Wide Difference Between the State Laws of the Hebrews and the Moral Law Which Was Given Them.

There is a most important difference between the state laws, or judicial statutes of the Hebrew nation, and the moral law as expressed in the decalogue. Both these systems of legislation, emanated indeed from the same Divine author, but they were given for different purposes. The state laws had respect to the particular circumstances of that nation in distinction from all others, and were evidently designed to be superseded, as they have been, by the Christian dispensation, to which many of them were preparatory, and at whose introduction the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles was entirely broken down. Whereas the moral law is founded on principles of immutable rectitude, equally applicable to all men in all circumstances and ages; and was designed to be neither abrogated nor modified by the introduction of Christianity, but to be interpreted and confirmed by the Author of both. The apostolic substitution of the first for the last day of the week for a sabbath constitutes no exception, as the very letter and spirit of the original command may and should be as fully regarded under the change, as before its occurrence. It is still every seventh day which is to be hallowed. The state laws in view of the established usages of those to whom they were given, the prejudices of their minds and hardness of their hearts, suffered and regulated certain evils, because by the enaction and enforcemcnt of judicial statutes they could not be removed, without producing consequences still more deplorable. On this point we have testimony which will not be contradicted. When the Pharisees captiously inquired of our Lord, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” He, evidently designing to condemn polygamy, and divorces as commonly practised together, reminded them that at the beginning, the Creator made but one man and one woman and joined them together as one flesh. Others similarly united in marriage, he said were no more twain but one flesh. And impressively added, “What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder.” They said, “Why did Moses then command to give her a writing of divorcement and send her away?” His remarkable reply was, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, MOSES suffered you to put away your wives: but in the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery, and whoso marrieth her that is put away, committeth adultery.” Even the disciples were startled at this decision of the Lord and remarked, “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.” So greatly prejudiced were they in consequence of their Jewish education, against the original purity and binding nature of this sacred institution. Now if Moses suffered the Jews to put away their wives for every cause, not because it was right for them to do so, but on account of the hardness of their hearts and the evils which this obduracy might have led them to inflict on their helpless companions with whom they were not pleased; it is obvious that they might have been suffered, by the same code of laws, to do other things which they had no right to perform. So it is in regard to the laws of all nations. God, in the dispensations of his providence, is continualy suffering men to do what they ought not. But the Moral Law lays the axe at the root of all moral evil, it strictly, without regard to persons or circumstances, forbids the least deviation from the path of absolute rectitude, and binds transgressors to answer for their conduct not to earthly tribunals but to the Supreme Lawgiver himself, in the day of final judgment. The laws of the state not merely suffered the Hebrews to do things, but in some cases, required them to do things, which without such authority from God, they would have had no right to perform; and might not without great criminality attempt. As instances of this sort we must reckon the stoning of children to death for such immoralities as have been mentioned, and a man for gathering sticks for his fire on the Sabbath day, and especially the destruction of the Canaanites, who by their great sins had forfeited to divine justice not only their earthly possessions, but their lives. God had a right to cut off these transgressors by pestilence or earthquakes, or fire from heaven, or the agency of his angelic hosts, or by the hands of their fellow men, as he saw fit. The wonderful miracles which attended the march of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, while they were passing the Jordan, and besieging Jericho, gave indubitable testimony that they were indeed divinely commissioned to cut off the guilty nations, inhabiting the land which God had promised to give them for their possession. But to plead that since it was right for the Jews to do these things when expressly commanded, it must be so for others to do such things when not commanded, seems as egregiously absurd as for every man in this country to claim the right of acting as a public executioner at his own discretion, because some men have been authorized by law to inflict sentence of death on others, and were in justice bound to do it. On the contrary, the moral law enjoins duties which are common to all. Our Savior has taught us, that the substance and scope of it all is this, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself.” These are things right in themselves, and which all men would have been bound to do, even if no express law to this effect had been given.

Wide indeed, then, is the difference between the judicial statutes of the Hebrew commonwealth and that moral law, contained in the decalogue which binds all men to obedience, and with which the great principles of christian morality laid down in the New Testament perfectly harmonize. The former was given to an individual nation, in peculiar circumstances, for special purposes; and are at present no further a rule of conduct than they in particular instances, inculcate duties which are confirmed by the latter, as expounded or enforced by Christ or his apostles. Without this sanction, you have no more authority from the political laws of the Jews to practice slaveholding; even in the sense and manner in which they practised it, than you have to practise polygamy.— And we have seen that the system of servitude which prevailed among them was so mild that it cannot according to the correct meaning of the term in this country, be denominated slavery at all. It is as plain then as the sun at noon day, that the laws of the Hebrew nation, do not, and cannot afford your cherished institution any support or cover.

