Slavery and the Jewish Tradition ~ Classes #4 and #5 ~ Modern attitudes

THE BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY

by

Rabbi Dr. M.J. Raphall
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun
New York City
1861

...

The "violence in their hands" is the great reproach we must address to the sturdy fire-eater who in the hearing of an indignant world proclaims "Cotton is King." King indeed, and a most righteous and merciful one, no doubt, in his own conceit; since he only tars and feathers the wretches who fall in his power, and whom he suspects of not being sufficiently loyal and obedient to his sovereignty.

And the "evil of his ways" is the reproach we must address to the sleek rhetorician who in the hearing of a G-d fearing world declared "Thought is King." King indeed, and a most mighty and magnanimous one—no doubt—in his own conceit; all-powerful to foment and augment the strife, though powerless to allay it. Of all the fallacies coined in the north, the arrogant assertion that "Thought is King" is the very last with which, at this present crisis, the patience of a reflecting people should have been abused.

For in fact, the material greatness of the United States seems to have completely outgrown the grasp of our most gifted minds; so that urgent as is our need, pressing as is the occasion, no man or set of men have yet come forward capable of rising above the narrow horizon of sectional influences and prejudices, and with views enlightened, just, and beneficent, to embrace the entirety of the Union and to secure its prosperity and preservation.

No, my friends, "Cotton" is not King, and "Human thought" is not King. Hashem melech! Hashem alone is King! Umalkuso bakol mashalah, and His royalty reigneth over all. This very day of humiliation and of prayer—what is it but the recognition of His supremacy, the confession of His power and of our own weakness, the supplications which our distress addresses to His mercy? But in order that these supplications may be graciously received, that His supreme protection may be vouchsafed unto our Country, it is necessary that we should begin as the people of Nineveh did; we must "believe in G-d."—And when I say "We," I do not mean merely us handful of peaceable Union-loving Hebrews, but I mean the whole of the people throughout the United States: the President and his Cabinet, the President elect and his advisers, the leaders of public opinion, North and South. If they truly and honestly desire to save our country, let them believe in G-d and in His Holy Word; and then when the authority of the Constitution is to be set aside for a higher Law, they will be able to appeal to the highest Law of all, the revealed Law and Word of G-d, which affords its supreme sanction to the Constitution. There can be no doubt, my friends, that however much of personal ambition, selfishness, pride, and obstinacy, there may enter into the present unhappy quarrel between the two great sections of the Commonwealth—I say it is certain that the origin of the quarrel itself is the difference of opinion respecting slave-holding, which the one section denounces as sinful—aye, as the most heinous of sins—while the other section upholds it as perfectly lawful. It is the province of statesmen to examine the circumstances under which the Constitution of the United States recognizes the legality of slave-holding; and under what circumstances, if any, it becomes a crime against the law of the land.

But the question whether slave-holding is a sin before G-d, is one that belongs to the theologian. I have been requested by prominent citizens of other denominations, that I should on this day examine the Bible view of slavery, as the religious mind of the country requires to be enlightened on the subject.

...

Having thus, on the authority of the sacred Scripture, traced slavery back to the remotest period, I next request your attention to the question, "Is slaveholding condemned as a sin in sacred Scripture?"

...

My friends, I find, and I am sorry to find, that I am delivering a pro-slavery discourse. I am no friend to slavery in the abstract, and still less friendly to the practical working of slavery. But I stand here as a teacher in Israel; not to place before you my own feelings and opinions, but to propound to you the word of G-d, the Bible view of slavery. With a due sense of my responsibility, I must state to you the truth and nothing but the truth, however unpalatable or unpopular that truth may be.

...

And while thus two of the worst passions of human nature, lust and cruelty, were kept under due restraint, the third bad passion, cupidity, was not permitted free scope; for the law of G-d secured to the slave his Sabbaths and days of rest; while public opinion, which in a country so densely peopled as Palestine must have been all-powerful, would not allow any slave-owner to impose heavier tasks on his slaves, or to feed them worse than his neighbors did. This, indeed, is the great distinction which the Bible view of slavery derives from its divine source. The slave is a person in whom the dignity of human nature is to be respected; he has rights. Whereas, the heathen view of slavery which prevailed at Rome, and which, I am sorry to say, is adopted in the South, reduces the slave to a thing, and a thing can have no rights.

