The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 · Chapter 41III. Were Servants Forced to Work Without Pay
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As the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That they were paid for their labor, we argue.
1. BECAUSE GOD REBUKED THE USING OF SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES. "Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; THAT USETH HIS NEIGHBOR'S SERVICE WITHOUT WAGES, AND GIVETH HIM NOT FOR HIS WORK." Jer. xxii. 13. The Hebrew word reā, translated neighbor, means any one with whom we have to do—all descriptions of persons, even those who prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of fighting us—"As when a man riseth against his NEIGHBOR and slayeth him." Deut. xxii. 26. "Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy NEIGHBOR hath put thee to shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy NEIGHBOR." Ex. xx. 16. "If a man come presumptuously upon his NEIGHBOR to slay him with guile." Ex. xxi. 14, &c. The doctrine plainly inculcated in this passage is, that every man's labor, or "service," being his own property, he is entitled to the profit of it, and that for another to "use" it without paying him the value of it, is "unrighteousness." The last clause of the verse "and giveth him not for his work," reaffirms the same principle, that every man is to be paid for "his work." In the context, the prophet contrasts the unrighteousness of those who used the labor of others without pay, with the justice and equity practiced by their patriarchal ancestor toward the poor. "Did not thy father eat and drink and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence to do it." Jer. xxii. 15, 16. 17.A
A: Paul lays down the same principle in the form of a precept "Masters give unto your servants that which is JUST and EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. Thus not only asserting the right of the servant to an equivalent for his labor, and the duty of the master to render it, but condemning all those relations between master and servant which were not founded upon justice and equality of rights. The apostle James enforces the same principle. "Behold, the hire of the laborers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth." James v. 4. As though he had said, "wages are the right of laborers; those who work for you have a just claim on you for pay; this you refuse to render, and thus defraud them by keeping from them what belongs to them." See also Mal. iii 5.
II. GOD TESTIFIES THAT IN OUR DUTY TO OUR FELLOW MEN, ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS HANG UPON THIS COMMAND, "THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses applies this law to the treatment of strangers, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them work for us without pay; to rob them of food and clothing also, would be a stronger illustration still of the law of love! Super-disinterested benevolence! And if it be doing unto others as we would have them do to us, to make them work for our own good alone, Paul should be called to order for his hard sayings against human nature, especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."
III. SERVANTS WERE OFTEN WEALTHY. As persons became servants FROM POVERTY, we argue that they were compensated, since they frequently owned property, and sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave David "Two hundred loaves of bread, and a hundred bunches of raisins, and a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can be inferred from the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he had twenty servants. In Lev. xxv. 47-49, where a servant, reduced to poverty, sold himself, it is declared that he may be redeemed, either by his kindred, or by HIMSELF. Having been forced to sell himself from poverty, he must have acquired considerable property after he became a servant. If it had not been common for servants to acquire property over which they had the control, the servant of Elisha would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of money, (nearly $3000A) from Naaman, 2 Kings v. 22, 23. As it was procured by deceit, he wished to conceal the means used in getting it; but if servants could "own nothing, nor acquire anything," to embark in such an enterprise would have been consummate stupidity. The fact of having in his possession two talents of silver, would of itself convict him of theft.B But since it was common for servants to own property, he might have it, and invest or use it, without attracting special attention, and that consideration alone would have been a strong motive to the act. His master, though he rebuked him for using such means to get the money, not only does not take it from him, but seems to expect that he would invest it in real estate, and cattle, and would procure servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. We find the servant of Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emergency. 1 Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the servant of Elah, was the owner of a house. That it was somewhat magnificent, would be a natural inference from its being a resort of the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. When Jacob became the servant of Laban, it was evidently from poverty, yet Laban said to him, Tell me "what shall thy wages be?" After Jacob had been his servant for ten years, he proposed to set up for himself, but Laban said "Appoint me thy wages and I will give it," and he paid him his price. During the twenty years that Jacob was a servant, he always worked for wages and at his own price. Gen. xxix. 15, 18; xxx. 28-33. The case of the Gibeonites, who, after becoming servants, still occupied their cities, and remained in many respects, a distinct people for centuries;C and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the servants of Solomon, who worked out their "tribute of bond-service" in levies, periodically relieving each other, are additional illustrations of independence in the acquisition and ownership of property.