If slavery can be justified from the Bible a tall, it must be on the ground of the great principles of universal benevolence and perfect rectitude, which constitute the foundation of christian morality. We therefore agree with you to refer the great question to Christ and his apostles for ultimate decision.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 76-82

Three Things to be Considered.

Before leaving the subject of Jewish servitude, there are three considerations of chief importance on which we wish you may fix your candid attention.

The first is, There is no sufficient proof to warrant belief, that the Hebrew laws ever authorized, or in any way recognized slavery in the American sense of that term. The assertion that they did, is gratuitous, and altogether incapable of establishment. The general tenor of these laws, fully acknowledging and vigilantly guarding several of the most important rights of humanity in the case of those in bondage, shows that they were not considered things, or mere property possession, like cattle; but men, who had sacred rights with which even those who had purchased them for permanent servants, might not, in any circumstances, interfere. Full evidence of this, we think, has already been exhibited; and in the course of our argument confirmatory facts will be incidentally accumulated.

Secondly, Those who claim authority, in virtue of the Hebrew laws, to hold slaves, have no right to violate their charter, by neglecting any thing which it requires, or doing any thing which it prohibits. In regard to a point so plain, let common sense speak out. Suppose you are all elected trustees of a college, duly chartered and of long standing: Are you at liberty, without regard to the original acts of incorporation, to remodel every thing, and make what disposition of the funds you please ? Is it enough that the mere name of the institution is preserved, while the original design of its founders, and of the government in its incorporation, is wholly defeated? Surely you would feel the necessity either of keeping strictly within your chartered limits, or of resigning your offices, if you did not approve of the duties they imposed. Or, suppose the government gives a daring commander letters of marque and reprisal to go forth on the high seas to capture and plunder the vessels of a nation with whom they are at war. He and his crew are legally authorized. But when this commander has been slain, and another has succeeded to his place, and the crew have undergone so many changes that none of the original number remain, have the successors authority under the original license to take more liberty, and proceed to capture and plunder the vessels of other nations, and to destroy their unoffending crews? The things done would indeed bear close resemblance to those which the original commission warranted, but would still be as completely unauthorized and outrageous as if no such commission had ever been given, and must expose the perpetrators of them to be executed as pirates. Provided then you claim the right of holding slaves under the authority of the Levitical laws, consistency requires that you manage the whole business in strict accordance with them.

The regulation of Hebrew servitude, was a business too delicate, involving interests too sacred, to be committed to the discretion of interested masters. Moses of himself was not competent to such legislation. The sovereign Lawgiver, through him as the interpreter of his will, prescribed the rules by which both masters and servants were to be governed, and required all the people to say Amen, to the imprecation, “Cursed be he who confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.” And when in a certain case the masters ventured to act at their own discretion, and through covetousness refused to release their servants, when the law required them to be set free, they were most pointedly condemned by the Almighty for their unhallowed temerity. “Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. Jer. 34:17. Does God give you greater power over the bodies and souls of your fellow men, than he gives to Moses and his peculiar people? license even to make void by your own enactments or customs his laws, while at the same time pleading their authority in vindication of your slaveholding? If you hold under the Jewish charter, you are bound to govern yourselves strictly by its provisions and limitations.

Instead of imprisoning colored people who come among you, and on their failure to substantiate the fact of their freedom or to pay their jail fees, selling them into hopeless bondage; you must suffer even such as you may know to be runaway slaves from other countries to enjoy liberty and to dwell in whatever part of your country they choose. You must in no case restore them again to their masters. Deut. 23; 15, 16.

Instead of marking your refractory slaves by knocking out teeth, chopping off fingers, or otherwise maiming them, and then unblushingly describe them by these marks in your advertisements when they run away, you must know that all such maimings are to the sufferers irrefragable evidence of their legal title to the liberty which they have taken. Exod. 21:27.

Southern slaveholders must not under any pretence hold in involuntary bondage, over six years, any whose complexion proves them to be of white paternity, especially when they have reason to believe that they may be very nearly related to themselves. Deut. 15:12–14,

All your slaves must be consecrated to God; be required to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, and to rest from their secular labors one whole year in every seven; and to share fully with you in all other religious privileges.— Exod. 12:49. Exod. 20:10. Lev. 25:4–6.

On every fiftieth year from the commencement of the practice of slaveholding in this country, the enslaved should all have been, and should all hereafter be, set free. As slavery was introduced in the year 1620, there should have been three Jubilees already. The next should occur in thirty one years. Then must liberty be proclaimed throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof, and all the millions of your down trodden servants, stand erect in the complete enjoyment of civil and religious freedom. Lev. 25:10.

