To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism.[A] It not only eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out its sun. The refusal to release servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's redemption. But even if forever did refer to individual service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same word defines the length of time which Jewish servants served who did not go out at the end of their six years' term. And all admit that they went out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv. 12-17. The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "forever" in the 46th verse extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold FOREVER, for the land is mine"—since it would hardly be used in different senses in the same general connection. As forever, in the 46th verse, respects the general arrangement, and not individual service the objection does not touch the argument. Besides, in the 46th verse, the word used is Olam, meaning throughout the period, whatever that may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth, meaning, a cutting off, or to be cut off; and the import of it is, that the owner of an inheritance shall not forfeit his proprietorship of it; though it may for a time pass from his control into the hands of his creditors or others, yet the owner shall be permitted to redeem it, and even if that be not done, it shall not be "cut off," but shall revert to him at the jubilee.

[Footnote A: So far from the Strangers not being released by the proclamation of liberty on the morning of the jubilee, they were the only persons who were, as a body, released by it. The rule regulating the service of Hebrew servants was, "Six years shall he serve, and in the seventh year he shall go out free." The free holders who had "fallen into decay," and had in consequence mortgaged their inheritances to their more prosperous neighbors, and become in some sort their servants, were released by the jubilee, and again resumed their inheritances. This was the only class of Jewish servants (and it could not have been numerous,) which was released by the jubilee; all others went out at the close of their six years' term.]

3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a POSSESSION. This, as has been already remarked refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants procured from the senations. The holding of servants as a possession is discussed at large pp. 47-64. To what is there advanced we here subjoin a few brief considerations. We have already shown, that servants could not he held as a property possession, and inheritance; that they became such of their own accord, were paid wages, released from their regular labor nearly half the days in each year, thoroughly instructed and protected in all their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their masters. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable "possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition! Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, "OUR PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages—and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words nahal and nahala, inherit and inheritance, by no means necessarily signify articles of property. "The people answered the king and said, "we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of property? "Children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps. cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine inheritance." Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them articles of property? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes? "I am their inheritance." Ezek. xliv. 28. "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Ps. ii. 18. See also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 18.

The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"possession," has been already discussed, pp. 47-64, we need add in this place but a word. As an illustration of the condition of servants from the heathen that were the "possession" of Israelitish families, and of the way in which they became servants, the reader is referred to Isa. xiv. 1, 2. "For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers will be joined with them, and they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over the oppressors."

We learn from these verses, 1st. That these servants which were to be "possessed" by the Israelites, were to be "joined with them," i.e., become proselytes to their religion. 2d. That they should "CLEAVE to the house of Jacob," i.e., that they would forsake their own people voluntarily, attach themselves to the Israelites as servants, and of their own free choice leave home and friends, to accompany them on their return, and to take up their permanent abode with them, in the same manner that Ruth accompanied Naomi from Moab to the land of Israel, and that the "souls gotten" by Abraham in Padanaram, accompanied him when he left it and went to Canaan. "And the house of Israel shall possess them for servants," i.e. shall have them for servants.

In the passage under consideration, "they shall be your possession," the original word translated "possession" is ahuzza. The same word is used in Gen. xlvii. 11. "And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlvii. 11. In what sense was Goshen the possession of the Israelites? Answer, in the sense of having it to live in, not in the sense of having it as owners. In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for their children? Answer, they possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus: "Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy male and female domestics." "Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your permanent resource." "And ye shall take them as a perpetual source of supply to whom your children after you shall resort for servants. ALWAYS, of them shall ye serve yourselves." The design of the passage is manifest from its structure. So far from being a permission to purchase slaves, it was a prohibition to employ Israelites for a certain term and in a certain grade of service, and to point out the class of persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the way in which they were to get them.[A]

[Footnote A: Rabbi Leeser, who translated from the German the work entitled "Instruction in the Mosaic Religion" by Professor Jholson of the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in his comment on these verses, says, "It must be observed that it was prohibited to SUBJECT a Stranger to slavery. The buying of slaves alone is permitted, but not stealing them."

Now whatever we call that condition in which servants were, whether servitude or slavery, and whatever we call the persons in that condition, whether servants or slaves, we have at all events, the testimony that the Israelites were prohibited to subject a Stranger to that condition, or in other words, the free choice of the servant was not to be compelled. ]



OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.