A: Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the relative value of that sum, then and now, yet we have enough to warrant us in saying that two talents of silver, had far more value then than three thousand dollars have now.
B: Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing a large amount of money? They "know how to take care of themselves" quite too well for that. When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of such things as will make detection difficult. No doubt they steal now and then, and a gaping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in the footsteps of their masters and mistresses? Dull scholars indeed! if, after so many lessons from proficients in the art, who drive the business by wholesale, they should not occasionally copy their betters, fall into the fashion, and try their hand in a small way, at a practice which is the only permanent and universal business carried on around them! Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern set before them in the daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excellencies," and to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and Right and Very Reverends! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on Virginia, pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense. It is a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as well as for his slave—and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may slay one who would slay him?"
C: The Nethinims, which name was afterwards given to the Gibeonites on account of their being set apart for the service of the tabernacle, had their own houses and cities and "dwelt every one in his own possession." Neh. xi. 3. 21; Ezra ii. 70; 1 Chron. ix. 2.
Again. The Israelites often hired servants from the strangers. Deut. xxiv. 17.
Since then it is certain that they gave wages to a part of their Canaanitish servants, thus recognizing their right to a reward for their labor, we infer that they did not rob the rest of their earnings.
If God gave them a license to make the strangers work for them without pay—if this was good and acceptable in His sight, and right and just in itself, they must have been great fools to have wasted their money by paying wages when they could have saved it, by making the strangers do all their work for nothing! Besides, by refusing to avail themselves of this "Divine license," they despised the blessing and cast contempt on the giver! But far be it from us to do the Israelites injustice; perhaps they seized all the Canaanites they could lay their hands on, and forced them to work without pay, but not being able to catch enough to do their work, were obliged to offer wages in order to eke out the supply!
The parable of our Lord, contained in Mat. xviii. 23-34, not only derives its significance from the fact, that servants can both own and owe and earn property, over which they had the control, but would be made a medley of contradictions on any other supposition.—1. Their lord at a set time proceeded to "take account" and "reckon" with his servants; the phraseology itself showing that the relations between the parties, were those of debt and credit. 2. As the reckoning went on, one of his servants was found to owe him ten thousand talents. From the fact that the servant owed this to his master, we naturally infer, that he must have been at some time, and in some way, the responsible owner of that amount, or of its substantial equivalent. Not that he had had that amount put into his hands to invest, or disburse, in his master's name, merely as his agent, for in that case no claim of debt for value received would lie, but, that having sustained the responsibilities of legal proprietorship, he was under the liabilities resulting therefrom. 3. Not having on hand wherewith to pay, he says to his master "have patience with me and I will pay thee all." If the servant had been his master's property, his time and earnings belonged to the master as a matter of course, hence the promise to earn and pay over that amount, was virtually saying to his master, "I will take money out of your pocket with which to pay my debt to you," thus adding insult to injury. The promise of the servant to pay the debt on condition that the time for payment should be postponed, not only proceeds upon the fact that his time was his own, that he was constantly earning property or in circumstances that enabled him to earn it, and that he was the proprietor of his earnings, but that his master had full knowledge of that fact.—In a word, the supposition that the master was the owner of the servant, would annihilate all legal claim upon him for value received, and that the servant was the property of the master, would absolve him from all obligations of debt, or rather would always forestall such obligations—for the relations of owner and creditor in such case, would annihilate each other, as would those of property and debtor. The fact that the same servant was the creditor of one of his fellow servants, who owed him a considerable sum, and that at last he was imprisoned until he should pay all that was due to his master, are additional corroborations of the same point.
IV. HEIRSHIP.—Servants frequently inherited their master's property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, Gen. xv. 23; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth; Jarha, the servant of Sheshan, who married his daughter, and thus became his heir, he having no sons, and the husbandmen who said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xxx. 23, an handmaid (or maid-servant,) that is heir to her mistress; also Prov. xvii. 2—"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?
V. ALL WERE REQUIRED TO PRESENT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES. Deut. xvi. 16, 17; 2 Chron. xv. 9-11; Numb. ix. 13, 14. Beside this, "every man" from twenty years old and above, was required to pay a tax of half a shekel at the taking of the census; this is called "an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls." Ex. xxx. 12-16. See also Ex. xxxiv. 20. Servants must have had permanently the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.
