbands, and were so regarded and treated in that rude state of society, nothing will be gained. As the object is to prove that American slavery is right, the argument can be sound only upon the ground that what was practiced and tolerated then, must be right now. If all the facts alleged were admitted, viz., that chattel slavery did exist under the Mosaic code, it would not prove American slavery right, only upon the ground that what that code allowed is now right. But that code allowed parents to sell their daughters for wives and therefore such a practice must be right now. To make any argument good, we have got to take with it, all the consequences which necessarily follow from the premises. If servants were chattel slaves because they were bought, wives were slaves because they were bought. If it is right now to buy slaves because slaves were bought under the Mosaic law; it must be right to buy wives now because wives were bought under the Mosaic law. And if it be right now to hold persons in chattel slavery because it was done under the Mosaic law, it must be right not only to buy wives, but also to hold them as chattel slaves, because it was practiced under the Mosaic law. Some of the lords of creation may be ready to admit all these consequences, and be glad to have it so, yet the better half of humanity will be so unanimous in repudiating the doctrine, that the argument, carrying with it such consequences, cannot be sustained. If then it would now be regarded as a violation of the principles of the Gospel for parents to sell their daughters for wives, and for men to buy wives for themselves and sons to be owned as personal chattels, there is no proof in the Mosaic law, that American slavery is not a violation of the principles of the Gospel. If the one was practiced under the law, the other was; and if the one is now right, because it was practiced under the law, the other must be. It has been shown that Hebrew servants could be held only for the period of six years. To this rule there is one exception which should be noticed as of some importance. The whole provision reads thus: "If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
"If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
"If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out by himself.
"And 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: he shall also 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, 2-6. On this provision I remark: 1. It was clearly instituted for the benefit and protection of the servant, and not for the master's benefit. It confers no right, no discretionary power upon the master, save the right of retaining the wife and children in a given case, but it does bestow a discretionary power upon the servant. It is this, the servant sells himself for six years, and no more—"Six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free"—but the law gives the servant the power to extend the contract at the end of the sixth year, to, "for ever," as our translators have rendered it, but which I suppose means to the Jubilee. The master has no power to hold him another day, if he wishes to leave at the end of the sixth year; he has no power to turn him away; if the servant wishes to stay, he is compelled to retain him. Thus is it seen that the law is all on the side of the servant, and this does not look much like American slavery. 2. The provision is clearly to protect the servant against being separated from his wife and children, in the case where the master has the right of retaining them. This is in case the master has given him a wife. This wife might be the master's daughter, for which the servant may be supposed not to have paid the customary dowry. Or the wife may be a Hebrew maid-servant, having one, two, three or four of the six years yet to serve before she can go out. Or, what is more probable, the wife may be a servant from the Gentiles, a proselyte, bound to serve until the Jubilee. In either of these cases, it would be doing violence to the marriage relation, to send the servant away without his wife and children, and hence the law provides that the servant may demand an extension of the contract of his servitude "for ever," that is, as I understand it, to the Jubilee. Let but this provision be introduced into American slavery, and let the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children be thus interdicted, and it will soon destroy the whole system. How strange it is that what would overthrow the whole system of slavery if introduced and enforced, should be relied upon for its support! 3. Whatever may be thought of the law under consideration, in all other aspects, it is certain that the service is voluntarily entered into, on the part of the servant, after trying it six years, and this destroys all analogy to American slavery. The procedure of boring the servant's ear with an awl, is merely a prescribed form of recording the testimony in such cases, and has no bearing on the main point at issue. I will not criticise upon the words "for ever," which I suppose mean unto the Jubilee, as this will come up for consideration hereafter in connection with another text. The next resort of slavery is to the following provision of the law. "If a man smite his servant or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." Ex. xxi, 20, 21. This law does not institute or establish slavery, or any kind of servitude. It merely refers to it, for the purpose of settling a rule of jurisprudence, applicable in peculiar cases. It assumes the fact that there are masters and servants, but it does not establish, legalize or justify the relation, but it provides for the administration of justice between the parties in a given case. The only proof which the text can be supposed to furnish in support of slavery, must depend upon two circumstances. The fact that the master presumes to smite the servant with a rod, and the fact that the servant is declared to be the master's money. These two points need examination. Does the fact that the law presumes that a master may smite his servant with a rod that he die, prove that the servant is a chattel slave? Surely not. There is no proof that the smiting is in any sense authorized or justified by this or any other law. Smiting itself is not justified, even if it be not unto death. The laws of our slaveholding states authorize masters directly to punish their slaves, but no such liberty is given in the Scriptures. We challenge the production of the first text which authorizes a master to inflict corporal correction upon a servant. Parents are required to correct their children. This principle is contained in all the following texts. Deut. viii, 5; Prov. iii, 12; xiii, 24; xix, 18; xxiii, 13, 14; xxix, 15-17; Heb. xii, 7-9. While the scriptures are so full and explicit on the subject of the correction of children by parents, there is not