The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

reduced to two: first, the voluntary sale of an individual by

  himself, which certainly does not come under the designation of

  involuntary servitude; second, the appropriation of captives

  taken in war, and the buying from the heathen.

  With regard to the servitude of the Hebrew by a voluntary

  sale of himself, such servitude, by the statute-law of the land,

  came to an end once in seven years; so that the worst that

  could be made of it was that it was a voluntary contract to

  labour for a certain time.

  With regard to the servants bought of the heathen, or of

  foreigners in the land, there was a statute by which their servi-

  tude was annulled once in fifty years.

  It has been supposed, from a disconnected view of one par-

  ticular passage in the Mosaic code, that God directly counte-

  nanced the treating of a slave, who was a stranger and foreigner,

  with more rigour and severity than a Hebrew slave. That this

  was not the case will appear from the following enactments,

  which have express reference to strangers:--

  The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you

  and thou shalt love him as thyself.--Lev. xix. 34.

  Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him; for ye were strangers in

  the land of Egypt.--Exodus xxii. 21.

  Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger.--Exodus

  xxiii. 9.

  The Lord your God regardeth not persons. He doth execute the judgment of

  the fatherless and the widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and

  raiment; love ye therefore the stranger.--Deut. x. 17-19.

  Judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is

  with him. Deut. i. 16.

  Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger.--Deut. xxvii. 19.

  Instead of making slavery an oppressive institution with re-

  gard to the stranger, it was made by God a system within which

  heathen were adopted into the Jewish state, educated and in-

  structed in the worship of the true God, and in due time eman-

  cipated.

  In the first place, they were protected by law from personal

  violence. The loss of an eye or a tooth, through the violence of

  his master, took the slave out of that master's power entirely,

  and gave him his liberty. Then, further than this, if a master's

  conduct towards a slave was such as to induce him to run away,

  it was enjoined that nobody should assist in retaking him, and

  that he should dwell wherever he chose in the land, without

  molestation. Third, the law secured to the slave a very con-

  siderable portion of time, which was to be at his own disposal.

  Every seventh year was to be at his own disposal.--Lev. xxv. 4-6.

  Every seventh day was, of course, secured to him.--Ex. xx. 10.

  The servant had the privilege of attending the three great

  national festivals, when all the males of the nation were required

  to appear before God in Jerusalem.--Ex. xxxiv. 23.

  Each of these festivals, it is computed, took up about three

  weeks. The slave also was to be a guest in the family festivals.

  In Deut. xii. 12, it is said, “Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your

  God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-

  servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within

  your gates.

  Dr. Barnes estimates that the whole amount of time which a

  servant could have to himself would amount to about twenty-

  three years out of fifty, or nearly one-half his time.

  Again, the servant was placed on an exact equality with his

  master in all that concerned his religious relations.

  Now, if we recollect that in the time of Moses, the God and

  the king of the nation were one and the same person, and that

  the civil and religious relation were one and the same, it will

  appear that the slave and his master stood on an equality in

  their civil relation with regard to the state.

  Thus in Deuteronomy xxix. is described a solemn national

  convocation, which took place before the death of Moses, when

  the whole nation were called upon, after a solemn review of their

  national history, to renew their constitutional oath of allegiance

  to their supreme Magistrate and Lord.

  On this occasion, Moses addressed them thus:--“Ye stand

  this day, all of you, before the Lord your God; your captains

  of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men

  of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is

  in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy

  water; that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord

  thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh

  with thee this day.”

  How different is this from the cool and explicit declaration of

  South Carolina with regard to the position of the American

  slave!--“A slave is not generally regarded as legally capable of

  Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 243.

  being within the peace of the State. He is not a

  citizen, and is not in that character entitled to her

  protection.”

  In all the religious services, which, as we have seen by the

  constitution of the nation, were civil services, the slave and the

  master mingled on terms of strict equality. There was none of

  the distinction which appertains to a distinct class or caste.

  “There was no special service appointed for them at unusual

  seasons. There were no particular seats assigned to them, to

  keep up the idea that they were a degraded class. There was

  no withholding from them the instruction which the Word of

  God gave about the equal rights of mankind.”