The result to which the Bible view of slavery leads us, is—1st. That slavery has existed since the earliest time; 2d. That slaveholding is no sin, and that slave property is expressly placed under the protection of the Ten Commandments; 3d. That the slave is a person, and has rights not conflicting with the lawful exercise of the rights of his owner. If our Northern fellow-citizens, content with following the word of G-d, would not insist on being "righteous overmuch," or denouncing "sin" which the Bible knows not, but which is plainly taught by the precepts of men—they would entertain more equity and less ill feeling towards their Southern brethren. And if our Southern fellow-citizens would adopt the Bible view of slavery, and discard the heathen slave code, which permits a few bad men to indulge in an abuse of power that throws a stigma and disgrace on the whole body of slaveholders—if both North and South would do what is right, then "G-d would see their works and that they turned from the evil of their ways;" and in their case, as in that of the people of Nineveh, would mercifully avert the impending evil, for with Him alone is the power to do so. Therefore let us pray. ...

[read the entire speech turned into pamphlet here: http://jewish-history.com/civilwar/raphall.html]

A first response to Raphall

... The Rabbi tells us sundry things about Shem and Japheth, destined to strengthen the belief of his hearers in prophecy, which I may be allowed to pass by without scrutiny (observing by the by, that the only interesting part, that concerning the Arabs, is taken from the Hebrew writings of the late Italian scholar Reggio), our principal object here being the third son of Noah, the cursed one, the darling of Pro-Slavery theologians, Ham, the negro in the Bible! "There are three predictions," says our Rabbi, "which seem intended for all times, and accordingly remain in force to this present day. The first of these is the doom of Ham's descendants, the African race, pronounced upward of four thousand years ago." A few words, but full of falsehood, nonsense, and blasphemy!

The doom of the descendants of Ham, of the Hamites, in the predictions? Where? Ham's fourth son, Canaan, alone is mentioned. Where is the slightest authority for the doom of his other sons, or his race? Noah, awakening from his drunkenness, curses, in punishment of an insult, a son of the offender, and a race is to be "doomed for all times!" Doomed by whom, "preacher in Israel?" By the God whom you teach our people to worship, the God of Mercy, whom our lawgiver proclaims to extend his rewards to the thousandth generation, and his punishment of crimes only to the fourth? Doomed to be punished for the crime of their antediluvian progenitor for all times by the rod of man, whom our law, the law of Moses, prohibits from inflicting any punishment on a son for the crime even of a father? And all this uttered by a Jew whose very race was but of late generally believed to be cursed forever for one ancient crime! And what inspires your blasphemous assertions? Teacher in Israel, is it the trivial, vulgar notion of your Pro-Slavery patrons, or the text of the Scriptures? Open your book! Where is there a word confirming your absurdities? Noah cursed, but did God? History shows it, you say. Compare, Ham, the African race, and our negro! What a strange mixture! Where is the identity? South Carolina and Dahomey, Alabama and Timbuctoo, have more features of resemblance than the biblical Hamites and your negroes.