In the meanwhile, there must be equal laws, in the execution of which the rights of servants, as well as those of masters, shall be duly protected, and impartial justice weighed out in the same balances. “He that killeth a man, he shall be put to death. Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country.”— Lev. 2:21, 22. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great: ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s.” Deut. 1:17. See also, Exod. 22:21–24.

Do you object to slavery under such regulations as these? Then do not refer to Jewish laws, as the foundation of your claim. Either obey their laws, or do not seek protection under them.

3. Another point of importance is this, That in as much as the political laws of the Hebrews both permitted and required them to do various things, which others, undeniably, have no right to do, without similar express authority, it follows, that even if those laws did authorize the modified form of slaveholding in that nation which has been described, it is no proof that you have a right to practice it in this. If the assumed right can be maintained on the ground of divine authority at all, entirely different evidence of the fact must be adduced.

The civil laws of the Hebrews permitted and regulated Polygamy. Exod. 21:10, 11. Deut. 17:17. This license the Jews Understood as giving countenance to concubinage also, or taking without ceremony secondary wives, who had no authority in the family and whose children could not inherit any portion of the father's estate. David, Solomon, and Rehoboam, all had many wives and concubines; and do not seem to have considered themselves as acting illegally, or as setting a bad example while so doing. These statutes also permitted any man without reference to any tribunal whatever, to divorce his wife, and send her away, whenever he became displeased with her. Deut. 21:14, 24:1. And they required the father and mother who had a rebellious son, who would not submit to parental discipline, to bring him forth to the elders of the city, at whose order all the people should stone him to death. Deut. 21:18–21. A married daughter, whose husband should convict her of having been unchaste in any instance before marriage must be publicly executed in the same terrible manner. Deut. 22:21. When the people made war upon any city, if it did not immediately open its gates and submit, the Hebrews on taking it by seige, were required by the laws of their country to “smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.”— Deut. 20:13. They were commanded in general, respecting the inhabitants of Canaan, whom they were sent to dispossess, “Thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shalt deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them.” And having slain a people who had done them no previous injury, they were to possess their country and enjoy the fruit of their labors. Deut. 7:16. 8:7, 8.

Will you from these facts infer that men in this country have scriptural warrant for practising polygamy and concubinage, and to put away their wives whenever they dislike them?—That American fathers and mothers must bring forth their rebellious sons and seduced daughters to be stoned to death? Or that we as a nation are authorized to carry a war of extermination into the territories of our neighbors who have done us no injury and to take possession of their houses and lands for ourselves and posterity? You certainly will not maintain that the judicial statutes of Moses authorized us to do any of these things. But why not? Because these laws permitted and required the Hebrews to do things which we undeniably have no right to do without a warrant from God equally plain. Not the state laws of the Hebrew commonwealth, though given by divine authority, but those principles and precepts of the Bible which are evidently designed for men of all nations, are to be received by us as the proper rules of our conduct. Our ultimate appeal must be to the moral law written by the finger of God upon the tables of stone, to the gospel of our Lord Jesus, and those other portions of divine revelation which agree with them in having not a peculiar but general application. This is as true respecting slavery as it is in regard to polygamy, divorce or exterminating wars. We are no more bound or authorized by the mere political laws of the Hebrew commonwealth, excepting so far as by divine interpretation they are shewn to be of general application, than the people of Maine are bound b the laws of Mississippi. Whoever will maintain the contrary sentiment, must, to be consistent, receive circumcision, abstain from eating swine's flesh, perform the ablutions and offer the sacrifices required by the Levitical law, and take without opposition, the yoke of Judaism upon his neck, however heavy it may be for him to bear.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 65-75

The Jubilee Brought Universal Release.

