[181] J. F. D. Smyth says, London, 1784, “However, although I now call this man (a backwoodsman of the Alleghanies) my servant, yet he himself never would have submitted to such an appellation, although he most readily performed every menial office, and indeed every service I could desire.”—Tour in the United States, I., 356.
[182] Fanny Kemble writes, “They have no idea, of course, of a white person performing any of the offices of a servant;” then follows an amusing account of her white maid’s being taken for the master’s wife, and her almost unavailing efforts to correct the mistake.—Journal of a Residence in Georgia, pp. 44-46.
[183] An illustration of this change is seen in the different definitions given to the word. In the Royal Standard English Dictionary, 1813, a servant is “one who attends and obeys another, one in a state of subjection.”
Johnson’s Dictionary, London, 1818, gives: “(1) One who attends another and acts at his command; the correlative of master. Used of man or woman. (2) One in a state of subjection.”
Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language, London, 1838, defines servant as the correlative of master.
The American usage was practically the same. The first edition of Webster, 1828, gives: “(1) Servant, a person, male or female, that attends another for the purpose of performing menial offices for him, or who is employed by another for such offices, or for other labor, and is subject to his command. Servant differs from slave, as the servant’s subjection to a master is voluntary, the slave’s is not. Every slave is a servant, but every servant is not a slave.”
Worcester, 1860, says of servant: “(1) One who serves, whether male or female; correlative of master, mistress, or employer. (2) One in a state of subjection; a menial; a domestic; a drudge; a slave.”
These various definitions all suggest the class association of the terms “servant” and “slave.”
[184] A curious illustration of the social position of servants in Europe is seen in their lack of political privileges.
The French Constitution of 1791 was preceded by a bill of rights declaring the equality and brotherhood of men, but a disqualification for the right of suffrage, indeed, the only one, was “to be in a menial capacity, viz., that of a servant receiving wages.” Title III., chap. 1, sec. 2. The Constitution of 1795, after a similar preamble, states that the citizenship is suspended “by being a domestic on wages, attending on the person or serving the house.” Title II., 13, 3. The Constitution of 1799 has a similar disqualification. Title I., art. 5. It is probable that these provisions were intended to punish men who would consent to serve the nobility or the wealthy classes when it was expected that all persons would be democratic enough to serve themselves, not to cast discredit on domestic service per se.—Tripier, pp. 20, 105, 168.