one text which requires masters, or even authorizes them to punish their servants. Again, the law provides that parents, who have a son whom they cannot govern, may hand him over to the public authorities to be judged and punished, but there is no such provision for masters, who have disobedient servants. See Deut. xxi, 18-22. The punishment of servants is without lawful authority and is always unlawful. If it be supposed that the fact that it is made punishable for a master to kill his servant with a rod, renders it lawful to beat him with a rod, provided he does not kill him; the reply is, that the same mode of reasoning will prove it lawful for men to fight, provided they do not kill or disable each other. The 18th and 19th verses provide for a case where two men strive together, and one smites the other with a stone or his fist. Will it be contended that the striving is thereby rendered lawful? Certainly not. No more is it rendered lawful for a master to beat his servant with a rod, because the law provides that he shall be punished if he kills him while doing so. The fact then that the scriptures take it for granted that a master is liable to get in a passion and smite his servant that he die, and provides for his punishment, does not give the least countenance to slavery. But "he is his money." This doubtless is regarded as the strong hold of slavery. All that is necessary for me to prove is that it does not necessarily involve chattel slavery, and this will be easily accomplished. 1. The statute is a general one, including all classes of servants, many of whom it has been seen, were not and could not be chattel slaves. The 26th and 29th verses are of the same general character. If a man smote out the eye or the tooth of a servant, he was free. These laws protect all kinds of servants, Hebrew servants as well as others. It has been shown that Hebrew servants were bought with money, and of course, it was just as true of these that they were the money of their masters as of others. As the text affirms of a Hebrew servant as clearly as of any other, "he is his money," and as a Hebrew servant could not be a chattel-slave, the text affirms that he is money who cannot be a slave, and therefore it cannot prove those to be slaves of whom it affirms. 2. The language is most clearly figurative, and can be literally true only in a sense which divests it of all proof of chattelship. "He is his money." All money in those days was gold or silver. But the servant was neither gold or silver, and was not money. A literal translation would strengthen this view. The expression, "he is his money" literally translated would read, "his silver is he." But a servant is not silver, is not money, but flesh123and blood and bones, body and soul. What then is meant by the expression? Simply this, he has cost the master money, the master has the value of money in him, and loses money's value by his death. But this is true of all servants bought with money, or whose wages are paid in advance, and therefore the expression cannot prove that the servant said to be the money is a chattel slave. 3. The obvious intention of the whole statute, as well as of that particular clause, requires no such construction, but the end is reached just as clearly and forcibly without involving the chattel principle. The design of the general statute is to secure the condemnation of the master in case of willful murder, and thereby furnish greater security to the servant; as well as to secure the master against being put to death as a murderer when no murder was intended. It is not to be inferred that the killing is to be punished as an inferior crime, because the killed is a servant. The translation perverts the sense. The word, nakam translated punished, should be rendered avenged. It is not the master that is to be avenged, but the servant's death, which under the circumstances necessarily means that the master shall be put to death as a murderer. This word, though it occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament, is translated punished in no other text, but is generally translated avenged and in a very few instances, to take vengeance or to revenge. The word is thus defined in Roy's Hebrew and English Dictionary: "Nakam. 1. He recompensed or paid; 2. avenged, revenged, cut off, as murderers; 3. vindicated, advocated, as the cause of another." The object of the statute is to secure such execution in one case, and to prevent it in another. If the master smite his servant with a rod, and he die under his hand, the death shall surely be avenged. The instrument is a rod, not an axe. A man might kill with an axe, without intending it, but not with a rod. If the servant died under his hand, and a rod only was used, the proof is positive that he meant to kill him, and must have done it willfully and by protracted torture. Though a man might be likely to take some more fatal instrument, if he meant to kill, yet the fact that he did kill with such an instrument, is proof positive that he meant to kill, and the avenger is authorized to smite him as a murderer. But suppose the servant does not die under his hand, but continues a day or two, then his death shall not be avenged. And why? Because the evidence is not clear that he meant to kill him. He did not kill him on the spot, as he would most likely have done had he designed to take his life. Moreover it was only a rod with which he smote him, and this is presumptive evidence that he did not mean to kill him; had he designed his death, he would have been likely to select a more fatal instrument than a rod with which to smite. Finally, "he is his money;" that is, he has a monied interest in him, and loses the worth of money by his death, and this is an additional proof that he did not mean to kill him. The design of this statement, "he is his money," is to show that the master's monied interest was against his killing the servant, that he lost money by his death, and this is just as clear in the case of a Hebrew servant bought with money, who could not be a chattel-slave. The monied argument is good in the case of any servant, whose wages are paid in advance, and as that kind of service was common, the idea of chattel slavery is not in the least involved. It is no part of the design of the text to create, legalize or justify the right of property in man, but merely to use the fact of a monied interest in a man, as collateral evidence that murder was not intended, and this object is secured as well without the assumption of chattel slavery as it is by recourse to that terrible position. It need only be remarked that the law in question provides only for the case, as a public offence. There can be no question that the servant, in case of abuse or injury, might appear in the court against his master, and receive justice at the hands of the judges, in an action for private damages.