What is an inhabitant, but one who dwells, or resides in the place mentioned? “All inhabiting it” is the exact form of expression in the original. The persons of whom we are speaking inhabited some country, they dwelt somewhere. It was not in Syria, Arabia, or Egypt, or any other spot on earth than the land of the Hebrews. Besides for whom was the proclamation of liberty so obviously necessary. The Hebrew people generally, could not be in bondage; the hired servants like hired men now, were at liberty to make their own contracts, and on performing them to go where they pleased. The Hebrew servants who had been sold to their brethren for debts, could not at the longest be detained over six years, without their own consent. For whom then, especially, was the great release, on the return of every fiftieth year from its first celebration, provided? Was it not for those who of all men most needed it; for those who otherwise must have remained in bondage until death, leaving their children and children's children after them, to inherit the same destiny? Of this sort were Hebrew servants who on the expiration of six years, had chosen to have their ears pierced in token of perpetual bondage, because they did not like to be separated from their families, and the foreign servants who had been bought with money. That the former of these classes were inhabitants of the land we suppose no one will dispute. Why were not the latter in every proper sense of the term, as really so? The seal of the Jewish nation, and of her covenant with God, had been by their priests set upon their flesh. Their children who had never been in any other land, were like themselves consecrated to Israel's God. They all, in common with the native Hebrews, were required to share in the rest and join in the holy employments of the Sabbath; were admitted to all the solemn feasts, in which strangers had no right to partake; and shared equally with their masters in all the benefits of the Sabbatical year, during the whole of which they enjoyed exemption, as well as Hebrew servants, from labor. Who then will say that when the great circle, or seven times seven years have revolved, and the loud and joyful trumpets of jubilee were proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof, that proclamation, so welcome, so full of good tidings to others, brought to these no blessing whatever; nothing but death to their hopes, and bitter aggravation to their lot? This would, indeed, make the similarity between the Hebrew servitude and American slavery more close and striking, in this land, on the day set apart for the celebration of our national independence, while the noble declaration is sounded through the land, that “all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” while smooth-tongued orators grow eloquent in extolling our land as eminently the land of liberty, and an asylum for the oppressed; and general rejoicing in the ringing of bells and roaring of cannon is heard through the land, nearly three millions of the inhabitants, for no crime, despoiled of liberty, mingle their sighs with our national rejoicings. Can we believe it was so on the occasion of the jubilee which was designed to prefigure affectingly, the universal and unrivalled blessings of the Gospel in the future reign of the Messiah? It is astonishing indeed that the biblical scholar, in disregard of such a mass of evidence to the contrary, could ever come to the conclusion that the bought servants of Gentile extraction were not to be set free. On what is it founded? Simply on the declaration that the bought servants should be bond men and bond maids forever, when they all admit that this same term forever when used in the same way in reference to the Hebrew servant whose ear was pierced with the awl, only means that he should remain permanently while he lived, or until the year when the jubilee should set him free. In this case they are undoubtedly right, but in the other wrong. The perponderance [sic] of evidence in favor of the complete release of all the bought servants, as well as others, on every occasion of Jubilee, is in our view decisive. The learned author of the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge has well said in regard to this matter, “All the slaves were set free. The political design of the law of jubilee was to prevent the too great oppression of the poor as well as their being liable to perpetual slavery.” Their servitude then, was entirely different from modern slavery in this highly important respect, that it could in no case continue, in regard to any one person, over forty nine years, and in most cases only for a much shorter period; a period continually diminishing as the great year of universal release drew nigh. When released they were politically situated as are now the colored people in the British West Indies; and left free to make such arrangements in regard to the future as they might consider for their interest and happiness.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 60-4

Meaning of the Term Forever.

That the term forever, when used to denote the continuance of their bondage is not to be taken in its absolute sense, is evident from the very nature of the case. Neither these servants nor their masters could abide forever by reason of death. Nor was the institution by means of successive generations always to be perpetuated, inasmuch as the entire frame work of the Hebrew government, which sanctioned it, has been demolished for more that eighteen centuries; and will never be revived. The term forever was used to distinguish, strongly, the stated continuance of this servitude from that of the hired servants, which might be but for a day or two; and also from that of the poor Hebrews, sold to their brethren for debts, who could not be detained against their consent over six years. It is very well known that while the Hebrew term alam (or gnolam,) forever, when applied to subjects which do not necessarily require its limitation, denotes endless duration; it, in other cases, may and does mean a duration continued for some term limited by the nature of the subject to which it is applied, or otherwise fixed by the connection in which it stands. It is used in this limited way in reference to the duration of the material world, the continuance of a nation, and even the time of an individual's natural life. It is said, Deut. 15:17, with respect to the Hebrew who had served his term of six years and still chose to remain with his master, “Thou shalt take an awl and [thrust] it through his ear, unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever.” That is as long as he lived, provided the occurrence of the year of jubilee should not sooner set free both him and his family on whose account he had chosen to remain, for it is universally admitted that all such Hebrew servants were on those occasions released from their bonds. In the same way do we understand the term when applied to the continuance of the servitude of the foreigners. They were to continue in servitude as long as they lived unless sooner set free by the return of the year of general release; which occurred only at the termination of every half century. We have precisely the same amount of evidence to prove that the foreign servants were all then to be set free as we have that the Hebrew servants were, whose ears had been pierced with awls. The proclamation of liberty as often as the jubilee returned was universal. “Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.” Lev. 25:10. The only point here to be ascertained, in order to determine whether the foreign servants as well as those of the Hebrew nation were all to be set free on this joyful occasion, is this, Were they comprehended in the phrase “all the inhabitants of the land?” Let Is look at this point.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 57-9

Servants, In What Sense A Possession.

