The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

3. Thieves not able to make restitution for their thefts, were sold for the benefit of the injured person. Ex. xxii, 3.

4. They might be born in servitude. Ex. xxi, 4.

5. If reduced to extreme poverty, a Hebrew might sell himself; but in such a case he was to serve, not as a bondsman, whose term of service was only six years, nor was he to serve as a hired servant, who received his wages every evening, nor yet as a sojourner or temporary resident in the family, but he was to serve his master until the year of Jubilee[^A]. Lev. xxv, 39, 40.

[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 passage.

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 restitution 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 assertion. 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, God 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 assert 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?