VI. SERVANTS WHO WENT OUT AT THE SEVENTH YEAR, WERE "FURNISHED LIBERALLY." Deut. xv. 10-14. "Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him."A If it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a like bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of Israelitish servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason, they did not go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee. If the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a gratuity proves that they were robbed of their earnings, it proves that the most valued class of Hebrew servants were robbed of theirs also; a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous.
A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows—"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally,' &c. That is to say, 'Loading, ye shall load him,' likewise every one of his family with as much as he can take with him—abundant benefits. And if it be avariciously asked, 'How much must I give him?' I say unto you, not less than thirty shekels, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared in Ex. xxi. 32."—Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii. Sec. 3.
VII. SERVANTS WERE BOUGHT. In other words, they received compensation in advance.A Having shown, under a previous head, that servants sold themselves, and of course received the compensation for themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of their children till they became of age,B a mere reference to the fact is all that is required for the purposes of this argument. As all the strangers in the land were required to pay an annual tribute to the government, the Israelites might often "buy" them as family servants, by stipulating with them to pay their annual tribute. This assumption of their obligations to the government might cover the whole of the servant's time of service, or a part of it, at the pleasure of the parties.
A: But, says the objector, if servants received their pay in advance, and if the Israelites were forbidden to surrender the fugitive to his master, it would operate practically as a bounty offered to all servants who would leave their master's service encouraging them to make contracts, get their pay in advance and then run away, thus cheating their masters out of their money as well as their own services.—We answer, the prohibition, Deut xxiii. 15. 16, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master," &c., sets the servant free from his authority and of course, from all those liabilities of injury, to which as his servant, he was subjected, but not from the obligation of legal contracts. If the servant had received pay in advance, and had not rendered an equivalent for this "value received," he was not absolved from his obligation to do so, but he was absolved from all obligations to pay his master in that particular way, that is, by working for him as his servant.
B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen years.
VIII. THE RIGHT OF SERVANTS TO COMPENSATION IS RECOGNISED IN Ex. xxi. 27. "And if he smite out his man-servant's, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." This regulation is manifestly based upon the right of the servant to the use of himself and all this powers, faculties and personal conveniences, and consequently his just claim for remuneration, upon him, who should however unintentionally, deprive him of the use even of the least of them. If the servant had a right to his tooth and the use of it, upon the same principle, he had a right to the rest of his body and the use of it. If he had a right to the fraction, and if it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for; he had a right to the sum total, and it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for.
IX. WE FIND MASTERS AT ONE TIME HAVING A LARGE NUMBER OF SERVANTS, AND AFTERWARDS NONE, WITH NO INTIMATION IN ANY CASE THAT THEY WERE SOLD. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and had many servants. Gen. xxx. 43; xxxii. 16. But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32. The case of Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, who had twenty servants, has been already mentioned.
X. GOD'S TESTIMONY TO THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth this neighbor's service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY of HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others? By doing injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back their own? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs? Did he beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!
XI. SPECIFIC PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC LAW ENFORCING GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular kind of service, all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,—a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man?—MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR sakes? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE." In the context, Paul innumerates the four grand divisions of labor among the Jews in illustration of the principle that the laborer, whatever may be the service he performs, is entitled to a reward. The priests, Levites and all engaged in sacred things—the military, those who tended flocks and herds, and those who cultivated the soil. As the latter employment engaged the great body of the Israelites, the Apostle amplifies his illustration under that head by much detail—and enumerates the five great departments of agricultural labor among the Jews—vine-dressing, plowing, sowing, reaping and threshing, as the representatives of universal labor. In his epistle to Timothy. 1 Tim. v. 18. Paul quotes again this precept of the Mosaic law, and connects with it the declaration of our Lord. Luke x. 7. "The laborer is worthy of his hire,"—as both inculcating the same doctrine, that he who labors, whatever the employment, or whoever the laborer, is entitled to a reward. The Apostle thus declares the principle of right respecting the performance of service for others, and the rule of duty towards those who perform it, to be the same under both dispensations. (2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, YEA THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this regulation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his service without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM OF HIS EARNINGS?