As only one class is called "hired," it is inferred that servants of the other class were not paid for their labor. That God, while thundering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people. The inference that "hired" is synonymous with paid, and that those servants not called "hired," were not paid for their labor, is a mere assumption. The meaning of the English verb to hire, is to procure for a temporary use at a certain price—to engage a person to temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word "saukar." It is not used when the procurement of permanent service is spoken of. Now, we ask, would permanent servants, those who constituted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the same term that marks temporary servants? The every-day distinctions in this matter, are familiar as table-talk. In many families the domestics perform only the regular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. The familiar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," and "hired help," (not paid help.) Both classes are paid. One is permanent, and the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called "hired."[A] A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing, hired from bought servants. 1. Hired servants were paid daily at the close of their work. Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Job. vii. 2; Matt. xx. 8. "Bought" servants were paid in advance, (a reason for their being called bought,) and those that went out at the seventh year received a gratuity. Deut. xv. 12, 13. 2. The "hired" were paid in money, the "bought" received their gratuity, at least, in grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xv. 14. 3. The "hired" lived in their own families, the "bought" were a part of their masters' families. 4. The "hired" supported their families out of their wages; the "bought" and their families were supported by the master beside their wages. 5. Hired servants were expected to work more constantly, and to have more working hours in the day than the bought servants. This we infer from the fact, that "a hireling's day," was a sort of proverbial phrase, meaning a full day. No subtraction of time being made from it. So a hireling's year signifies an entire year without abatement. Job. vii. 1; xiv. 6; Isa. xvi. 14; xxi. 16.

[Footnote A: To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a hired servant, is profound induction! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my "hired" man, but if I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm "on shares," every farmer knows that he is no longer called a "hired" man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same times, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps clears twenty dollars a month, instead of twelve. Now as he is no longer called "hired," and as he still works my farm, suppose my neighbors sagely infer, that since he is not my "hired" laborer, I rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, pronounce their oracular decision, and hoot it abroad. My neighbors are deep divers! like some theological professors, they go not only to the bottom but come up covered with the tokens.]

The "bought" servants, were, as a class, superior to the hired—were more trust-worthy, were held in higher estimation, had greater privileges, and occupied a more elevated station in society. 1. They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master, were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10, 11; Ex. xii. 43, 45. 2. Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters' family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their masters' estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of Bilhah, and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We find traces of this usage in the New Testament. "But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves saying, this is the heir, come let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." Luke xx. 14. In no instance does a hired servant inherit his master's estate. 3. Marriages took place between servants and their master's daughters. "Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife." 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a hired servant forming such an alliance. 4. Bought servants and their descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the other members of the family.[A] The treatment of Abraham's servants. Gen. xxiv. and xviii. 1-7; the intercourse between Gideon and Phurah Judg. vii. 10, 11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22; Jonathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14, and Elisha and Gehazi are illustrations. The tenderness exercised towards home-born servants or the children of handmaids, and the strength of the tie that bound them to the family, are employed by the Psalmist to illustrate the regard of God for him, his care over him, and his own endearing relation to him, when in the last extremity he prays, "Save the son of thy handmaid." Ps. lxxxvi. 16. So also in Ps. cxvi. 16. Oh Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid. Also, Jer. ii. 14. Is Israel a servant? Is he a home-born?[B] WHY IS HE SPOILED? No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants and their masters. Their untrustworthiness was proverbial. John x. 12, 13. They were reckoned at but half the value of bought servants. Deut. xv. 18. None but the lowest class of the people engaged as hired servants, and the kinds of labor assigned to them required little knowledge and skill. No persons seem to have become hired servants except such as were forced to it from extreme poverty. The hired servant is called "poor and needy," and the reason assigned by God why he should be paid as soon as he had finished his work is, "For he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it." Deut. xxiv. 14, 15. See also, 1 Sam. ii. 5. Various passages show the low repute and trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judg. ix. 4; 1 Sam. ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high trust confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the household. In no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. The bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the family, sometimes with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant, not to take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The servant himself selected the individual. Servants exercised discretionary power in the management of their masters' estates, "And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his master were in his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power in the disposal of property. Gen. xxiv. 22, 30, 53. The condition of Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of the talents, the master seems to have set up each of his servants in trade with a large capital. The unjust steward had large discretionary power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods," and manifestly regulated with his debtors the terms of settlement. Luke xvi. 4-8. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants.

[Footnote A: "For the purchased servant who is an Israelite, or proselyte, shall fare as his master. The master shall not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor yet drink old wine, and give his servant new: nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, and his servant on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a purchased servant does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if he got himself a master."—Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1, Sec. 2.]

[Footnote B: Our translators in rendering it "Is he a home-born SLAVE," were wise beyond what is written.]

The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, the memory of his home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the lowest class of servants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast, that he exclaimed, "How many hired servants of my father, have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart broke. "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father;" and then to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add; "Make me as one of thy hired servants." If hired servants were the superior class—to bespeak the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he sobs aloud, "The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos.

It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." If this were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of all ill-desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.

Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to each class of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely political, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than even the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two classes of bought servants. The Israelite was to serve six years—the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor houses, except within walled towns, they would naturally attach themselves to Israelitish families. Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need servants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to become servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poorer Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3. Hence, to forego the control of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six[A] years; as, during that time—if of the first class—the partition of the patrimonial land might have taken place or, if of the second, enough money might have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might assume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency had occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offered, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had passed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the Stranger to prolong his term of service;[B] and the same kindness which dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as the general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who had every inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a temporary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a measure of prevention; not pursued as a permanent business, but resorted to on emergencies—a sort of episode in the main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Stranger, it was a permanent employment, pursued both as a means of bettering their own condition, and that of their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.

[Footnote A: Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations, and general internal structure, were graduated upon a septennial scale. Besides, as those Israelites who had become servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients to recruit their finances had failed—(Lev. xxv. 35)—their becoming servants proclaimed such a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them.]

[Footnote B: The Stranger had the same inducements to prefer a long term of service that those have who cannot own land, to prefer a long lease.]

We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the heathen, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen,) 1. They followed it as a permanent business. 2. Their term of service was much longer than that of the other class. 3. As a class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. 4. All the Strangers that dwelt in the land were tributaries, required to pay an annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service, (called a "tribute of bond-service;") in other words, all the Strangers were national servants, to the Israelites, and the same Hebrew word used to designate individual servants, equally designates national servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14; 2 Chron. viii. 7-9; Deut, xx. 11; 2 Sam. x. 19; 1 Kings ix. 21, 22; 1 Kings iv. 21; Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3.; Judg. iii. 8, 14; Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought servants, was in their kinds of service. The servants from the Strangers were properly the domestics, or household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was required by increasing wants and needed repairs. The Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively agricultural. Besides being better fitted for it by previous habits, agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report of him is, "And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field." 1 Sam. xi. 5. Elisha "was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah "loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gideon was "threshing wheat" when called to lead the host against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agriculture is shown, in that it was protected and supported by the fundamental law of the theocracy—God indicating it as the chief prop of the government. The Israelites were like permanent fixtures on their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturists on their own patrimonial inheritances, was with them the grand claim to honorable estimation. When Ahab proposed to Naboth that he should sell him his vineyard, king though he was, he might well have anticipated from an Israelitish freeholder, just such an indignant burst as that which his proposal drew forth, "And Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." 1 Kings xxi. 2, 3. Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed degrading.[C] In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, practically to unjew him, a hardship and a rigor grievous to be borne, as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abraham and the Strangers. To guard this and another fundamental distinction, God instituted the regulation, "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to servant's work—to the business, and into the condition of domestics. In the Persian version it is translated, "Thou shalt not assign to him the work of servitude." In the Septuagint, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a domestic." In the Syriac, "Thou shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Samaritan, "Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a servant." In the Targum of Onkelos, "He shall not serve thee with the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."[D] The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics. The remainder of the regulation is—"But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters; they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority; and this, even though they resided under the same roof with their master. The same substantially may be said of the sojourner though he was not the owner of the land which he cultivated, and of course had not the control of an inheritance, yet he was not in a condition that implied subjection to him whose land he tilled, or that demanded the surrender of any right, or exacted from him any homage, or stamped him with any inferiority; unless, it be supposed that a degree of inferiority would naturally attach to a state of dependence however qualified. While bought servants were associated with their master's families at meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Hired servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any such sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scriptures as practicable to masters, is that of keeping back their wages. To have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, would have been pre-eminent "rigor;" for it was not a servant born in the house of a master, nor a minor, whose minority had been sold by the father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheritance, nor finally, one who had received the assignment of his inheritance, but was working off from it an incumbrance, before entering upon its possession and control. But it was that of the head of a family, who had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the competence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. So sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy; but one consolation cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage; he is an Israelite—Abraham is his father and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever, to the distinction conferred by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were "the unkindest cut of all." To have assigned him to a grade of service filled only by those whose permanent business was serving, would have been to "rule over him with" peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or literally, thou shalt not serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties his political privileges, and a kind and grade of service comporting with his character and relations as an Israelite. And "as a hired servant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," secures to him his family organization, the respect and authority due to its head, and the general consideration resulting from such a station. Being already in possession of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law so arranged the conditions of his service as to alleviate as much as possible the calamity which had reduced him from independence and authority, to penury and subjection. The import of the command which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, ("Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not disregard those differences in previous associations, station, authority, and political privileges, upon which this regulation is based; for to hold this class of servants irrespective of these distinctions, and annihilating them, is to "rule with rigor." The same command is repeated in the forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between servants of Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the disregard of which would be rigorous in the extreme.[E] The construction commonly put upon the phrase "rule with rigor," and the inference drawn from it, have an air vastly oracular. It is interpreted to mean, "you shall not make him a chattel, and strip him of legal protection, nor force him to work without pay." The inference is like unto it, viz., since the command forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and commissioned their infliction upon the Strangers. Such impious and shallow smattering captivates scoffers and libertines; its flippancy and blasphemy, and the strong scent of its loose-reined license works like a charm upon them. What boots it to reason against such rampant affinities! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that the Egyptians, "made the children of Israel to serve with rigor." This rigor is affirmed of the amount of labor extorted and the mode of the exaction. The expression "serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shall not RULE over him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise. But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for the same term of time and under the same political disabilities as the latter.