Ham, the "meanest of slaves" in biblical history? No, preacher in Israel; on the contrary, the conquering race par excellence! Whom do you find among the descendants of Ham in Genesis (x.)? There is Cush, or the Ethiopians, with their Meroe, which by many distinguished scholars is still believed to have been the cradle of all civilization this side of India. There is Misraim, or the Egyptians (the Ham proper of the Scriptures), of whose wisdom and power the Scriptures are full, the teachers of Chaldea and Greece, the builders of the most stupendous works of antiquity, the enslavers of our Semitic ancestors, the conquerors at many times of Western Asia, the circumnavigators of Africa. There is Nimrod, the founder of Babylon, the learned and profligate mistress of the Asian world, whose iron rod, so long endured by our Semitic ancestors, appears broken only on the last pages of our Scriptural history. There is Ashur, or the Assyrians of Nineveh, the powerful rival of the city on the Euphrates, whose conquering sword scattered over the world and nationally destroyed ten of the twelve tribes of Semitic Israel. There is Sheba, or the Sabaeans, the masters of the gold and spice region of Arabia Felix, whose queen came to Jerusalem to vie in wisdom with our King Solomon. There is Caphtor, supposed by the best critics to mean the Cretans, whose Minos was as renowned for power as for wisdom and justice, the constructors of the Cnossian labyrinth, the masters of the Grecian seas, to whom the city of Minerva was tributary. There are the Philistines, who so long disputed with our Semitic ancestors the possession of the land which the Greeks finally named after them. There is Sidon, and other Phoenician tribes, whose glorious cities and unrivaled commerce, over sea and land, with all the nations of the ancient globe, are described in such glowing words by our prophet Ezekiel. There are Dedan and Raama, Seba, and Havilah, tribes, like Sheba, settled on the shores of the Arabian seas, and rich by their traffic in gold, spices, and other precious things with the equally Hamitic Tyre (Ezekiel xxvii.). There are the Ludim and other Libyans, masters of the northern margins of Africa, but of Caucasian race. There are some few others, of whom we must say with Josephus (Ant. Book 1, Chap. 6): "We know nothing of them beside their names," and among whom I allow you, learned Rabbi, to look for your negro. But where is the Hamites' doom to be the "meanest of slaves" confirmed in biblical history? King Solomon married Hamite women (Egyptian, Sidonian, &c.). Other kings of Israel did the same. But they were wicked, you say. Our lawgiver, Moses himself, married a Hamite (Cushite) woman (Num. xii.), and his brother and sister, who gainsayed it, were reprimanded for so doing. The cursed son of Ham, Canaan, had nothing to do with the African race. The ethnological chapter of Genesis (x.) fixes the boundaries of the abode of his descendants, which did not extend beyond the limits of Syria, and even hardly beyond those of Palestine.

Or does the learned Rabbi mean to say that they were bought from pirates or slave-traders, as were Joseph, Plato, Cervantes, and Arago, and that he who denounces the slave-trade is also "guilty of something little short of blasphemy?" And does he mean to say that the female followers of the patriarchs were bound to serve in their harems (the concubines of Abraham are mentioned in Gen. xxv. 6) whether they agreed or not, and that a denunciation of similar relations in Louisiana or Mississippi would be blasphemy?

For, if the Rabbi proves anything, he proves strange things. He proves bigamy, polygamy, concubinage, Semitic (not African) Slavery, the traffic in Semitic flesh—all these and many similar things to be protected forever by the sanction of a divine law. I say Semitic and not African, because the passage which he quotes as allowing the Hebrews to buy slaves from the heathens distinctly designates those that were round about, or in the land of Israel (Lev. xxv. 44), where, as the Rabbi well knows, no negroes dwelt or sojourned, while some of the principal next neighbors of the Hebrews were not only Semites, as the Syrians (Aram) of Damascus, to whom, also, Abraham's 'ebed Eliezer belonged, but Semites of the same branch with the Hebrews, as the Ammonites and Moabites, and even descendants of Abraham himself, as the Edomites and Ishmaelites.

...

But I almost forgot our above-mentioned friend job, the noblest conception of Hebrew poetry (at least according to the Talmudical: Iyob lo hayah velo nibra, "Job never existed"), whom you also stigmatize as a slaveholder, him, who utters those noble words—speaking of his God (31:15), "Did not He that made me in the womb make him? and did not One fashion us in the womb?" If your assertion needs a refutation you can find it in the concluding passages of the Book of job, in which you will find how the martyr was rewarded for his constancy, all his former possessions being restored double, his sheep, his camels, his oxen, and his she asses—but is there a word of slaves? So much for your proofs from passages of the Scriptures.

Another ample and general refutation of our Rabbi's view can be found in the history of the Hebrews as a nation, a history of fifteen centuries, full of wars, revolutions', civil strifes, and catastrophes, but without a mention of a single slave rising, or a single similar event. And how often do the Helots figure in Spartan history! how often slaves in the history of Rome! The history of this country, alas I has scarcely a page on which is not written the black word "Slavery." Shall its history be so continued? Answer, statesmen and people of America!

And you, Rev. Rabbi Raphall, make your Bible, by some process of reasoning, to be pure, just, and humane, if you want to have it regarded as divine; or reject it as full of human frailty, if you dare! Shalom!

New York, Jan. 11, 1861.