  Fifthly. It was always contemplated that the slave would, as

  a matter of course, choose the Jewish religion, and the service

  of God, and enter willingly into all the obligations and services

  of the Jewish polity.

  Mr. Barnes cites the words of Maimonides, to show how this

  was commonly understood by the Hebrews.--Inquiry into the

  Scriptural Views of Slavery, by Albert Barnes, p. 132.

  Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be pur-

  chased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant.

  But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day; and he that is bought

  with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be un-

  willing. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master

  is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kind-

  ness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long, it is forbidden to keep

  him longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers

  from whence he came; for the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the

  worship of a willing heart.

  -- A sixth fundamental arrangement with regard to the Hebrew

  slave was that he could never be sold. Concerning this Mr.

  Barnes remarks:--

  A man, in certain circumstances, might be bought by a Hebrew; but when

  once bought, that was an end of the matter. There is not the slightest
evidence

  that any Hebrew ever sold a slave; and any provision contemplating that was

  unknown to the constitution of the commonwealth. It is said of Abraham that

  he had “servants bought with money;” but there is no record of his having ever

  sold one, nor is there any account of its ever having been done by Isaae or Jacob.

  The only instance of a sale of this kind among the patriarchs is that act of the

  brothers of Joseph, which is held up to so strong reprobation, by which they sold

  him to the Ishmaelites. Permission is given in the law of Moses to buy a ser-

  vant, but none is given to sell him again; and the fact that no such permission is

  given is full proof that it was not contemplated. When he entered into that re-

  lation it became certain that there could be no change, unless it was voluntary

  on his part (comp. Ex. xxi. 5, 6), or unless his master gave him his freedom, until

  the not distant period fixed by law when he could be free. There is no arrangement

  in the law of Moses by which servants were to be taken in payment of their

  master's debts, by which they were to be given as pledges, by which they were

  to be consigned to the keeping of others, or by which they were to be given away

  as presents. There are no instances occurring in the Jewish history in which

  any of these things were done. This law is positive in regard to the Hebrew

  servant, and the principle of the law would apply to all others. Lev. xxv. 42

  “They shall not be sold as bondmen.” In all these respects there was a marked

  difference, and there was doubtless intended to be, between the estimate affixed

  to servants and to property.

  -- As to the practical workings of this system, as they are deve-

  loped in the incidents of sacred history, they are precisely what

  we should expect from such a system of laws. For instance,

  we find it mentioned incidentally in the ninth chapter of the

  first book of Samuel, that when Saul and his servant came to

  see Samuel, that Samuel, in anticipation of his being crowned

  king, made a great feast for him; and in verse twenty-second

  the history says, “And Samuel took Saul and his servant, and brought them into the parlour, and made them sit in the

  chiefest place.”

  We read, also, in 2 Samuel ix. 10, of a servant of Saul who

  had large estates, and twenty servants of his own.

  We find in 1 Chron. ii. 34, the following incident related:

  --“Now, Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan

  had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And

  Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha, his servant, to wife.”

  Does this resemble American slavery?

  We find, moreover, that this connexion was not considered

  at all disgraceful, for the son of this very daughter was enrolled

  among the valiant men of David's army.--1 Chron. ii. 41.

  In fine, we are not surprised to discover that the institutions

  of Moses in effect so obliterated all the characteristics of slavery,

  that it had ceased to exist among the Jews long before the time

  of Christ. Mr. Barnes asks:--

  On what evidence would a man rely to prove that slavery existed at all in the

  land in the time of the later prophets of the Maccabees, or when the Saviour ap-

  peared? There are abundant proofs, as we shall see, that it existed in Greece and

  Rome; but what is the evidence that it existed in Judea? So far as I have been

  able to ascertain, there are no declarations that it did to be found in the canonical

  books of the Old Testament or in Josephus. There are no allusion to laws and

  customs which imply that it was prevalent; there are no coins or medals which

  suppose it; there are no facts which do not admit of an easy explanation on the

  supposition that slavery had ceased.

  -- Two objections have been urged to the interpretations which

  have been given of two of the enactments before quoted.

  1. It is said that the enactment, “Thou shalt not return to

  his master the servant that has escaped,” &c., relates only to

  servants escaping from heathen masters to the Jewish nation.

