Part 24 (1/2)

What a myriad choir and thunderous song.]

Before entering upon an a.n.a.lysis 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 _a.s.sumed_. To beg the question in debate, would be vast economy of midnight oil! and a great forestaller of wrinkles and grey hairs! Instead of protracted investigation into Scripture usage, with painful collating of pa.s.sages, to find 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, if he only understood the dialect of his own neighborhood! What a Babel-jargon it would make of the Bible 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 _antic.i.p.ate_. 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 wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d,”--”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,”--”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 establis.h.i.+ng the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means _now_. Pity that fas.h.i.+onable 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 s.h.i.+ftings of fas.h.i.+on, by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency now flaunting on promenade, was the very style of dress in which the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, and the modest Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servants. Since such fas.h.i.+ons are rife in Broadway _now_, they _must_ have been in Canaan and Padanaram 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. The children of Israel were required to purchase their first-born from under the obligations of the priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; Ex. xiii. 13; x.x.xiv. 20. This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word _buy_ is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born 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.) Bible saints _bought_ their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. ”So Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I _purchased_ to be my wife.” Ruth iv. 10. 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. 15-29. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father. 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. x.x.xiv. 11, 12. David purchased Michal, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services for their fathers. 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 pa.s.sages 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 coincidences 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 patriarchs and slaveholders, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

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 of 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 this mountain which his right hand had _purchased_,” (gotten.) Jer. xiii. 4.

”Take the girdle that thou hast got” (bought.) Neh. v. 8. ”We of our ability have _redeemed_ (bought) our brethren that were sold to the heathen.” Here ”_bought_” is not applied to persons reduced to servitude, but to those taken _out_ of it. Prov. 8. 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_.

Even at this day the word _buy_ is used to describe the procuring of servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies, where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still ”bought.” This is the current word in West India newspapers. Ten years since servants were ”_bought_” in New-York, as really as in Virginia, yet the different senses in which the word was used in the two states, put no man in a quandary. Under the system of legal _indenture_ in Illinois, servants now are ”_bought._”[A] Until recently immigrants to this country were ”bought” in great numbers. By voluntary contract they engaged to work a given time to pay for their pa.s.sage. This cla.s.s of persons called ”redemptioners,” consisted at one time of thousands. Mult.i.tudes are ”bought” _out_ of slavery by themselves or others. Under the same roof with the writer is a ”servant bought with money.” A few weeks since, she was a slave; when ”bought” she was a slave no longer. Alas! for our leading politicians if ”buying” men makes them ”chattels.” The Whigs say that Benton and Rives are ”bought” by the administration; and the other party, that Clay and Webster are ”bought” by the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was ”bought” by British gold. When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus. .h.i.ts off the indecency, ”The cotton bags _bought_ him.” Sir Robert Walpole said, ”Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can _buy_ him,” and John Randolph said, ”The northern delegation is in the market, give me money enough, and I can _buy_ them;” both meant just what they said. The temperance publications tell us that candidates for office _buy_ men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were _bought_, yet we have no floating visions of ”chattels personal,” man auctions, or coffles.

[Footnote A: The following statute is now in force in the free state of Illinois--No negro, mulatto, or Indian shall at any time _purchase_ any servant other than of their own complexion: and if any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to _purchase_ a white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed and taken.]

The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use of ”buy” and ”bought with money.” Gen, xlvii. 18-26. The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, ”Behold I have _bought you_ this day,” and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons _bought_ as articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine. The idea attached by both parties to ”buy us,” and ”behold I have bought you,” was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return for _value received_, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft of their personal owners.h.i.+p, and made articles of property. And this buying of _services_ (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in Scripture usage, _buying the persons_. This case claims special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is detailed--the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the _mere fact_ is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole process is laid open. (1.) The persons ”bought,” _sold themselves_, and of their own accord. (2.) Obtaining permanently the _services_ of persons, or even a portion of them, is called ”buying” those persons.

The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were bought of _third_ persons; and thence infers that they were articles of property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer _a.s.sumptions_. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which a _master sold his servant_. That servants who were ”bought” _sold themselves_ is a fair inference from various pa.s.sages of Scripture.

In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the words are, ”If he SELL HIMSELF unto the stranger.”

The _same word_, and the same _form_ of the word, which, in verse 47, is rendered _sell himself_, is in verse 39 of the same chapter, rendered _be sold_; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is rendered ”be sold.”

”And there ye shall BE SOLD unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women and NO MAN SHALL BUY YOU.” How could they ”_be sold_” without _being bought_? Our translation makes it nonsense. The word _Makar_ rendered ”be sold” is used here in the Hithpael conjugation, which is generally reflexive in its force, and, like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an individual does for himself, and should manifestly have been rendered, ”ye shall _offer yourselves_ for sale, and there shall be no purchaser.” For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25--”Thou hast _sold thyself_ to work evil.” ”There was none like to Ahab that _sold himself_ to work wickedness.”--2 Kings xvii. 17. ”They used divination and enchantments, and _sold themselves_ to do evil.”--Isa. l. 1. ”For your iniquities have ye _sold yourselves_.” Isa. lii. 3, ”Ye have _sold yourselves_ FOR NOUGHT, and ye shall be redeemed without money.” See also, Jer. x.x.xiv. 14--Romans vii.

14, vi. 16--John viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is generally stated that they were bought of _third_ persons. If _servants_ were bought of third persons, it is strange that no _instance_ of it is on record.

II.--THE LEADING DESIGN OF THE LAWS RELATING TO SERVANTS, WITH THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED TO THEM.

The general object of the laws defining the relations of master and servant, was the good of both parties--more especially the good of the _servants_. While the master's interests were guarded from injury, those of the servants were _promoted_. These laws made a merciful provision for the poorer cla.s.ses, both of the Israelites and Strangers, not laying on burdens, but lightening them--they were a grant of _privileges_ and _favors_.

I. No servant from the Strangers, could remain in the family of an Israelite without becoming a proselyte. Compliance with this condition was the _price of the privilege_.--Gen. xvii. 9-14, 23, 27.

II. Excommunication from the family was a PUNISHMENT.--Gen. xxi. 14.

Luke xvi. 2-4.

III. Every Hebrew servant could COMPEL his master to keep him after the six years contract had expired. This shows that the system was framed to advance the interests and gratify the wishes of the servant quite as much as those of the master. If the servant _demanded_ it, the law _obliged_ the master to retain him, however little he might need his services. Deut. xv. 12-17. Ex. xxi. 2-6.