M. HEILPRIN.

A Second response: Rabbi Einhorn

(Translated from the German, in "Sinai," Vol. VI, p. 2-22, Baltimore, 1861, by Mrs. Kaufmann Kohler)

We have before this had occasion to admire Dr. Raphall's originality, but never would we have credited him with such originality as is displayed in the carefully prepared address delivered on the 4th of January (1861) and published in the New York, "Herald," in which he positively claims that slavery is sanctioned in the Bible. The sermons we read that were delivered by Christian clergymen, even in the Southern states on this Day of Penitence and Prayer, disapproved of and apologized for slavery. ...

The question simply is: Is Slavery a moral evil or not? And it took Dr. Raphall, a Jewish preacher, to concoct the deplorable farce in the name of divine authority, to proclaim the justification, the moral blamelessness of servitude, and to lay down the law to Christian preachers of opposite convictions. The Jew, a descendant of the race that offers daily praises to God for deliverance out of the house of bondage in Egypt, and even today suffers under the yoke of slavery in most places of the old world, crying out to God, undertook to designate slavery as a perfectly sinless institution, sanctioned by God I And the impudent persons who will not believe this, are met with fanatical zeal, with a sort of moral indignation (!!!). It is difficult to picture a phenomenon more worthy of admiration! In this lecture, he was himself astonished at his glorious endeavor, and in the mildness of his heart, exclaimed: "I grieve to find myself saying a good word for slavery, but God and the truth must prevail!" How the crown of martyrdom would have glittered on his head if the black cap (cowl) had not already been placed there! ...

In his (own) impulse to create, the pious speaker does not take the least notice of the story of the creation. Although it tells us: "and God created man in His image, man and woman He created them, and God blessed them and said to them: be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Genesis 1, 28). Here no mention is made of dominion over the negro, who perhaps, according to the Raphall theory, was included with the animals that crawl and creep upon the earth,—though the antediluvian existence of slaves is clearly recognized in the words of Noah: "cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." (Genesis IX 25.) ...

It is most interesting, though, that the great theologian Raphall seriously believed that in Noah's utterance about Canaan, the lot of the negroes has been announced, without having a foreboding even of the confusion of ideas involved in such acceptance of this theory, and it gives evidence of his great deficiency in the knowledge of the Bible. Let us herewith merely quote Bunsen in his famous work on the Bible in connection with this passage: "What appears in this and the following verse as a preliminary, short account of the generation of Noah is the preface to an old family—tradition about the lack of reverence and the exorbitant want of it on the part of the descendants of Ham with reference to Canaan. Those who on the strength of this extenuate the traffic of slavery betray gross ignorance as well as an unbiblical conception. For if we consider the inhabitants of Canaan according to their descent, nationally they would be classed as Semites closely related to the other Semites, especially to the immigrant Hebrews from Aram. Canaan signifies son of Ham i.e., Egypt: for he is looked upon as having emigrated from lower Egypt to Palestine. The negroes however are descended neither from Canaan nor Ham, but in accordance with the language in the torrid zone are scattered, original Semites or Turanians (East-Japhetites). ...

e begins by assuring his hearers "That the origin of a question like this in the soul of a human being who has the benefit of religious instruction and is familiar with Biblical history, must be an inexplicable phenomenon, of which no one would have dreamt fifty years ago." After these words one ought to expect an opinion against slavery, the more so as Dr. Raphall, if we are not mistaken, has written a book on the history of the Jews, and should therefore

that not fifty, but already thousands of years ago, many Jews, the Essenes, rejected slavery as being contrary to the natural equality of human beings. (compare Phil. opp. II, 458a). But we are sadly disappointed in this expectation. Dr. Raphall cannot comprehend that a person who had the privilege of a religious education, could but for a moment consider slavery, an injustice. ...

If a Jewish theologian distorts truth in such a way, and drags slavery into our innermost sanctuary and seals this with the eternal world—enlightening "ten flaming Commandments of Sinai," then the pen threatens to drop from our hands, as we exclaim: !אוי לאזנים שכך שומעות Above all, let us notice the wretched foolery enacted with the expression "property" in regard to the manservant and maid-servant of the Bible—or more correctly with the Bible itself! ...

