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470  DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.  JUNE, 1861
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DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION AMERICAN SLAVERY---REPLY TO BISHOP HOPKINS, OF VERMONT. 
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{CONCLUDED.]

To the Editor of the Rochester Daily Union: 

Another absurdity involved in this theory, is, that Noah, a white man, with a white wife had a black, whoolly-headed, thick-lipped son ! And still another, that all slaveholders are descendants of Shem, to whom alone Canaan was to be a servant ! And yet one more, that servant means slave ! When the Bishop shall clear up all these absurdities, any one of which crushes his argument, I will admit the force of

'His successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.'

But until he does this, I cannot consent that because poor Noah got drunk, and 

'Unpacked his heart with words, And fell to cursing like a very drab–a scullion;' 

therefore, four millions of Africans, whose descent from the man whom Noah cursed cannot be made probable, should be held as chattels by Anglo-Saxons, whose descent from Canaan's master is still more impossible of proof! 

Bishop HOPKINS quotes the fact that Abraham had three hundred and eighteen 'trained servants.' Are servants, trained to arms, slaves? Abraham was a Prince, and these trained servants constituted his standing army. They followed their Chief to battle, (see Exd. chap. 14th,) and sustained the same relation to him as did the followers of Abdel-Kader to him, until he was conquered by the French–the same relation that exists between every Arab chief and his followers to this day. They were his servants, but not his slaves. His eldest servant was his Prime Minister,'and ruled over all he had,' (Gen. xxiv., 8,)' for all the goods of his master were in his hands.' (Gen. xxiv., 10.) On him devolved the duty of choosing a wife for Isaac. (gen. xxiv., 3.) Instead of being a chattel, a thing, Rebecka calls him 'My Lord,' (Gen. xxiv., 18,) thus showing that he was the first nobleman at Abraham's court. He was just as much a slave as Sir Robert Peel was a slave to the English Queen when Prime Minister of England. Sir Robert was the Queen's servant, but not her slave. The three hundred and eighteen trained servants were as much slaves as the soldiers in the service of the Queen, and no more. 

The case of Hagar is quoted. She was first maid of honor to Sarai, who, we are told, (Gen. xvi., 3,) 'took her and gave her to her husband Abraham, to be his wife.' Her son Ishmael was Abraham's 'hear apparent' until Isaac was born, and became the father of a mighty people. Is this the treatment and destiny of chattel slaves? Read the whole account in the 16th chapter of Genesis. 

The next quotation of Bishop HOPKINS is as follows: 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant.' (Exd. xx., 18.) This is quoted to prove that servants are property. Does not every reader see that it proves just as clearly that a man's wife is his property? and will it not be perfectly safe to leave the wives of the Bishop's flock to deal with an argument which implies that they are 'goods and chattels personal,' mere baggage, and held to their
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husbands by the same tenure that a Carolinian holds his negro wench? 

The next quotation made by the learned Bishop is the passage where the Hebrews are instructed as to the source from which they shall procure servants. I desire the reader to remember that our version of the Bible was translated just in the heighth of the slave trade by England, which was very profitable to James, by whose orders the translation was made; and if it was possible for the translators of the King to sustain that trade, even by straining a point, it would be done. Dr. ROY, author of 'Roy's Hebrew and English Dictionary,' says that it was done in translating this passage. I give the passage as in our version, and also as translated by Dr. ROY, verse by verse, in parallel columns :

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Our Version.

44. Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen which are round about you. Of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids.

45. Moreover, of the children of strangers that sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession.

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.

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Roy's Literal Translation.

44. And thy man-servant, and thy woman]-servant shall be to thee from among the Gentiles which are round about you. From them shall ye procure a man-servant and a woman-servant.

45. And also of the children of foreigners that reside with you from them ye may procure  of their families which are with them that are born in your land. They shall be to you for a possession (service.)