[Footnote C: The Babylonish captivity seems to have greatly modified Jewish usage in this respect. Before that event, their cities were comparatively small, and few were engaged in mechanical or mercantile employments. Afterward their cities enlarged apace and trades multiplied.]

[Footnote D: Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" is, "The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any thing which is accounted degrading—such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his master's shoe-latchet, bringing him water to wash his hands and feet, waiting on him at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor, until his legal release."]

[Footnote E: The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions, based on a different national descent, and important to the preservation of nation characteristics, and a national worship, did not at all affect their social estimation. They were regarded according to their character and worth as persons, irrespective of their foreign origin, employments and political condition.]



We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each.

In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in their persons, character, property and social relations; all were voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released from it nearly one half of the days in each year; all were furnished with stated instruction; none in either class were in any sense articles of property, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, hopes and destinies of men. In all these respects, all classes of servants among the Israelites, formed but ONE CLASS. The different classes, and the differences in each class, were, 1. Hired Servants. This class consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their employments were different. The Israelite was an agricultural servant. The Stranger was a domestic and personal servant, and in some instances mechanical; both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own families, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work was done. 2. Bought Servants, (including those "born in the house.") This class also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same difference in their kinds of employment as noticed before. Both were paid in advance,[A] and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the exception of the freeholder, completed his term in six years. The Stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked distinction obtained also between different classes of Jewish bought servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master's family, and, like his wife and children, subject to his authority; (and, like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But the freeholder was an exception; his family relations and authority remained unaffected, nor was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though dependent on him for employment.

[Footnote A: The payment in advance, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase; the servant thus having the use of the money, and the master assuming all the risks of life, and health for labor; at the expiration of the six years' contract, the master having suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for this is, "he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies, therefore, "thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c. This gratuity at the close of the service shews the principle of the relation; equivalent for value received. ]

It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal, natural and religious rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own people who were not servants. They also shared in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether servants of Jewish masters, or masters of Jewish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively political and national. 1. They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. 2. They were ineligible to civil offices. 3. They were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute, and deemed unjewish.

Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political privileges, their condition was much like that of unnaturalized foreigners in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privileges, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration. Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government "rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.



FINALLY.—As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife with meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve inviolate the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Ex. xxi. 2-6, is an illustration. In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term expired in six years, married one of his master's permanent female domestics; but her marriage did not release her master from his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific grade and term of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfil her part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To render it void, would have been to divide the system against itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.[B] By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing; and in that case, the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant in the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of marriage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his taste and skill. The great number of days on which the law released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more time with his family, than can be spent by most of the agents of our benevolent societies with their families, or by many merchants, editors, artists, &c., whose daily business is in New York, while their families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.

[Footnote B: Whoever profoundly studies the Mosaic Institutes with a teachable and reverential spirit, will feel the truth and power of that solemn appeal and interrogatory of God to his people Israel, when he had made an end of setting before them all his statutes and ordinances. "What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments SO RIGHTEOUS, as all this law which I set before you this day." Deut. iv. 8.]