On the same day and perhaps at the same hour that the words honoring Judaism were pronounced from Christian pulpits: "Hebrew slavery perceives even in the slave the human-being, whereas the Roman institution—merely an object, property!," a Jewish preacher speaks with a voice that was to resound through the whole land for the glorification of God's precepts, and in the name of the Ten Commandments about slave-property, that like all other lawful property is put under the protection of the most holy God! ... For Dr. Raphall, the adherent to tradition, has merely forgotten the trifle here, that the heathen slave also had to be circumcised, was according to traditional law and his own responsibility as well, obliged to observe the Sabbath, and in the Ten Words this rest of the slave is therefore commanded on the part of the master in order to hold him also responsible for this transgression of the law on the part of his subordinates.

...

Nevertheless does Rev. Raphall dare in the name of the Decalogue to declare slavery holy in spite of all the irrefutable evidence, because it is commanded that the slave also shall rest on the Sabbath, and one is not to covet the neighbor's man-servant and maidservant? The humanity which demands that a human being working during the whole week and living under the yoke of servitude should rest and have recreation on the Sabbath is viewed by our speaker as a moral authorization of servitude, and out of the divine flame of love our pious Rabbi merely forges chains! And besides this, even to imprint a holy seal upon the stigma of being a slave by the prohibition of coveting the neighbor's slave!

...

Oh, you infidels!—our Rabbi exclaims in his pious fervor—were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Job not slaveholders?—This is certainly true, but it is just as true that among these pious and enlightened men there were some who had more than one wife, and it is difficult to perceive why they should serve as models to us as slaveholders more so than in this respect. It appears remarkable and very comical to have this wretched polygamy frustrate Dr. Raphall's plans. Moreover, Abraham, to judge from his attitude towards Eleazer, the head of his slaves, whom he thought of making his heir, scarcely considered him property. Neither did Job, who said: If I did despise the cause of my man-servant, or of my maid-servant when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when He remembereth, what shall I answer Him? Did not He that made me in the womb make him? And did not One fashion us in the womb? (Job 31, 13-15.)

...

For the loss of such a human right, the mandate to treat a slave humanely, and not even to knock out a tooth of his, is indeed a poor equivalent. It is poor humanity to rob one of one's most cherished treasure, and to replace this by forbidding only mildly boxing one's ears or omitting to do so. We consider it an offense against the law of God to proclaim this kind of humanity in His Name,—as Dr. Raphall does. Had Dr. Raphall searched for the spirit of the law of God, he would have given due honor to it; instead of going back to the deluge merely in order to produce a slave, he would have preferred to trace his way as far back as the history of creation, where the golden words shine: God created man in His image. This blessing of God ranks higher than the curse of Noah. A book which sets up this principle and at the same time says that all human beings are descended from the same human parents, can never approve of slavery and have it find favor in the sight of God. A law, which recognizes slavery, in its presentday meaning, neither according to the conception of the institution of it, nor in its literal sense, and prescribes that the Hebrew, who after six years will not cease from serving as a slave, must as a sign of shame, submit to having his ear pierced, considers no human being to be property. A religion which spares the feeling of the animal mother as the order regarding the bird's nest proves, certainly objects to having the human mother forcibly deprived of her child. The ten commandments, the first of which is: "I am the Lord, thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt,—out of the house of bondage" can by no means want to place slavery of any human-being under divine sanction, it being furthermore true, what all our prophets have proclaimed and around which Israel's fondest hopes center, that all human beings on the wide globe are entitled to admittance to the service of God, וישתחוו לפניך כל הברואים ויעשו כולם אגודה אחת that in time to come all created in the image of God will form one congregation of God. Dr. Raphall tells his hearers: cotton is not king nor is human thought the ruler, but !ה' מלך ומלכותו בכל משלה

We fully agree with him in this, but regret that here also only half of the quotation is given and the preceding words are forgotten: ויאמר כל אשר נשמה באפו

..

And thus Dr. Raphall's structure of falsehood crumbles into a thousand pieces, according to his own presentation verifying the saying: הרה עמל וילד שקר!