46. And ye shall choose them for your children after you to preside over them as their portion unto the end of the time (specified.)
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The reader will perceive that the translation of Dr. ROY cleanses this passage from every vestige of slavery. The words 'buy,' 'bond-men,' and 'forever,' were smuggled into the passage on purpose to sustain the slave trade. Dr. ROY stakes his reputation as a lexicographer on the literal correctness of this translation, and he says in a letter to a friend: 

'There is no (Hebrew) word in the Bible for slave ; aved is the only word to be found there, and means hired man, servant, laborer, soldier, minister, agistrate, messenger, angel, prophet, priest, king, and Christ himself;– (Isaiah 1ii., 13;) but it never means slave for life.

'1st. The contract (between master and servant) must be mutual and voluntary

'2d. It was conditional that the servant should, within one year, become a proselyte to the Jewish religion ; if not, he was to be discharged.

'3d. If he became such, he was to be governed by the same law, to eat at the same table, sup out of the same dish, and eat the same Passover with his master.

'4th. The law allowed him to marry his master's daughter.'

And I will add to this clear testimony of Dr. ROY, that if he escaped because ill treated, every Jew was positively forbidden to return him, (Deut. xxiii., 15, 16,) and every forty-nine years all servants were set free positively and forever, (Lev. xxv., 10,) thus proving beyond all question that Mosaic servitude was voluntary.

But taking the above passage just as it stands, and it can readily be explained on the side of freedom, by showing that the word 'buy' meant in Bible usage to hire or lease for a term of years. The same word is used in speaking of the Hebrew servant who was only bought or hired until the jubilee which occurred once in seven years ; and if he became 
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a servant in the sixth year, he went free the seventh. The Gentile servants all went free in the fiftieth year, and all their families. This was the naturalization law of the Mosaic code, and adopted as a safeguard against the danger that the heathen would corrupt their institutions. Real estate could not be bought or, as we should call it, leased for more than forty-nine years. The families who first settled the land divided every rood of soil among them, adn this law kept it in their hands. None but their descendants could own land in Judea. It was only by becoming a servant, therefore, that a Gentile could become a Jew. His servitude was his probation, and at the fiftieth year he and his family became full citizens. This was the sole mode of introduction into the church, and was designed as a grand system of proselytism.

But to quote the proof and make this argument full and clear, would require more room than I can ask for in the columns of this journal, and so I have adopted the shorter method of extracting the fangs with which a pro-slavery translation has attempted to arm this passage. But if it were true that the Old Testament did sanction slavery four thousand years ago among the Jews, it does by no means follow that it sanctions slavery now among the Americans. It sanctioned burnt offerings then–are they, therefore, binding now? It sanctioned the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, babes, and cattle, taken in war. Is such wholesale murder divine now ? Because Samuel hewed Agag in pieces then, ought Bishop HOPKINS to have hewed Santa Anna into mince meat, if he had been taken prisoner in the Mexican war ? Because a Hebrew churchman might have half a dozen wives then, may an American elder have a dozen now ? The Bishop might reply, if God commanded all these things to be done now, we must obey. Admit it, (although it is akin to blasphemy to suppose that God could utter such commands;) can he show where God commanded Virginians to enslave Africans in 1861? If not, does the fact (even if that fact were not a gigantic falsehood) that he permitted Jews four thousand years ago to enslave Canaanites, prove that he commanded Georgians four thousand years afterwards to enslave Mandingoes? Slavery must rest upon positive and literal command, in which the persons to be enslaved, and the persons to enslave them must be 'nominated in the bond,' or else it must fall under universal execration.

The Bishop, in examining the New Testament on slavery, says that our Savior 'did not allude to it at all.' Let us quote his words and see : 'The spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the gospel (good news) to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach DELIVERANCE TO THE CAPTIVE, and set recovery of sight to the blind, to set at LIBERTY THOSE THAT ARE BRUISED, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' (Luke iv., 18, 19.) This is the Savior's own statement, that it is the very purpose of his preaching to deliver the captive from all forms of bondage, and to set all men at liberty. It covers the whole ground. He denounces the Pharisees for 'binding heavy burdens on men's shoulders.' He tells his followers to 'call no man master,' and in the golden rule cuts up slavery 'root and branch' by commanding Bishop HOPKINS