We conclude this inquiry by touching upon an objection, which, though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this,—"The slavery of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their sins."[A] If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh at itself; it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by a general contribution. Only one statute was ever given respecting the disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was pronounced against them, and afterwards commuted, when? where? by whom? and in what terms was the commutation, and where is it recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination; how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal human nature, and instead of healing a wound, gives a death-stab. What! repair an injury to rational being in the robbery of one of its rights, not only by robbing it of all, but by annihilating their foundation, the everlasting distinction between persons and things? To make a man a chattel, is not the punishment, but the annihilation of a human being, and, so far as it goes, of all human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery! Alas! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate, from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left it! Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation; but must for the present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. WERE THE CANAANITES SENTENCED BY GOD TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as QUERIES, rather than laid down as doctrines. The directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages, Ex. xxiii. 23-33; xxxiv. 11; Deut. vii. 16-24; ix. 3; xxxi. 3-5. In these verses, the Israelites are commanded to "destroy the Canaanites," to "drive out," "consume," "utterly overthrow," "put out," "dispossess them," &c. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction of the individuals, or merely of the body politic? The word haram, to destroy, signifies national, as well as individual destruction; the destruction of political existence, equally with personal; of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects. Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to mean personal destruction, what meaning shall we give to the expressions, "drive out before thee," "cast out before thee," "expel," "put out," "dispossess," &c., which are used in the same and in parallel passages? In addition to those quoted above, see Josh. iii. 10; xvii. 18; xxiii. 5; xxiv. 18; Judg. i. 20, 29-35; vi. 9. "I will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." Ex. xxiii. 27. Here "all their enemies" were to turn their backs, and "all the people" to be "destroyed." Does this mean that God would let all their enemies escape, but kill their friends, or that he would first kill "all the people" and THEN make them "turn their backs," an army of runaway corpses? In Josh. xxiv. 8, God says, speaking of the Amorites, "I destroyed them from before you." In the 18th verse of the same chapter, it is said, "The Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land." In Num. xxxii. 39, we are told that "the children of Machir the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead, and took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which was in it." If these commands required the destruction of all the individuals, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for directions as to the treatment of native residents form a large part of it. See Lev. xix. 34; xxv. 35, 36; xxiv. 22.; Ex. xxiii. 9; xxii. 21; Deut. i. 16, 17; x. 17, 19; xxvii. 19. We find, also, that provision was made for them in the cities of refuge, Num. xxxv. 15,—the gleanings of the harvest and vintage were theirs, Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxiii. 22;—the blessings of the Sabbath, Ex. xx. 10;—the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev. xxii. 18; and stated religious instruction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now does this same law require the individual extermination of those whose lives and interests it thus protects? These laws were given to the Israelites, long before they entered Canaan; and they must have inferred from them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land were to continue in it, under their government. Again Joshua was selected as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan. He had no discretionary power. God's commands were his official instructions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation; refusing to carry them out, rebellion and treason. Saul was rejected from being king for disobeying God's commands in a single instance. Now if God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanites Joshua disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, the Israelites still "dwelt among them," and each nation is mentioned by name. Judg. i. 27-36, and yet we are told that Joshua "left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses;" and that he "took all that land." Josh. xi. 15-22. Also, that "there stood not a man of all their enemies before them." Josh. xxi. 44. How can this be if the command to destroy, destroy utterly, &c., enjoined individual extermination, and the command to drive out, unconditional expulsion from the country, rather than their expulsion from the possession or ownership of it, as the lords of the soil? That the latter is the true sense to be attached to those terms, we argue, further from the fact that the same terms are employed by God to describe the punishment which he would inflict upon the Israelites if they served other Gods. "Ye shall utterly perish," "be utterly destroyed," "consumed," &c., are some of them.—See Deut. iv. 20; viii. 19, 20.[B] Josh. xxiii. 12, 13-16; 1. Sam. xii. 25. The Israelites did serve other Gods, and Jehovah did execute upon them his threatenings—and thus himself interpreted these threatenings. He subverted their government, dispossessed them of their land, divested them of national power, and made them tributaries, but did not exterminate them. He "destroyed them utterly" as an independent body politic, but not as individuals. Multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but not a case can be found in which one was either killed or expelled who acquiesced in the transfer of the territory, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab and her kindred, and that of the Gibeonites.[C] The Canaanites knew of the miracles wrought for the Israelites; and that their land had been transferred to them as a judgment for their sins. Josh. ii. 9-11; ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance. Others defied God and came out to battle. These last occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate heathen—the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that aided in idolatrous rites, and the military forces, with the chief profligates of both sexes. Many facts corroborate the general position. Witness that command (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,) which, not only prohibited the surrender of the fugitive servant to his master, but required the Israelites to receive him with kindness, permit him to dwell where he pleased, and to protect and cherish him. Whenever any servant, even a Canaanite, fled from his master to the Israelites, Jehovah, so far from commanding them to kill him, straitly charged them, "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. 16. The Canaanitish servant by thus fleeing to the Israelites, submitted himself as a dutiful subject to their national government, and pledged his allegiance. Suppose all the Canaanites had thus submitted themselves to the Jewish theocracy, and conformed to the requirements of the Mosaic institutes, would not all have been spared upon the same principle that one was? Again, look at the multitude of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, after they had "waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of their name—the Canaanites, Philistines and others, who became proselytes—as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite—Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah—Jether, an Ishmaelite, who married Abigail the sister of David and was the father of Amasa, the captain of the host of Israel. Comp. 1 Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii. 25.—Ittai—the six hundred Gittites, David's body guard. 2. Sam xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, adopted into the tribe of Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18, and xxvi. 4, 5—Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron, xxvii. 30, 31. Jephunneh the Kenezite, Josh. xiv. 6, and father of Caleb a ruler of the tribe of Judah. Numb. xiii. 2, 6—the Kenites registered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, Judg. i. 16; 1 Chron. ii. 55, and the one hundred and fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of the Temple.[D] Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to save a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those who would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12-14. Further—the terms employed in the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites, such as "drive out," "put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c., seem used interchangeably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," &c., and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an illustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar terms, we refer to the history of the Amalekites. "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." Ex. xvii. 14. "Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. "Smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." 1 Sam. xv. 2, 3. "Saul smote the Amalekites, and he took Agag the king of the Amalekites, alive and UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL THE PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." Verses 7, 8. In verse 20, Saul says, "I have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. 1, 2, we find the Amalekites marching an army into Israel, and sweeping everything before them—and this in about eighteen years after they had all been "UTTERLY DESTROYED!" In 1 Kings ii. 15-17, is another illustration. We are informed that Joab remained in Edom six months with all Israel, "until he had cut off every male" in Edom. In the next verse we learn that Hadad and "certain Edomites" were not slain. Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding view. We argue that the command in these verses, did not include all the individuals of the Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabitants of the cities, (and even those conditionally,) because, only the inhabitants of cities are specified—"of the cities of these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Cities then, as now, were pest-houses of vice, they reeked with abominations little practised in the country. On this account, their influence would be far more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. Besides, they were the centres of idolatry—there were the temples and altars, and idols, and priests, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea—"that they teach you not to do after all the abominations which they have done unto their gods." This would be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals around them, as all were idolaters; but God commanded them, in certain cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with any of them would be perilous—with the inhabitants of the cities peculiarly, and of the Canaanitish cities pre-eminently so. The 10th and 11th verses contain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to be summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the offer of peace—if it was accepted, the inhabitants became tributaries—but if they came out against Israel in battle, the men were to be killed, and the woman and little ones saved alive. The 15th verse restricts this lenient treatment to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th directs as to the disposal of the inhabitants of the Canaanitish cities. They were to save alive "nothing that breathed." The common mistake has been, in supposing that the command in the 15th verse refers to the whole system of directions preceding, commencing with the 10th, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in the 12th, 13th, and, 14th, making a distinction between those Canaanitish cities that fought, and the cities afar off that fought—in one case destroying the males and females, and in the other, the males only. The offer of peace, and the conditional preservation, were as really guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. Their inhabitants were not to be exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle. Whatever be the import of the commands respecting the disposition to be made of the Canaanites, all admit the fact that the Israelites did not utterly exterminate them. Now, if entire and unconditional extermination was the command of God, it was never obeyed by the Israelites, consequently the truth of God stood pledged to consign them to the same doom which he had pronounced upon the Canaanites, but which they had refused to visit upon them. "If ye will not drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that * * I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them." Num. xxxiii. 55, 56. As the Israelites were not exterminated, we infer that God did not pronounce that doom upon them; and as he did pronounce upon them the same doom, whatever it was, which they should refuse to visit upon the Canaanites, it follows that the doom of unconditional extermination was not pronounced against the Canaanites. But let us settle this question by the "law and the testimony." "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should COME OUT AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xi. 19. 20. That is, if they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had "favor" shown them, and would not have been "destroyed utterly." The great design was to transfer the territory of the Canaanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereignty in every respect; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, and jurisprudence, and their system of religion, with all its rights and appendages; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. In a word the people were to be denationalized, their political existence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, groves, images, pictures, and heathen rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute. Those who resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land;[E] or acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, under the protection of the government; or resistance to the execution of the decree, with death. "And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear by Baal; THEN SHALL THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."