Dr. Raphall has sown the wind and we do not wish him to reap the whirlwind; in regard to him the word of the Preacher 1, 6: הולך אל דרום סובב אל צפון סובב סבב הולך הרוח

"Going South and turning North, always blows the wind." On the other hand, the Rabbinical motto (Baba, Bathra 25 B.) הרוצה שיחכים ידרים "Turn to the South, if you want to grow 'wise' proved a disgrace in his case, and this appears the worse for him, as we are furthermore taught here: לעולם ידרים שמתוך שמתחכם מתעשר 'such wisdom leads to wealth!'"

And now, a word to you, dear co-religionists, and particularly to you, members of my Congregation! At the moment that I am writing this down, January 9th, the thunder-cloud still hangs heavily over our head, and hides the future of our beloved land in dense mist. Perhaps some of you in our midst may consider it unjustifiable that at such a time I have thus unequivocally expressed my conviction in the foregoing regarding the law of Moses about slavery. The Jew has special cause to be conservative, and he is doubly and triply so in a country which grants him all the spiritual and material privileges he can wish for, he wants peace at every price and trembles for the preservation of the Union like a true son for the life of a dangerously sick mother. From the depth of my soul, I share your patriotic sentiments, and cherish no more fervent wish than that God may soon grant us the deeply yearned-for peace. Still—no matter which political party we may belong to—the sanctity of our Law must never be drawn into political controversy, nor disgraced in the interest of this or that political opinion, as it is in this instance, and with such publicity besides, and in the holy place! The spotless morality of the Mosaic principles is our pride and our fame, and our weapon since thousands of years. This weapon we cannot forfeit without pressing a mighty sword into the hands of our foes. This pride and renown, the only one which we possess, we will not and dare not allow ourselves to be robbed of. This would be unscrupulous, prove the greatest triumph of our adversaries and our own destruction, and would be paying too dearly for the fleeting, wavering favor of the moment. Would it not then be justly said, as in fact it has already been done, in consequence of the incident referred to: Such are the Jews! Where they are oppressed, they boast of the humanity of their religion; but where they are free, their Rabbis declare slavery to have been sanctioned by God, even mentioning the holy act of the Revelation on Sinai in defense of it. Whereas Christian clergymen even in the Southern States, and in presence of the nation's Representatives in part, though admonishing to toleration—openly disapprove of it and in part apologize for it, owing to existing conditions!

I am no politician and do not meddle in politics. But to proclaim slavery in the name of Judaism to be a God-sanctioned institution—the Jewish-religious press must raise objections to this, if it does not want itself and Judaism branded forever. Had a Christian clergyman in Europe delivered the Raphall address—the Jewish-orthodox as well as Jewish-reform press would have been set going to call the wrath of heaven and earth upon such falsehoods, to denounce such disgrace, and חלול השם And are we in America to ignore this mischief done by a Jewish preacher? Only such Jews, who prize the dollar more highly than their God and their religion, can demand or even approve of this!

EINHORN

(read the entirety of the sermon here: http://jewish-history.com/civilwar/einhorn.html)

The Wars of the Lord

By Rabbi Bernard Illowy (1814-1875).

Fast Day Sermon

at Baltimore, Jan. 4, 1861

AND he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him, the man of G-d, today, it is neither new moon nor Sabbath? and she said, Shalom, peace; Peace I want, and peace I am seeking." 2 Kings iv.26.

The same question I direct to you my friends. Wherefore are you come today to the house of the merciful Father? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath?

What is it that brought you hither at a time generally devoted to business and labor? ... No, my friends, it is neither new moon nor Sabbath, but it is a day designated by the Chief Magistrate of the United States, for the purpose of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. In compliance with his proclamation, we are assembled here to join our fellow citizens of the various denominations in keeping this day as a solemn fast; as a day devoted to religious exercise only. ...

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee; peace be within thy walls, and peace within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sake I will now say, Peace be within thee; because of the house of the Lord our G-d I will seek thy peace."

Such was the short, but fervent prayer of the pious King, whose soul was burning and whose heart was glowing for the welfare of his Jerusalem; and such should be our earnest prayer for the peace and prosperity of our Jerusalem, I say our Jerusalem, for until the time that it will be pleasing in the sight of the Lord to protract the fulfillment of his promises, this country will be our Jerusalem. O may it also forever continue to be the holy land, the land of liberty, the house of peace, and the asylum of oppressed and persecuted humanity.

...