Servants of this sort were expected to remain for life, or at least unto the year of general release, and their children were considered in the same condition with themselves. That they were a subordinate, dependent class of the community, is obvious. But that they were held by masters as an inheritance or possession for their children, does not prove them to have been a property possession. They were a possession not as things but servants.The terms inheritance, and possession, when applied in the scriptures to persons, are not to be taken in their primary sense as applied to things but in a secondary or topical sense, which is to be determined by the connection. — Take this sentence in Ezek. 44: 28, as an example of both words, in both senses. The Lord says in reference to the sin-offering which should be used for the benefit of the priests, “It shall be unto them for an inheritance; I am their inheritance and ye shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession. The terms inheritance and possession here when applied to the sacrifice, denote that it was literally the property of the priests; but the same words when applied to the Almighty certainly have a very different meaning. The Hebrew people generally, are spoken of as the inheritance of the Lord; but they were so not as things, but as rational creatures, capable of knowing and doing his will: and by covenant obligations bound to serve him. So the foreign servants who are spoken of as an inheritance and a possession forever, were so in a limited and secondary sense, which must be determined, not by the expressions themselves when used in reference to other objects, but by the established laws and usages of the country, in respect to persons in their condition. These laws and usages, we have seen treated them not as things, but men having unalienable rights, and immortal souls, as well as their masters.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 55-6

Jewish Legalized Servitude.

Your next main argument is substantially this: — The Jewish nation held slaves, whose condition and treatment were regulated by laws given them by divine authority, and therefore American slave-holding is sanctioned by the Bible. In proof of the facts in the case you refer to a few passages, which we allow are sufficient to test the principle which you maintain, and we oppose. — We will first look at the passages themselves, and then examine the argument founded on them. “The Lord himself.” you say, “directed Moses and Aaron how slaves were to be treated with respect to the passover;” and you quote Exodus 12:43, 44. “And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: there shall no stranger eat thereof: but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.” Slaves were allowed religious privileges which were not granted to strangers nor to hired servants; Exodus, 12:45. “A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof.” “It was no sin for a priest,” you continue, “to purchase a slave with his money, and the slave thus purchased was entitled to peculiar privileges.” Lev. 22: 10, 11. “There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing, a sojourner of the priest or a hired servant shall not eat of the holy thing. But if the priest buy any soul with his money he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house, they shall eat of his meat.” You add, “The Bible warrants the purchase of slaves as an inheritance for children forever:” and, bring for proof, Lev. 25:46, “And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-men forever; but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.”

Now against your continual substitution of the term slaves for servants we earnestly protest, on grounds which have been already stated. You seem to have forgotten that the original word has any other meaning. Was Paul a slave of Jesus Christ? Are all the people of God his slaves? What is it to be a slave in your sense of the expression? The law of South Carolina answers, “Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners, and possessors and their executors, administrators and assignees, to ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER.” And Judge Stroud in his sketch of the laws relating to slavery, says, “The cardinal principle that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, obtains as undoubted law in all these states.” —  Such is slavery among you. But that the Hebrew laws ever authorized any such slave-holding, we utterly deny. They do throughout recognize servants of every order as intelligent beings, who though in a state of servitude, had personal rights; and secured to them comfortable support, protection from personal abuse, and, on receiving circumcision, unqualified admission to all the religious privileges enjoyed by the Hebrew people, generally. This sort of servitude, we maintain, was radically and most evidently a very different thing from slavery in your sense of the term. Why then should you persist in calling it slavery without once intimating that the term, in this application, is to be taken in any limited sense? It will not be strange if you should, within a few years, amuse yourselves by giving to our northern apprentices and hired help the same appellation. You have indeed already intimated, that you deem the epithet not inappropriate

While the passages to which you refer, say nothing at all of slavery in your sense of the expression, and of course give it no countenance, they do, we freely admit, contemplate the fact, that not only the Jewish people, but priests would buy servants for money; and secure important religious privileges to those who should be thus purchased. — That what is said of the exclusion of hired servants from the Passover has respect to those of foreign extraction only, and is predicated on the supposition that such had not been circumcised is evident from the exegetical remark which follows in the same connection, “No uncircumcised person shall eat thereof; one law shall be to the home-born and to the stranger that sojourneth with you.” It is possible that the hired Hebrew servants, as well as the foreign servants, of the same condition, might have been excluded from eating of the holy things in the families of the priests, in as much as such eating was a family, not a national, privilege; and the mere circumstance of being hired for perhaps a few months or days, did not so incorporate them with the family as to give them a right with the children and permanent domestics to the peculiar privileges of members. The act that the bought servants, in regard to the partaking of the holy things, were to be put by the priests on a level with their own children, while all hired servants and even distinguished visitors in the family, were to be strictly prohibited, shows, in some measure, how exceedingly different the condition of such persons was, from that of the slaves among you.