[Footnote A: In the prophecy, Gen. ix. 25, the subjection of the Canaanites as a conquered people rendering tribute to other nations, is foretold by inspiration. The fulfilment of this prediction, seems to have commenced in the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites as tributaries. If the Israelites had exterminated them, as the objector asserts they were commanded to do; the prediction would have been falsified.]

[Footnote B: These two verses are so explicit we quote them entire—"And it shall be if thou do at all forget the Lord they God and walk after other Gods and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish, as the nations which the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall ye perish." The following passages are, if possible still more explicit—"The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly." "The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee until he have consumed thee." "They (the 'sword,' 'blasting,' &c.) shall pursue thee until thou perish." "From heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed." "All these curses shall come upon thee till thou be destroyed." "He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee." "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young, * * until he have destroyed thee." All these, with other similar threatenings of destruction, are contained in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deut. See verses 20-25, 45, 48, 51. In the same chapter God declares that as a punishment for the same transgressions, the Israelites shall "be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth," thus showing that the terms employed in the other verses, "destroy," "perish," "perish quickly," "consume," &c., instead of signifying utter, personal destruction doubtless meant their destruction as an independent nation. In Josh. xxiv. 8, 18, "destroyed" and "drave out," are used synonymously.]

[Footnote C: Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God. We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation. If God had straitly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war? What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites? Was that more binding than God's command? So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command. When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in "his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah," God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, "The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel, let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6.]

[Footnote D: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the temple,—what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh or make their sons pass through the fire to Moloch.]

[Footnote E: Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require the Israelites to chase them to ends of the earth, and hunt them out, until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is too preposterous for belief, and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets the terms "consume," "destroy," "destroy utterly," &c. to mean unconditional, individual extermination.]

