Servitude existed before Moses. It was no part of the mission of the Hebrew code to create it. Let it be forever admitted that the laws given of God through Moses can not be held responsible for the existence of slavery. They found it existing and proceeded therefore to modify it; to soften its more rigid features; to extract its carnivorous teeth; to ordain that the slave had rights which the master and the nation were bound to respect—in short, to tone down the severities of the system from unendurable slavery to very tolerable servitude.
By what means was this change wrought? What new elements were introduced to abate the severities of real slavery?
1. Man-stealing was punished with death. “He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death” (Ex. 21: 16). The law as recited in Deut. 21: 7 applies to a man stealing one of his brethren of the children of Israel. As stated in Ex. 21: 16 it is universal, with no limitation. Stealing a man is the crime. I see no reason to doubt that the law was intended to apply to men of every nationality—to men as made in God’s image of whatever nation.
This statute struck at the very root of real slavery. Both stealing and selling contemplate property—assume the fact of a property value. The spirit of the law is—Men shall never be degraded into merchandise. Every body knows that all American slavery began with stealing men from Africa and selling them. Servitude, involving a certain right to service and property in service, there might be, despite of this Hebrew law; but real slavery—property in man as distinctfrom property in his services, there could not be under this law. Moreover, the severity of this penalty must have thrown its shield of protection over the entire system of servitude. It was a very palpable indication of God’s stern displeasure against the whole system of chattelizing human beings.
2. The Hebrew law positively forbade the rendition of fugitives. “Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant that has escaped from his master unto thee: 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. 23: 15, 16).——Observe it was not only impossible to have any law for the reclamation of fugitives—i. e. to have “a fugitive slave law” of the recent American pattern; but the law was put on the other side. It declared—“Thou shalt not deliver him up to his master”—shalt not give his master information and help the arrest; but shalt let him choose his abode by his own free and manly will. If his hardships are such under his bondage that he prefers to take his risk of finding a better living elsewhere, let him try it. Let no man stand in his way. He would not leave his master if his personal rights and interests were properly cared for. But if his master is too selfish, or too cruel, or too exacting of labor, or too stingy of bread or clothing, who shall judge but the servant himself? Therefore let the servant better his own condition if he can, and let all selfish, savage-hearted masters take warning!——Such laws exorcise the real spirit of slavery with blessed rapidity. It would require but few such ameliorating statutes to tone it down from unendurable slavery to very tolerable servitude.
The spirit of this law is altogether the spirit of the Great Lawgiver when he found the Hebrews sorely oppressed in Egypt; smote off their chains; brought them forth from their house of bondage, and placed them beyond all reclamation. What he required his people now to do in behalf of any oppressed servant was only in spirit what he had done for them.
3. Severe personal injuries gave the slave his freedom. “If a man smite the eye of his servant or the eye of his maid that it perish, he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake.” So of the tooth (Ex. 21: 26, 27).The eye and the tooth are but specimen illustrations of the principle. A charge of shot in the leg could not be less under this law than a passport to freedom.——Moreover, the statutes very specifically enjoined clemency and forbade rigor in the treatment of Hebrew servants (Lev. 25: 39–43, 46).
4. Of wider sweep in its influence and of inexpressible value was the system of periodical emancipation. The term of service for the Hebrew-born was limited to six years. At the end of this term they went out free. Servants of foreign birth (as we shall see) went out at the Jubilee, each fiftieth year.——The effect of this law was at once to lift from the heart the terrible incubus of a life-long bondage—that sense of a hopeless doom which knows no relief till death. Whatever the amount of discomfort or suffering involved in servitude might have been, the Hebrew servant had under this law the prospect of his freedom at no distant day.——Moreover the accompanying provisions of this law were thoroughly humane. The servant who had sold himself through extreme poverty (Lev. 25: 47–55) might be redeemed at any time by a friend, or if he could command the means by extra labor or skill, he might redeem himself.——When his term expired, his master must not send him away empty, but must furnish him liberally out of his flock and out of his floor (grain), and even out of his wine-press—of any thing and every thing wherewith the Lord had blessed the master, he was to impart liberally to his manumitted servant (Deut. 15: 12–15). So the servant would have a fair start in his new self-supporting life. It was a fore-thoughtful provision, full of the milk of a more than human kindness.
Apparently this periodic emancipation applied to every class of Hebrew servants—to him who had sold himself because he had become too poor to provide for his family; to him who had been taken and sold for debt; and to him who had been sold into servitude for crime. This latter case, however, is doubtful.