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Doctor Johnson, "said to be derived from the Sclavi or Slavonians, who were subdued and sold by the Venetians, signifies, one mancipated to a master." Mancipation, on the same authority, is "slavery, involuntary obligation." The Latin, mancipium, from which the word mancipated is derived, signifies, (1.) property, or right of perpetual possession, as lands, servants, &c., (2.) a slave.

A slave, then, is a human being, who is made an article of property; and therefore, like all other property, subject to be bought, sold, transferred, imported, exported, levied upon, given away, delivered over to executors and administrators, or assigned to heirs, wholly at the will of his master:-one who is reduced to this condition, and held in it, without the least regard to his consent or refusal to serve such master. The master's claim to him, as property, rests not at all upon the slave's choice: is not strengthened by his willingness; nor weakened, much less destroyed, by his unwillingness, to be a slave..

Our statute books establish this definition. "The civil law," says Judge Stroud, "except when modified by statute or by usages which have acquired the force of law, is generally referred to in the slave-holding States, as containing the true principles of the constitution: it will be proper, therefore, to give an abstract of its leading doctrines; for which purpose I use Dr. Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law, p. 429. 'Slaves,' says he, 'were held pro nullis: pro mortuis: pro quadrupedibus. **** They could be sold, transferred, or pawned as goods or personal estate; for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed.' **** According to the laws of Louisiana ‘a slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. His master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing but what must belong to his master.' ***The slave is entirely subject to the will of his master, who may arrest and chastise him, though not with unusual rigor,' &c. **** The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things is an article of property, a chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law in all these (the slave-holding) states. In South Carolina it is expressed in

in the following language: 'Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever.' **** 'In case the personal property of a ward shall consist of specific articles, such as slaves, working beasts,' &c.—(Act of Maryland, 1798, CI. 12. 12.) In Kentucky, by the law of descents, they are considered real estate, and pass in consequence to heirs, and not to executors. They are, however, liable as chattels to be sold by the master at his pleasure, and may be taken in execution for the payment of his debts." (Sketch of the laws relating to slavery, pp. 21–24.)

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Such, we repeat, is a slave in the American sense of the word; the only sense any way pertinent to the matter in debate. Slavery is the condition of such a person. We are now to inquire whether Jehovah, in his word, tolerates, or has ever tolerated, as innocent, the holding of our fellow-men in such a condition. This is the main question, the true question, the only question. Men may say what they please about abadim and douloi: but unless they prove that the ebed and the doulos were with the Divine permission, held as property, subject to all the ordinary uses and liabilities of property; bought, sold, and held without the least regard to their own will in the matter;-talk long and learnedly as they may, they do but prove that they have not yet apprehended the real nature of the question under discussion. That a kind of servitude existed in the families of the patriarchs; that it was not merely permitted, but even sanctioned, by the Divine Lawgiver, among the Jewish people, no one denies. But what was the nature of that servitude? Was it precisely, or even in its chief features, analogous to American slavery? Abolitionists maintain the negative. Let those who choose to defend slavery, and to sooth the troubled conscience of the slave-holder; to protect them from the censures of the church, and the terrible threatenings of Holy Writ, maintain the affirmative: but let them fairly join issue, march up to "the imminent, deadly breach," and plant (if they can,) their victorious standard on the walls of the citadel. Let them cease to glorify themselves in their easy triumphs over men of

straw. With these preliminary remarks, we proceed to our author's propositions.

"PROPOSITION 1. Slavery existed during the period over which the old Testament history extends." (p. 16.) To support this proposition, five examples are adduced.

1. The case of Joseph. That Joseph was a slave, in the proper sense of that term, we cheerfully admit. He was made an article of property: was bought and sold just as were the "spices, balm and myrrh;" and this, without the least regard to his own will. But what assistance the case of Joseph can render to one who would prove that God did not disapprove such slavery, we are at a loss to divine; especially when we remember Joseph's solemn declaration,-"Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews," (Gen. xl. 15;) and Jehovah's command,—"he that stealeth a man and selleth him, * * * shall surely be put to death," (Ex. xxi. 16.) But we are assured that "the Ishmaelites did not steal him. **** His brothers stole him from their own father, and sold him."-(p. 17.) Ah, indeed! but Joseph says he was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews. Was Dothan, "a town twelve miles north of Samaria,” (Calmet,) out of the land of the Hebrews? And did his brothers whip him away to Dothan, from his father's house in Hebron? If Joseph knew, they stole him, who carried him from his native land,—the Ishmaelites. The Doctor contradicts the plain story of the Hebrew slave himself, to give plausibility to the inference that the purchase and sale of freemen is not man-stealing. A worthy object, truly!