[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted investigation.]



NO. 5.



THE

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.

THE

POWER OF CONGRESS

OVER THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

* * * * *

REPRINTED FROM THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.

* * * * *



NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,

NO. 143 NASSAU-STREET.

1838.

* * * * *

This periodical contains 3 1/2 sheets.—Postage under 100 miles, 6 cts.; over 100, 10 cts.



POWER OF CONGRESS

OVER THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.



A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that government be a republic, its citizens are the sole sources, as well as the subjects of its power. Its constitution is their bill of directions to their own agents—a grant authorizing the exercise of certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 6, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all cases," not of all kinds; not all laws whatsoever, but laws "in all cases whatsoever." The grant respects the subjects of legislation, not the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power every where is subject to moral restrictions, whether limited by constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by principles, existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.

In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general limitations. Congress cannot do these things any where. The exact import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, on all subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Some legislatures are restrained by constitutions, from the exercise of powers strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole field of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of Columbia.

It has been objected that the clause in question respects merely police regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect itself against popular tumults. But if the convention that framed the Constitution aimed to provide for a single case only, why did they provide for "all cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was extended to "all cases whatsoever," instead of being restricted to police regulations alone. In the Virginia Convention, George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, Patrick Henry, Mr. Grayson, and others, assailed it on that ground. Mr. Mason said, "This clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within the District. He would willingly give them exclusive power as far as respected the police and good government of the place, but he would give them no more." Mr. Grayson exclaimed against so large a grant of power—said that control over the police was all-sufficient, and "that the Continental Congress never had an idea of exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said: "Shall we be told, when about to grant such illimitable authority, that it will never be exercised? Is it consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant unlimited, unbounded authority?" Mr. Madison said in reply: "I did conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise. I cannot comprehend that the power of legislation over a small District, will involve the dangers which he apprehends. When any power is given, it's delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. * * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification is left to the Legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances, in which legislation by the general legislature, would be necessary." Governor Randolph said: "Holland has no ten miles square, but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat of government within its territory, subject in some respects to its control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The wisdom of the convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the place of their session." (See debates in the Virginia Convention, p. 320.) In the forty-third number of the "Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it."

Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to the obvious import of its terms, and not in such a way as to restrict it to police regulations, is proved by the fact, that the State of Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States Constitution at the time of its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed as to give power only over the police and good government of said District," which amendment was rejected. Fourteen other amendments, proposed at the same time by Virginia, were adopted.

The former part, of the clause under consideration, "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation," gives sole jurisdiction, and the latter part, "in all cases whatsoever," defines the extent of it. Since, then, Congress is the sole legislature within the District, and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically competent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of Columbia.



STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE.

Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to argue the real question at issue. Is the law-making power competent to abolish slavery when not restricted in that particular by constitutional provisions—or, Is the abolition of slavery within the appropriate sphere of legislation?

In every government, absolute sovereignty exists somewhere. In the United States it exists primarily with the people, and ultimate sovereignty always exists with them. In each of the States, the legislature possesses a representative sovereignty, delegated by the people through the Constitution—the people thus committing to the legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the amount and the conditions of the grant. That the people in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because the people have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the legislature "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," they would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the State, and so far forth the legislature would have become the people, clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, during the continuance of the grant, to do whatever the people might have done before the surrender of their power: consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists somewhere—where is it lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their "full and absolute right and entire sovereignty," and the people of the United States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District."

Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from their entire sovereignty within the state, so the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire sovereignty within the District. If it be objected that Congress can have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause in the constitution graduates the power of Congress by the standard of a state legislature? Was the United States constitution worked into its present shape under the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation? There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District, as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to the united States the territory of the District. By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress furnished a sphere for its exercise.

That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I argue, secondly, from the fact, that slavery as a legal system, is the creature of legislation. The law by creating slavery, not only affirmed its existence to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, but equally, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the question whether or not it should exist. Of course legislation would not travel out of its sphere, in abolishing what is within it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own act. Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body belongs to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to yourself, and I will sustain your right." If it can annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, and can create for another an artificial title to him, can it not annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his original title?

3. The abolition of slavery has always been considered within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Almost every civilized nation has abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this invisible.

The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102. The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing over many instances of the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times. In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St. Domingo, Cayenne, Guadaloupe and Martinique, in 1794, where more than 600,000 slaves were emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811; in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823; in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, in 1826; in Bolivia, 1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828, in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Mauritius, St. Christopher's, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincents, Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, Demarara, and the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. But waving details, suffice it to say, that England, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have all and often given their testimony to the competency of the law to abolish slavery. In our own country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in 1780, Connecticut, in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799; New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by Constitution, in 1777; Massachusetts, in 1780; and New Hampshire, in 1784.