The passage in Lev. 25: 46, shows that persons procured by purchase for permanent servitude must not be Hebrews, but be obtained from the surrounding nations, or families of Gentile extraction residing in Palestine. These nations and families should be to them a constant scource of supply. Stress has been laid on the terms bondmen and bondmaids as expressive of the lowest degree of servitude, or absolute slavery. But you will see, by looking into your Hebrew Bible, that the simple terms usually translated man servants and maid servants, without any qualifying adjunct corresponding with bond, are here employed. The fact that they were bought with money, determines not that their bodies and souls were by the purchase converted into things, and held as property; but only that they, by money paid down to themselves, to their parents, or others who claimed the right of disposing of them, had been procured to occupy the condition, and perform the services, and enjoy the privileges which were prescribed to persons thus situated by the Hebrew laws. It is remarkable that while servants of this order might be procured only from the Gentiles, Gentile families residing in Canaan were permitted by law, to buy, with their own consent, poor Hebrews, to be their servants, from the time of purchase to the year of jubilee; unless previously redeemed by themselves or friends. Lev. 25: 47–54. From this we may infer that the Hebrews had at least no power to compel the Gentiles resident among them to sell either themselves or their children. That it was on the part of the latter altogether a voluntary transaction.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 48-54

What Will You Infer?

f you should still believe that the patriarchs did hold their fellow men as slaves, in the ordinary sense of the term, which we allow to be possible, but from the evidences before us deem altogether improbable; what inference will you draw? That their example warrants others, warrants you to do the same? Try the same mode of reasoning with reference to some other less doubtful cases of patriarchal example. Abraham, through groundless fears that he might be slain on account of his wife, repeatedly said, and taught her to affirm, that she was his sister; in consequence of which, her chastity was put in the utmost peril in the courts of heathen kings who had become enamored of her beauty; and who, on learning the facts in the case, administered to the patriarch sharp reproof for his deceitful dealing with them. Isaac in similar circumstances pursued a like course of deception with regard to his wife, Rebecca. Abraham at the request of Sarah his wife, received Hager, her maid, in her place; that the wife might have children by her, when she had no prospect of bearing any herself. In after years when Sarah had a son of her own, Abraham, at her own importunity, sent Hagar away, scantily provided, to wander with her and his own son Ishmael, as unprotected and solitary out-casts, in the wilderness of Beersheba. Jacob, by arrant falsehood and fraud, deceived his aged father, and obtained his elder brother's birth right. He also had two wives, and two concubines, at the same time; with whom he lived on terms of the greatest freedom “without,” so far as we are informed, “the least remorse of conscience, or”. . . “from God.”

Will you from these facts infer that men in this Christian country and enlightened age, have a right to treat their female domestics, as Abraham treated Hagar? That they are by Scripture authorized to use deceit and fraud, whenever they may judge it for their worldly interest to do so? That they | by the Bible warranted to practice polygamy and concubinage, to any extent they may deem conducive to their highest gratification? They have patriarchal precedents for all these things; and why may they not plead and follow them? If you insist, as you will, that they have now no right to do any of these things; the example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, notwithstanding; what becomes of your argument built on their example in defence of slavery?  — provided they practised it; which we do not admit. The fact is, the patriarchs were in the main very good men, but owing to the darkness of the times in which they lived, and their own frailty, did some things which were very wrong, and should be followed by us only so far as their conduct agrees with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 45-8

Various Senses of the Term Servants.

The terms evedh, in the Old Testament, and doulos in the New, clearly synonymous, and we believe, invariably translated servant or bondman, are evidently used with great latitude of meaning, and freedom of application. The fundamental signification seems to be, One who is in some respects subject to the will of, and acts for another. Hence the phrase, servant of the King, is an honorable title, denoting a courtier, or other high officer. The King of Syria, in his letter to the King of Israel, styles Naaman his servant, although he was a great man with his master, and chief commander of his army. A servant of God in scripture language, is one devoted to his service; especially one distinguished for piety and holiness, as was the case with Moses, Joshua, David and Paul. In the New Testament, the epithet servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ is a title of honor commonly given to the teachers of the christian religion, and particularly to the apostles themselves. In some few instances, the epithet, servant of God, is given to men whom, though not willingly obedient to him, he uses as instruments in accomplishing his purposes. The king of Babylon is thus denominated.

