The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
Having dwelt so much at length on this part of the subject, the reader's
patience may well be spared further details. We close it with a
suggestion or two, which may serve as a solvent of some minor
difficulties, if such remain.
I. It should be kept in mind, that _both_ classes of servants, the
Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed _equal natural and
religious rights_, but _all the civil and political privileges_ enjoyed
by those of their own people, who were _not_ servants. If Israelites,
all rights belonging to Israelites were theirs. If from the Strangers,
the same political privileges enjoyed by those wealthy Strangers, who
bought and held _Israelitish_ servants, _were theirs_. They also shared
_in common with them_, the political disabilities which appertained to
_all_ Strangers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters
of Jewish servants.
II. The disabilities of the servants from the Strangers, were
exclusively _political_ and _national_.
1. They, in common with all Strangers, _could not own the soil_.
2. They were _ineligible to civil offices_.
3. They were assigned to _employments_ less honorable than those in
which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as
fundamental to the prosperity and even to the existence of the state,
other employments were in far less repute, and deemed _unjewish_.
Finally, the condition of the Strangers, whether servants or masters,
was, as it respected political privileges, much like that of
unnaturalized foreigners in the United States; no matter how great their
wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our
institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil,
nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, who has always enjoyed
these privileges, be suddenly bereft of them, and loaded with the
disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light
matter, to _him_, would be the severity of _rigor_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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