The Slavery Question

by John Lawrence

“Each of these laws, although in its time it was an ameliorating law, designed to take the place of some barbarous abuse, and to be a connecting link by which some higher state of society might be introduced, belongs confessedly to that system which St. Paul says made nothing perfect. They are a part of the commandment which he says was annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and which, in the time which he wrote, was waxing old, and ready to vanish away.” (Dr. Stowe.)

Now, will any one pretend that it is proper for a christian, having a wife, to take also the wife of a deceased brother? But the law of Moses authorized this as clearly as any one pretends that it authorized slavery. Is it allowable for a christian to take a concubine or marry three or four wives? But the law of Moses allowed this as distinctly as any one believes that it allowed slavery. Would it be right for a christian to pursue a neighbor who had committed accidental or intentional homicide, overtake and slay him? But the law of Moses justified the Jewish man-slayer as plainly as the most ultra defender of slavery maintains that it justified slaveholding. Suppose we admit, for argument sake, that slavery was authorized by the law of Moses, does it follow as a matter of course, that the law of Christ authorizes it? By no means; for we have seen that the former authorized concubinage, polygamy, extermination of the heathen, and summary vengeance upon the unwitting murderer, all of which things are utterly incompatible with the precepts of the latter. And slavery might very properly be placed in the category of those practices allowed by the law, but prohibited by the gospel. Thus the argument for slavery from the law of Moses proves too much, and therefore proves nothing.

2. But if, as is claimed, the Jews were authorized to enslave their fellow men, which we by no means admit, it was by express authority from God, who alone may deprive any of his creatures of the rights with which he has invested them. Express grants were made to the “chosen seed,” as for instance, the forcible occupancy of the land of Canaan, and of the cities thereof. Now those grants were not made to Americans, but to the ancient Israelites, and it is neither modest nor sensible for citizens of the United States to act under a charter which they admit was made to an ancient nation, for a temporary purpose. Let the American slaveholder show the same authority for slaveholding which he maintains the Jew could produce. Has God ever made a grant to Americans to enslave the Africans?

3. Again, the passage mainly relied upon is found in Leviticus, 25: 44-47; in which the Jews are authorized to procure servants of the nations, (not heathen, for heathen is not in the original) round about them. Now if this celebrated passage be at all to the purpose, it is, as Pres. Edwards has said, “a permission to every nation under heaven to buy slaves of the nations round about them; to us, to buy of our Indian neighbors; to them, to buy of us; to the French to buy of the English, and to the English to buy of the French; and so through the world. Thus according to this construction, we have here an institution of a universal slave trade, by which every man may not only become a merchant, but may rightfully become the merchandize itself of this trade, and be bought and sold like a beast.” Who is willing to admit the consequences of this construction?

We might here rest the case, because these three considerations, taken separately, or together, destroy entirely the whole force of the argument for American slavery predicated upon Levitical servitude.

We shall now inquire what kind of servitude was recognized and regulated by the law of Moses. The particular statute upon which the main reliance is placed, by the friends of slavery, and which is supposed to contain the black and bloody charter for the degradation of humanity, is found in Leviticus 25: 44-47, and reads as follows:—

“Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they beget in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen forever.”[9]

1. The word slave, it will be observed, does not occur in this passage, nor does bondmen and bondmaids mean anything more than men-servants and women-servants. The word bond, as we have seen, is gratuitously supplied by our translators, and is not in the original; and the word servants means no more than laborers or workers. All kinds of servants are described by the term here found, and hence from its use in this place, it cannot be inferred that the persons referred to were slaves. The passage clearly authorized the procurement of servants from adjoining nations, which was a thing perfectly right in itself, and that is all it did authorize.

2. Nor does the fact that the passage allowed the purchase of servants, prove that the persons purchased were slaves, or became slaves. Irishmen were, many of them, a few years since, “bought servants.” They were sold to pay for their passage to this country, but the whole transaction was voluntary on the part of the “sons of Erin,” and looked to their benefit. Jacob, as we have seen, purchased Leah and Rachel with fourteen years of labor. Our blessed Savior hath purchased us with his own blood. The idea of chattel slavery cannot be associated with the word buy or bought, as used in the sacred writings, without doing great violence to their meaning. The phrase, “of them shall ye buy” may be properly rendered, “of them shall ye get, or obtain servants.” The word translated buy, in the passage before us, is in other places translated “get” or “getteth.” Thus, “He that beareth reproof getteth understanding.” Prov., 15: 32. “He that getteth wisdom, loveth his own soul.” Prov., 19: 8. But the meaning of the word buy, and sell, as applied to the purchase and sale of men, is definitely settled by its use in the context of the passage which we are examining. It is used in verse 47, “if thy brother wax poor and sell himself” etc. In verse 39, the reading is, “and be sold.” These passages are intended to convey an idea of the same transaction, and that transaction was nothing more nor less than the voluntary sale of a poor man to a rich one, not as a slave, but as a servant. The sale was made, and the money was received by the servant who sold himself, with which he released himself and family from pecuniary embarrassment. In this sale and purchase of a man, the idea of slavery is utterly excluded. Now is it probable that the words buy, and sell, in this same chapter, when applied to foreign servants, were used in a totally different sense? To suppose this would be to charge Moses, as Wm. Jay observes, with a fraudulent intent to render the meaning of his law doubtful and unintelligible.

3. Considerable stress is placed upon the phrase, “shall be of the heathen,” as if heathenism was a crime to be punished with a still deeper degradation than idolatry can produce. “The word heathen,” says Mr. Jay, “is gratuitously inserted by our translators instead of nations, the meaning of the original.”