gentlemen justify the latter by instancing the
former ?
Before leaving this part of the inquiry which
I am now making in regard to the morality
of American slavery, I would, if I could, im-
press upon the minds of gentlemen this im-
portant consideration, to which I have al-
ready adverted, viz: that the patriarchal sys-
tem was not a system of absolute slavery—-
that the servant was not in the strictest sense
of the term a personal chattel, and that the
system, whatever it may have been, was ab-
solutely necessary for the good of the whole
people, and for that reason alone was jus-
tified, or rather tolerated by the moral law.
But the institution of slavery, as it exists
in the American States, is not necessary
to the good of any party, either the negro
or the white man, and is only suffered for
the benefit of the few, and this sufferance
is at the expense of the many. So far from
being beneficial, it is a curse to all sides,
(ad I shall endeavor to make appear be-
fore I sit down,) and therefore contrary to
both the spirit and the letter of the moral
law, which I shall also make more fully ap-
pear betore I have done with the subject,
Now, sir, a word in reference to the insti-
tution of slavery as it existed under the Mo-
saic dispensation.
; if gentlemen will take the pains to examine
the difference between the servitude regulated
;by the Levitical law and the absolute slavery
as it has heretofore and even now exists in
the Southern States of America, they will
find the difference as marked as the difference
between the latter and the patriarchal system
of servitude, and perhaps. And
here I will read ."from the twenty-first chapter
of Exodus, verse 2 to 11, inclusive, on which
is founded the great bulk of the argument in
favor of the morality of slavery and of the
proposition that slavery is of divine origin :
"2. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six
years he shall serve: and in the seventh he
shall go out free for nothing.
"3. If he come in by himself, he shall go
out by himself: if he were married, then his
wife shall go out with him.
"4, if his master have given him a wife,
and she have borne him sons or daugh-
ters; the wife and her children shall be her
master's, and he shall go out by himself.
"5. And if the servant shall plainly say,
I love my master, my wife, and nay children;
I will not go out free :
" 6. Then his master shall bring him unto
the judges: he shall also bring him to the
door, or unto the door-post: and his master
shall bore his car through with an awl; and
be shall serve him forever.
" 7. And if a man sell his daughter to be a
maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men
servants do.
"8. If she please not her master, who
hath betrothed her to himself shall he |
let her beredeemed: to sell her unto a strange
nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath
dealt deceitfully with her.
"9. And if he hath betrothed her unto big
son, he shall deal with her after the manner
of daughters.
"10. If he take him another wife; her
food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage,
shall he not diminish.
"11. And if he do not these three unto
her, then shall she go out free without
money."
Now, sir, can any gentlemen perceive in
these texts anything to establish the truth of
the proposition that slavery is of divine ori-
gin. if any gentleman thinks he can, I have
to say that he perceives it by a disorganized
action of his intellect; for this language does
not even intimate any such thing. When
Moses wrote the law by which the Jews were
to be governed till the coming of Shiloh, he
found slavery already an established institu-
tion among the nations of the earth and even
among the Jews themselves. At that remote
period of the world's history something like
slavery, as I have already remarked, seemed
to be necessary, and the law of Moses was in-
tended not to establish as an institution al-
ready established, but to mitigate its horrors
and cruelties; and if you will examine the
law which I have just read in your hear-
ing, it will he easy to perceive that the effect
of it was to abolish slavery rather than to
perpetuate it. " if a man buy a Hebrew ser-
vant, six years shall he serve: and in the sev-
enth he shall go out free for nothing." The
servant was to serve till the beginning of the
sabbatical year and no longer; so that if the
service began but one year before the sabbat-
ical year the service was to continue but one
year, after the expiration of which the man
was in all respects free.
Now, sir, it must be remembered that a
Hebrew could never be a slave for life to a.
Hebrew, except he made himself such by his
own voluntary act, and even in that case his
children could not be loom slaves. It must
also be remembered that whenever" a Hebrew
became a slave it was because of an indebted-
ness which he was too poor to liquidate in
any other way than by placing his services at
lire disposal of his creditor, and in that case
his servitude could he of no longer duration
than six years, and in most cases a much
shorter period of time was necessary; after
which the debt was paid and the man became
free to all intents and purposes if gentle-
men will please bear these facts in mind, I
will call their attentioin to the fact that any
Canaanitish slave might become a Hebrew
bysubscribing to the Abrahamic covenant.
Many Gentiles did become Hebrew's by the
rite of circumcision, and thus they necessarily
became free under the Jewish law, and thug
too the effect of the law, as I have already
observed, taken as a whole, was to abolish |