But who, for example, can blame our brethren of the South for their being inclined to secede from a society, under whose government those ends cannot be attained, and whose union is kept together, not by the good sense and good feelings of the great masses of the people, but by an ill-regulated balance of power and heavy iron ties of violence and arbitrary force? Who can blame our brethren of the South for seceding from a society whose government can not, or will not, protect the property rights and privileges of a great portion of the Union against the encroachments of a majority misguided by some influential, ambitious aspirants and selfish politicians who, under the color of religion and the disguise of philanthropy, have thrown the country into a general state of confusion, and millions into want and poverty? If these magnanimous philanthropists do not pretend to be more philanthropic than Moses was, let me ask them, "Why did not Moses, who, as it is to be seen from his code, was not in favor of slavery, command the judges in Israel to interfere with the institutions of those nations who lived under their jurisdiction, and make their slaves free, or to take forcibly away a slave from a master as soon as he treads the free soil of their country? Why did he not, when he made a law that no Israelite can become a slave, also prohibit the buying and selling of slaves from and to other nations? Where was ever a greater philanthropist than Abraham, and why did he not set free the slaves which the king of Egypt made him a present of?"

Why did Ezra not command the Babylonian exiles who, when returning to their old country, had in their suit seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven slaves, to set their slaves free and send them away, as well as he commanded them to send away the strange wives which they had brought along? It is an historical fact, that even the Therepentae and Essenes, two Jewish sects, who with a kind of religious frenzy, placed their whole felicity in the contemplation of the divine nature, detaching themselves from all secular affairs, entrusted to their slaves the management of their property.

All these are irrefutable proofs that we have no right to exercise violence against the institutions of other states or countries, even if religious feelings and philanthropic sentiments bit us disapprove of them. It proves furthermore, that the authors of the many dangers, which threaten our country with ruin and devastation, are not what they pretend to be, the agents of Religion and Philanthropy.

Therefore, my friends, there is only one rampart which can save our country from degradation and ruin, and shield it against all the danger arising within and threatening from without. This is, the good will, the good sense and feelings of the great mass of the people. They must have no other guide than the book of G-d and the virtues which it teaches, and make their hearts inaccessible to the pernicious influence of some individuals who exert all their efforts to mislead them, under the disguise of Religion and Philanthropy, from the TRUE PATH OF TRUE RELIGION.

The evolution of a rabbi ~ Rabbi Sabato Morais

"The Israelitish to Non-Israelitish Slave Compared

In comparison with the Israelitish slave, the condition of the non Israelitish was certainly hard but its severity was indeed only apparent, by reason of the total absence of brotherly comradeship in the case of the former, and our Sages Z"L said "He who buys a Hebrew slave, buys himself a master" and the jubilee did not enfranchise the Canaanitish slave.

Comparison Between Hebrew and Other Slavery.

Sparta. The Helots were the property of the state and they were apportioned to individuals who became absolute masters over their limbs and lives, in every respect they would stand out from the other inhabitants of the land and were the market boys of contempt, and they were publicly massacred whenever their numbers greatly increased.

Rome. Some men made the slaves gladiators, there they were also indiscriminately slaughtered if a warder happened to be murdered by one of them.

Such records as these do not stain the annals of the Jews. Our Sages say that although by right we could exact recourse work from the slave, that piety and true wisdom taught us to deal charitably with him, so that he might never feel his inferiority. We are impressed with the obligation of feeding him of the same food we ourselves eat, and of clothing him in the same manner as ourselves. The Talmud consists of many maxims, in which harsh treatment, terms of reproach and ingrate words, used towards the dependents are considered heinous crimes. An instance could be given of the good character of men who would not sit at their meals, unless their slaves had been previously supplied in abundance.

But see Job. If I despised the cause of my slave, Or my handmaid, when they contended with me, what should I do when God riseth up to judge, or when He visiteth me, what should I answer, for did not He who formed me, make them also, think not the same being fashioned us in the matrix?

"Man cannot be established by wickedness - Proverbs xii,3

My friends -

the present is not a season for recriminations. I will not administer now the scathing rebuke, which they well deserve who in their political harangues have aspersed the fair name of Israel. ... I would be restrained by the magnanimous example of our chief Executive. He than whom none could be more vilified by his opponents appeals to God as a witness, that animosity does not rankle in his breast. Yes, I will say it with the ancient moralist "Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins." The heart that throbs with undying affection for the Union can forgive the offense of some among its narrow-minded children.