2. The "souls" that Abram, Sarai, and Lot "had gotten in Haran," (Gen. xii. 5.) Some able critics, ancient and modern, Jewish and Christian, have contended that the Hebrew word asu, "gotten," "expresses the instrumentality used in the conversion of the souls whom they had brought with them from Haran." Doctor J. misrepresents, and then ridicules the argument used on the floor of the Synod in defence of this interpretation. We shall not here insist upon it. It is not necessary to our argument; for, admitting the correctness of his criticism, and granting that these "souls" were servants, whom Abram and others had acquired, "or bought with money;" does

it follow that he bought them of any other than themselves, or against their will? or that he held them as property which he might sell to the highest bidder?—that is, that they were slaves? Scriblerus, in his treatise on Logic, informs us "that there cannot be more in the conclusion than there was in the premises."

3. The slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, Ex. i. 13, 16. (p. 22.) We deny, and it has not been proved, nor can it be, that the Israelites were held as the individual property either of Pharaoh or of his people. That they were wickedly oppressed, and in a condition of cruel bondage, is very true. But grant that they were slaves: will any one undertake to prove, by their history, that God tolerates slavery? If he do, let the bloody Nile, and the croaking frogs in Pharoah's bedchamber, and the lice upon man and beast in all Egypt, and the swarming flies, and the dying cattle, and the boil with blains upon every living thing that was Egyptian, and the grievous hail and the fire that ran along the ground, and the mighty thunderings, and the locusts covering all the land, and the thick darkness that might be felt, and the wailings of the whole nation of oppressors over the corpses of their first-born, answer his argument. We shall not. Had this been Dr. J.'s proposition, "that oppression existed in very ancient times; that it was abhorred of God, and punished with the most fearful plagues," the history of the Israelites in Egypt might have been appealed to as most conclusive proof!

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"4. The next instance, wherein slavery is recognized as a relation existing, I shall mention, is in the fourth and tenth commandments. Thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.' 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.' In both these precepts ownership in and control over, the man-servant and the maid-servant, is spoken of in the same language as ownership in the ox and the ass. In the latter, it is clear that covetousness could not exist, but where real ownership existed." (pp. 53, 54.) If it had been or could be proved that ebed and amah, man

servant and maid-servant,) necessarily signify a male or female slave; and if it had been shown that the Hebrews held slaves by the permission of Heaven, then, indeeed, we must admit that these commandments recognize the existence of slavery, and protect the master's claim of property in human flesh. That neither of these is true, we shall prove in the sequel. As for the argument from the 10th commandment, the only one offered here to show that the servants were really property; it proves too much, and therefore nothing. They must have been property, slaves or they could not be coveted! Then the wife, too, must be property, a slave, or she could not be coveted! In both these precepts, ownership in, and control over, the wife, the son, and the daughter, is spoken of in the same language as ownership in the man-servant and the maid-servant. If the man-servant is property, because he is called thine, just as thy ox, and thy ass; by parity of reasoning, thy wife, thy son, thy daughter are property. If the wife may be coveted, though not the property of her husband, why may not the servant? And what becomes of the assertion that "covetousness could not exist but where real ownership existed?" Cannot a bound-boy, or a bound-girl, who is merely indented to his master for a term of years, be coveted? But in this case the master has a property-right, not in the flesh and blood of his apprentice; but in his talents and services for a given period; and the servant is a bond-man,—an ebed, but not a slave.

**** Here note,

"5. The Gibeonites furnish a fifth example. [1] They were reduced to perpetual slavery-they and their children. [2] This was a punishment for their sin. Their lives had been forfeited. They knew that they were devoted to death, and preferred slavery to death."-[p. 24.]

The facts in regard to the Gibeonites appear to have been these. [1] They were a very numerous people. They had four cities, Gibeon, Chephirah, Kirjath-jearim, and Beeroth. [Josh. ix. 17.] One of these, Gibeon, is described as a “great city, as one of the royal cities," and "greater than Ai; and all the men thereof were mighty."-[x. 2.] Now Ai had 12,000 inhabitants. [viii. 25.]

[2] They probably remained in their own cities for a long

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