The term servants, is however very generally applied to persons of humble condition, who, either with or without their consent, were subject to other individuals as their masters; and occupied in menial employments. Among those were several classes. Some were hired servants. These, however, were not designated by a qualifying term joined with the ordinary word for servants, but by an entirely different name. One hired to do sevice for another during a set time and for a stipulated price, the Hebrews denominated sakir, and the Greeks misthios: Names significant of their peculiar condition as hired. Persons of Hebrew origin were liable under the Levitical law to be reduced to servitude on account of failure to pay, either ordinary debts or sums in which they had been amerced for crimes committed. Not only the insolvent debtor himself, but his family with him, were liable to be seized and sold by the creditor, in order that by their services the money due might be obtained. On this custom is founded that parable of our Lord which says of the delinquent, who owed ten thousand talents and had nothing to pay, that his creditor “commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and payment to be made.” This kind of servitude, however, might not continue at the longest over six years. Deut. 15: 12. Servants of a still lower order were obtained both by conquest and by purchase from among the neighboring nations. These were to serve, not merely for six years; but for life, or at least unto the year of jubilee: and their children inherited the condition of their parents. The mere fact that they were purchased, does not prove that they were held as articles to be used only for the benefit of the owner, and to be sold again at his pleasure; any more than the fact that they were in the habit of purchasing wives, proves the same thing in regard to them. Boaz says, “So Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife,” that is widow, “of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife.” The prophet Hosea remarks respecting his wife, “So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and an half homer of barley.” Jacob bought his wives, Rachel and Leah; and for want of money paid for them in labor at the rate of seven years apiece. Their wives were in a sense, their money. Are we to infer that they were in the common sense of the term property, merchantable in the market? They were purchased of their fathers not as merchandize but as wives; to perform the duties and enjoy all the rights and privileges of that condition. So heathen servants were bought either of former masters, or of their parents, or, for any thing that appears, of themselves, to occupy the place, and perform the duties of their peculiar station; their duties and rights being prescribed and established, under the Levitical dispensation, by very merciful laws. That they were held as chattels, like beasts of the field, subject to be sold from one to another for purposes of gain, as slaves are among you, we can find no sufficient evidence in the Bible. The conquerers of the Hebrews ‘cast lots for the people, they gave a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink,’ but were accursed of God for so doing.

Now since the term servants is used with such latitude of meaning, what proof does the mere fact, that the patriarchs had servants, afford, that they were slaveholders, in the received sense of that term? Has not many a gentleman in England, in the British West Indies, and in the free States of this Union, servants — some expecting to remain for life, some hired for a short season only, and some occupying important stations, as farmers, manufacturers, and stewards of their households, to whom they, without fear, commit their most valued treasures? Are these men on this account to be denominated slave holders? With indignation they would repel the charge. That either Isaac or Jacob ever bought, sold, or held, a human being as a slave, you have furnished no certain evidence; nor have we been able to find any.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 37-42

Morbid Sensibilities.

We admit the truth of your first remark, that “the subject involved is delicate, and daily becomes more so from the morbid sensibilities which are excited, pro and con.” By morbid sensibilities, in both the friends and the opposers of slavery, we suppose you mean a diseased state of those qualities which render them quick of perception and sensation; or at least, an unhappy constitutional bias to such irriration and excitement as one in a sane state of mind would not in the same circumstances, either exhibit or feel. The high excitement of this morbid sensitiveness which has within a few years so extensively existed, we, no less than you, sincerely deplore. Nor can we object to the opinion you have expressed, that it has not made better men, citizens, or christians; that it has done no good in any quarter of the country, but much hurt. It has probably in some instances been overruled for good, but its own natural tendency is to discord, confusion, and every evil work. Some of its effects we have seen, and of far more we have heard. It has induced some of our countrymen to load, not only slaveholders, but all who did not come out in organized opposition to them, with harsh and opprobious epithets; to publish inflammatory articles, to the prejudice of others, without any sufficient evidence of their truth, and which in some instances have turned out to be false; to defend themselves by deadly weapons, sometimes at the expense of the assailant’s life; and to resort in various ways to the use of rash and unwise measures for the abolition of slavery; it has moved others to break up seminaries of learning, because young persons of color were allowed to be benefited by them, to disperse, with savage brutality, assemblies of respectable people consisting of ladies as well as gentlemen, who had peaceably assembled to hear the subject of slavery candidly discussed; to mar, pollute, and destroy public edifices, because they had been, or were likely to be, used for this purpose; to ransack violently the mails in quest of anti-slavery publications; to demolish printing presses, and cruelly persecute their conductors; to shoot down, in one instance, an editor of a paper, who went forth from among ourselves; to offer large rewards, and that publicly, for the murder of distinguished abolitionists; and to bring not a few of our leading men in Congress into collision with each other, so violent and reckless, that some of them have not only treated abusively, but have trodden down the constitutional rights of the people, and threatened a dissolution of the Union.

