Volume I Part 5 (2/2)

[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 pa.s.sage.]

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 rest.i.tution 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 a.s.sertion. 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, G.o.d 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 a.s.sert 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 G.o.d.

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 G.o.d 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 Pa.s.sover, 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 cla.s.s 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 G.o.d; 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 cla.s.s, 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt, 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 pa.s.sage of Scripture, and held it up as the masters' Magna Charta, by which they were licensed by G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sumption 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 G.o.d, 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_.)

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