...

Not the victories of the Union, but those of freedom my friends, we do celebrate. What is Union with human degradation? Who would again affix his seal to the bond that consigned millions to [that?] Not I, the enfranchised slave of Mizraim. Not you, whose motto is progress and civilization. Cast, then, your vision yonder, and behold the happy change wrought by the hand of Providence. . . . Thy name shall no longer be called Maryland, but Merry-land, for thou hast verily breathed a joyous spirit into the souls of all thy inhabitants.

And when I remember my friends that from the windows of our legislative hall, a scene could be witnessed two years ago that belied the enactment of a Republican Senate, I discover, with a naked eye the finger of the Almighty Creator working wonders. The District of Columbia gave the first impulse to the wheel of human progress, and it has ever since rolled on with a steady motion. My beloved hearers, if this alone were the issue of our struggle, it would suffice the philanthropist. It would offer him simple occasion to put forth sincere thanksgiving for the deliverance of his unfortunate fellow beings. But we have also taught the world thereby a lesson of incalculable utility. Aye! “Man cannot be established by wickedness.”

A few ambitious men, because they could not sit as chiefs in all high places, sought to destroy the happiness of their country. But their fire-brand which they threw in her midst has very nigh well devoured their vitals. God who abhors iniquity confounded their council. Innumerable were the means which they employed to divide and conquer. The diplomatic skill in which they confessedly abound, undaunted courage, a power of resistance worthy of a holy cause, all the appliances of science, all the dexterity of arts were resorted to by the leaders of their faction and their deluded followers to fasten upon the North ruin and disgrace, but they conceived vanity and brought forth naught. …

Your Montgomeries and your Warrens, who breathed their last me the roar of the canon, were the instruments by which the God of Battles wrought the happiness of a whole generation. True, the men they gallantly sought were not the children of the soil, brothers nurtured at the same breast. They were the sons of strangers who attempted to rule over us. Now, alas! we are marshaled in mortal array against the offspring of our kind mother. But upon them who first unsheathed the fratricidal sword, rests the terrible responsibility. Unnatural and perfidious, they endeavored to sunder at a stroke that bond of union which constitutes our greatness. That which is the glory of America and the joy of the oppressed they would demolish, the rear upon its ruin a monument to human bondage.

It shall not be. The thundering voice of the millions among the free has so proclaimed. When the day that the suffrage of a sovereign people was to declare in whose hands they shall trust the interests doing another cycle of years, my anxious looks were directed to the wires whereby intelligence is the spread abroad. The air had been previously filled with inauspicious rumors. The most incredulous believed that the mighty contest would surely give birth to violence and sedition. My friends, we have won many battles but the last was the most decisive. It cut off the remanent the remaining prop upon which the fungus of the Confederacy rested for support. No more can it trust for success in the diversity of our political opinions.

Every man exercised his elective franchise agreeably to his best judgment, but even they who bestow an undue degree of pity on our misguided foes refused to lend countenance to treason. The dreaded clamor of angry multitudes was not heard in our borders, the threats of disaffection found no utterance in our midst. I challenge the world to show a parallel case of a nation, I say, wrought up to the highest pitch of political effervescence, who nevertheless regulate their actions by the square and compass of equity. Let now the foreign press indite its diatribes about man’s inability for self-government. We have proved a capacity for it. We have proven that over the weird or resolved at all hazards to bequeath to posterity the country founded by our Washington in all its untarnished lustre. Once more we will call upon the rebellious to desist. “Return ye wayward children; your trespasses shall be remembered no more.” If they hearken, we will “beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks”. If they harden their hearts we shall lament so much contumacy but its disastrous effects shall be required at their hands. Oh! Let us pray that they may head our call. Let us in all sincerity, tender the olive branch. Let us endeavor by honorable means to facilitate its acceptance. More in the prowess of our army and in the feats of our navy we ought to seek glory in the laboring peacefully for the reconstruction of this once mighty Republic.

[you can read the entire text on Rabbi Morais's ledger:

http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/pages/index.cfm?so_id=1661&pagePosition=41

You can also browse the ledger.