This morbid sensibility is truly a fearful element in any individual or community. It has already caused a vast amount of evil, and threatens destruction to all our most valuable institutions. The unholy and desolating fires which it has so widely enkindled “ought,” as you remark “to have been long since extinguished by the waters of patriotism and christian affection.” But the extinguishing element seems to be scarce, and the engines for throwing it are out of order; and the fire-men few, badly organized, and too jealous of each other to act in concert; and thus the devouring element is left, fearfully sweeping along. All this we deeply deplore.

But from the excitement of sensibilities, not morbid, of enlightened conscience, and generous sympathy, a christian benevolence, leading men to consider the woes and wants of their fellow creatures, of whatever complexion or condition they may be, we have seen no such evils arising. Of this kind of excitement there has been and still is altogether too little; and powerful stimulants are urgently demanded to rouse public feeling, in regard to this subject to any thing like healthy action. The dormant energies of mental soundness, must be called into exercise, or a cure of morbid sensibilities will never be effected.

_______________

Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 25-9

Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

Belfast, Maine, Aug. 20, 1839.

To THE PREsBYTERY of TombEcBee, IN THE STATE of Mississippi.

Christian Brethren, Your letter of the 9th of April last, in answer to one from a Committee of the General Conference of Congregational Churches in Maine appointed to correspond with Southern Ecclesiastical Bodies on the subject of Slavery, was duly received, and on the 27th of June following, communicated to the Conference at its annual meeting, at Brunswick. On hearing it, the Conference voted, we believe, unanimously, that the communication, in compliance with your request to that effect, should be published entire, together with the scriptures to which you have referred, for the benefit of our churches, and also appointed the undersigned a Committee to reply to the same in their behalf, and respectfully to request, you to publish both articles entire for the consideration of your churches, and others similarly situated.

In performing the duty, thus assigned us, we would express to you high satisfaction, on the part of the Conference, that you did not, as some others have done, leave them uninformed of the reception of their former communication, or return it in a blank envelope, or with a mere note of rejection, but had the magnanimity to give it a candid hearing; and to return an open-hearted, courteous answer. In this we rejoice, not only on account of the intrinsic worth of your communication, but because it furnishes another evidence to the world, that it is possible, after all, for men in different sections of the country, and entertaining extremely different views in regard to slavery, to discuss the subject freely, without personal asperity, or infringement on any of the established laws of civility and christian courtesy. The Conference were also gratified with the desire which you expressed that your defence of slaveholding should be published here, as they wish the churches of their communion to be favored with the ablest articles which have ever been written on both sides of this deeply interesting subject, that they may have the whole matter, in all its facts and bearings, fairly before them; and in the exercise of unbiased judgment, form their own conclusions. An honest mind, seeking after truth, turns with instinctive joyfulness towards the light, from whatever source it may emanate; or by whatever process it may be elicited,

[This response is continued under the headings below and spreads over 125 pages . . . I will post them separately and link them below when they are posted.]

• Morbid Sensibilities.
• SlaveryContrary to Natural Law.
• The BibleMust Settle the Question.
• An Unsoundand Dangerous Principle.
• PatriarchalServitude.
• Did thePatriarchs Hold Slaves?
• VariousSenses of the Term Servants.
• Abraham’sServants.
• What Will YouInfer?
• JewishLegalized Servitude.
• Servants, inWhat Sense A Possession.
• Meaning ofthe Term Forever.
• The JubileeBrought Universal Release.
• Three Thingsto be Considered.
• WideDifference Between the State Laws of the Hebrews and the Moral Law Which WasGiven Them.
• Is the American Slave System Justified by the New Testament?
• The Term Servant does in the New Testament Sometimes Mean Slave.
• The Argument that Slavery is not Condemned.
• Case of the Centurion.
• The Fact that Slavery is not Expressly Mentioned as a Damnable Sin Gives It No Justification.
• The Argument Tested.
• The Argument, that Slavery is Directly Justified, Considered.
• What was Greek and Roman Slavery?
• It is sometimes a Duty to Submit to Oppression.
• Onesimus.
• Render What is Just and Equal.
• Slaveholding Condemned by the Bible.
• The Golden Rule.
• The Last Argument: Slavery as a Benevolent Institution.
• Menial Service.
• Are Free Laborers Virtually Slaves?
• Are Free Laborers Candidates for the Almshouse?
• Suppose It Comes to the Worst.
• The Freedom of the Laboring Classes: Is It of Trifling Consequence?
• Church Privileges.
• Church Members Liable to be Sold.
• Separations of Husbands and Wives.
• Conclusion.

SILAS McKEEN, for the Committee.

To the Rev. Thomas C. STUART, Pontotoc, Mississippi, Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of Tombecbee.

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 23-152