  The following remarks on this passage are from Professor

  Stowe's lectures:

  Deuteronomy xxiii. 15, 16.--These words make a statute

  which, like every other statute, is to be strictly construed.

  There is nothing in the language to limit its meaning; there is

  nothing in the connexion in which it stands to limit its

  meaning; nor is there anything in the history of the Mosaic

  legislation to limit the application of this statute to the case

  of servants escaping from foreign masters. The assumption

  that it is thus limited is wholly gratuitous, and, so far as the

  Bible is concerned, unsustained by any evidence whatever. It

  is said that it would be absurd for Moses to enact such a law

  while servitude existed among the Hebrews. It would indeed

  be absurd, were it the object of the Mosaic legislation to

  sustain and perpetuate slavery; but if it were the object of

  Moses to limit and to restrain, and finally to extinguish slavery,

  this statute was admirably adapted to his purpose. That it

  was the object of Moses to extinguish and not to perpetuate

  slavery is perfectly clear from the whole course of his legislation

  on the subject. Every slave was to have all the religious privi-

  leges and instruction to which his master's children were

  entitled. Every seventh year released the Hebrew slave, and

  every fiftieth year produced universal emancipation. If a

  master, by an accidental or an angry blow, deprived the slave

  of a tooth, the slave, by that act, was for ever free. And

  so by the statute, in question, if the slave felt himself oppressed,

  he could make his escape, and, though the master was not

  forbidden to retake him if he could, every one was forbidden

  to aid his master in doing it. This statute, in fact, made the

  servitude voluntary, and that was what Moses intended.

  Moses dealt with slavery precisely as he dealt with polygamy

  and with war--without directly prohibiting, he so restricted as

  to destroy it; instead of cutting down the poison-tree, he

  girdled it, and left it to die of itself. There is a statute in

  regard to military expeditions precisely analogous to this cele-

  brated fugitive slave-law. Had Moses designed to perpetuate

  a warlike spirit among the Hebrews, the statute would have

  been pre-eminently absurd; but, if it was his design to crush

  it, and to render foreign wars almost impossible, the statute

  was exactly adapted to his purpose. It rendered foreign mili-

  tary service, in effect, entirely voluntary, just as the fugitive-law

  rendered domestic servitude, in effect, voluntary.

  The law may be found at length in Deuteronomy xx. 5-10;

  and let it be carefully read and compared with the fugitive

  slave-law already adverted to. Just when the men are drawn

  up ready for the expedition--just at the moment when even the

  hearts of brave men are apt to fail them--the officers are

  commanded to address the soldiers thus:--

  What man of you is there that hath built a new house, and hath not

  dedicated it? Let him go and retur
n to his house, lest he die in the battle, and

  another man dedicate it.

  And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard and hath not yet eaten of

  it? Let him also go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and

  another man eat of it.

  And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her?

  Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man

  take her.

  And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What

  man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return unto his

  house, lest his brethren's heart faint, as well as his heart.

  Now, consider that the Hebrews were exclusively an agri-

  cultural people, that warlike parties necessarily consist mainly

  of young men, and that by this statute every man who had

  built a house which he had not yet lived in, and every man

  who had planted a vineyard from which he had not yet gathered

  fruit, and every man who had engaged a wife whom he had

  not yet married, and everyone who felt timid and faint-hearted,

  was permitted and commanded to go home--how many would

  there probably be left? Especially when the officers, instead

  of exciting their military ardour by visions of glory and of

  splendour, were commanded to repeat it over and over again,

  that they would probably die in the battle and never get home,

  and hold this idea up before them as if it were the only idea

  suitable for their purpose, how excessively absurd is the whole

  statute considered as a military law--just as absurd as the

  Mosaic fugitive-law, understood in its widest application, is,

  considered as a slave-law!

  It is clearly the object of this military law to put an end to

  military expeditions; for, with this law in force, such expedi-

  tions must always be entirely volunteer expeditions. Just as

  clearly was it the object of the fugitive slave-law to put an end

  to compulsory servitude; for, with that law in force, the servi-

  tude must in effect be, to a great extent, voluntary--and that

  is just what the legislator intended. There is no possibility of

  limiting the law, on account of its absurdity, when understood

  in its widest sense, except by proving that the Mosaic legisla-