When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has thus been recognised every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it forsooth an achievement of modern discovery, that such a power is a nullity?—that all these acts of abolition are void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage?

4. _Legislative power has abolished slavery in its parts_. The law of South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours in the twenty-four. [_See_Brevard's Digest_, 253.] In other words, it takes from the slaveholder his power over nine hours of the slave's time daily; and if it can take nine hours it may take twenty-four—if two-fifths, then five-fifths. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the first, they can for the six following. Laws embodying the same principle have existed for ages in nearly all governments that have tolerated slavery.

The law of North Carolina prohibits the "immoderate" correction of slaves. If it has power to prohibit immoderate correction, it can prohibit moderate correction—all correction, which would be virtual emancipation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of fear, and he is free. Laws similar to this exist in slaveholding governments generally.

The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power to make laws "to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity." The Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an additional one making it the DUTY of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to secure the humane treatment of the slaves. This grant of power to those legislatures empowers them to decide what is and what is not "humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power"—the clause is mere waste paper, and flouts in the face of a mocked and befooled legislature. A clause giving power to require "humane treatment" covers all the particulars of such treatment—gives power to exact it in all respects—requiring certain acts, and prohibiting others—maiming, branding, chaining together, allowing each but a quart of corn a day,[A] and but "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons" in six months[B]—separating families, destroying marriages, floggings for learning the alphabet and reading the Bible—robbing them of their oath, of jury trial, and of the right to worship God according to conscience—the legislature has power to specify each of these acts—declare that it is not "humane treatment," and PROHIBIT it.—The legislature may also believe that driving men and women into the field, and forcing them to work without pay as long as they live, is not "humane treatment," and being constitutionally bound "to oblige" masters to practise "humane treatment"—they have the power to prohibit such treatment, and are bound to do it.

[Footnote A: Law of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual, 524-5.]

[Footnote B: Law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 610.]

The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the holder, if he be also a land holder, to separate them from the soil.[C] If it has power to prohibit the sale without the soil, it can prohibit the sale with it; and if it can prohibit the sale as property, it can prohibit the holding as property. Similar laws exist in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies.

[Footnote C: Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705. (Beverly's Hist. of Va., p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main staple production of the State.]

The law of Louisiana requires the master to give his slaves a certain amount of food and clothing, (Martin's Digest, 610.) If it can oblige the master to give the slave one thing, it can oblige him to give him another: if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body. Such laws exist in most slaveholding governments.

By the slave laws of Connecticut, under which slaves are now held, (for even Connecticut is still a slave State,) slaves might receive and hold property, and prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs: [This last was also the law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73.] There were also laws making marriage contracts legal, in certain contingencies, and punishing infringements of them, ["Reeve's Law of Baron and Femme," p. 310-1.] Each of the laws enumerated above, does, in principle, abolish slavery; and all of them together abolish it in fact. True, not as a whole, and at a stroke, nor all in one place; but in its parts, by piecemeal, at divers times and places; thus showing that the abolition of slavery is within the boundary of legislation.

5.The competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery has been recognized by all the slaveholding States, either directly or by implication. Some States recognize it in their Constitutions, by giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may "have rendered the state some distinguished service," and others by express prohibitory restrictions. The Constitutions of Mississippi, Arkansas, and other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect. Why this express prohibition, if the law-making power cannot abolish slavery? A stately farce, indeed, formally to construct a special clause, and with appropriate rites induct it into the Constitution, for the express purpose of restricting a nonentity!—to take from the lawmaking power what it never had, and what cannot pertain to it! The legislatures of those States have no power to abolish slavery, simply because their Constitutions have expressly taken away that power. The people of Arkansas, Mississippi, &c., well knew the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to restrict it. The fact that these and other States have inhibited their legislatures from the exercise of this power, shows that the abolition of slavery is acknowledged to be a proper subject of legislation, when Constitutions impose no restrictions.

The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their laws. The Virginia Legislature passed a law in 1786 to prevent the further importation of Slaves, of which the following is an extract: "And be it further enacted that every slave imported into this commonwealth contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall upon such importation become free." By a law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792, a slave brought into the state and kept there a year, was free. The Maryland Court of Appeals at the December term 1813 (see case of Stewart vs. Oakes,) decided that a slave owned in Maryland, and sent by his master into Virginia to work at different periods, making one year in the whole, became free, being emancipated by the law of Virginia quoted above. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts of cession, transferring to the United States the territory now constituting the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a condition of the grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87, should be secured to the inhabitants with the exception of the sixth article which prohibits slavery; thus conceding, both the competency of law to abolish slavery, and the power of Congress to do it, within its jurisdiction. Besides, these acts show the prevalent belief at that time, in the slaveholding States, that the general government had adopted a line of policy aiming at the exclusion of slavery from the entire territory of the United States, not included within the original States, and that this policy would be pursued unless prevented by specific and formal stipulation.