Will these laws prove four thousand years hence that slavery did not exist in the United States? No—but why not! Because the statute will still exist, which authorizes us to buy bond-men and bond-women with our money, and give them and their increase as an inheritance to our children, forever. So the Mosaic statute still exists, which authorized the Jews to do the same thing, and God is its author.
Reference the 10th is: "Rob not the poor because he is poor. Let the oppressed go free; break every yoke; deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor. What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God. He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker." This sounds very well, reader, yet I propose to make every man who reads me, confess, that these Scriptures will not condemn slavery. Answer me this question: Are these, and such like passages, in the Old Testament, from whence they are all taken, intended to reprove and condemn that people, for doing what God, in his law gave them a right to do? I know you must answer, they were not; consequently, you confess they do not condemn slavery; because God gave them the right, by law, to purchase slaves of the heathen.—Levit. xxv: 44. And to make slaves of their captives taken in war.—Deut. xx: 14. The moral precepts of the Old or New Testament cannot make that wrong which God ordained to be his will, as he has slavery.
The 11th reference of my distinguished correspondent to the sacred volume, to prove that slavery is contrary to the will of Jesus Christ and sinful, is in these words: "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal." The argument of my correspondent is this, that slavery is a relation, in which rights based upon justice cannot exist.
I answer, God ordained, after man sinned, that he, "should eat bread (that is, have food and raiment) in the sweat of his face."
He has since ordained, that some should be slaves to others, (as we have proved under the first reference.) Therefore, when food and raiment are withheld from him in slavery, it is unjust.
God has ordained food and raiment, as wages for the sweat of the face. Christ has ordained that with these, whether in slavery or freedom, his disciples shall be content.
The relation of master and slave, says Gibbon, existed in every province and in every family of the Roman Empire. Jesus ordains in the 13th chapter of Romans, from the 1st to the end of the 7th verse, and in 1 Peter, 2d chapter, 13th, 14th, and 15th verses, that the legislative authority, which created the relation, should be obeyed and honored by his disciples. But while he thus legalises the relation of master and slave as established by the civil law, he proceeds to prescribe the mutual duties which the parties, when they come into his kingdom, must perform to each other.
The reference of my correspondent to disprove the relation, is a part of what Jesus has prescribed on this subject to regulate the duties of the relation, and is itself proof that the relation existed—that its legality was recognized—and its duties prescribed by the Son of God through the Holy Ghost given to the apostles.
The 12th reference is, "Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their masters worthy of all honor. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." If my reader will turn to my remarks, in my first essay upon this Scripture, he will cease to wonder that it fails to convince me that slavery is sinful. I should think the wonder would be, that any man ever quoted it for such a purpose.
And lastly. My correspondent informs me that the Greek word "doulos," translated servant, means hired servant and not slave.