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Chapter 22
Amendment 13: Constitutional Slavery

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Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The African Slave Trade

Amendment 13, the first of the three postbellum reconstruction amendments, was adopted on December 6, 1865. It was added to the Constitution in order to legalize President Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, formally ending the African slave trade and freeing those still enslaved.

Had I been alive at the time this Amendment was proposed, I would have theoretically been in favor of it, for two reasons. First, I would have endorsed outlawing African slavery because both Old and New Testaments promote segregation rather than integration, “uniculturalism” rather than multiculturalism, and racial purity rather than amalgamation.¹

Consider Deuteronomy 7, in light of Ecclesiastes 1:9: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done….”²:

When YHWH³ thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee … thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of YHWH be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. (Deuteronomy 7:1-5)

Even if the potential for idolatry were the only reason for segregation, the consequences for ignoring this reason are the same today as when Moses first penned Deuteronomy 7. In 1776, approximately 2.5 million people resided in America. More than 99% of that population was white Christian Protestants.⁴ The remaining 1% was collectively represented by 20,000 Roman Catholics, 3,000 Jews, and some deists. In light of these statistics and our present-day demographics (51.3% Protestant, 23.9% Roman Catholic, 3.3% other Christian, 1.7% Jewish, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.6% Muslim, 0.4% Hindu, 1.2% other religions, and 16.1% no religion⁵), it is inescapable that the more non-European immigrants allowed to enter and remain in this country, the less Christian this nation becomes. The more racially mixed and multicultural America becomes, the more religiously pluralistic she becomes, and the more pluralistic she becomes, the more pagan she becomes. Whereas in 1776 only 1% of Americans professed some religion other than Christianity, as of October 2009 almost 50% of Americans profess something other than Christianity. (The genesis of this staggering increase in non-Christian numbers and influence in the last 233 years is indubitably Amendment 1.)

Consider the following comments by two demographic specialists, neither of whom have an axe to grind. In her book, The Official Guide to the American Marketplace, Cheryl Russell confirmed this paganizing of America:

Immigration will slowly change the nation’s [predominately Christian] religious affiliation…. Because most of the nation’s immigrants are from Mexico … the Roman Catholic church is likely to gain adherents. The influx of Asian immigrants should boost the share of Americans who are Buddist or Hindu.⁶

The same is true regarding Jewish, Muslim, and other non-European immigrants. Nationally acclaimed demographics expert Martin E. Marty confirmed this inevitable consequence of mixing races and cultures:

No one noticed it at the time, but the biggest event affecting pluralism [the increasing multi-religious composition of the United States] was in 1965, when immigration quotas that favored Europeans were altered.⁷

In other words, before 1965, when immigration quotas favored Europeans, America was predominately Christian. (Someone should be asking, “Why is it that most Europeans are Christian and most non-Europeans are not Christian?” Could the answer be found in Hebrews 8:8-9?⁸) Like it or not, nothing has changed. The consequences of interracial and multicultural immigration and its promotion of integration is just as cogent now as in Moses’ day. This is a reality most Americans do not want to face, but it is a reality nonetheless. Such information is usually met with accusations of racism and white supremacy. However, the real racists are those whose agenda ultimately destroys the races and their cultures through amalgamation.

Anyone who thinks integration has solved America’s race problem has blinded himself to the statistics and the realities of life, particularly in the inner cities where the problem is most evident. Integration only exacerbates the problem. Without integration, there can be no race problem. The race problem is best solved through segregation. Integration inevitably leads to amalgamation and amalgamation is ultimately equivalent to genocide:

Men have tried over and over again to establish a community of the basis of blood. …this racist idea of community [has been extended] to include all men, a one-world order. All men, it is pointed out, are a common species and hence should live together in community. A widely promoted book of a few years ago was titled The Family of Man, a deliberate appeal to the unity of the family in blood as the ground for the same unity of all men as one in blood. …however intensely the national state and the one-worlder try to create a unified human community in terms of blood, these attempts are failure. Instead of a unified society, there is a divided one which continues to fractionalize.⁹

Look at South Africa since apartheid was eliminated. Of course, you will have to look somewhere other than the mainline media outlets to get your information. After condemning apartheid as such a wicked thing, they are not about to report on the aftermath of bloodshed, rape, and pillage.

The point is: the African slave trade as practiced in early America was wrong, if for no other reason than because it led to integration and mixing of peoples who Yahweh¹⁰ never intended integrated and mixed (otherwise, He would have done the mixing Himself). That this was a significant problem is evidenced in that “by the eve of the American Revolution, half of Virginia’s population was black, and two-thirds of South Carolina’s.”¹¹

African slavery was one of the initial steps in the America’s return to the Tower of Babel. R.J. Rushdoony elaborated upon unequal yoking and some of its consequences:

Unequal yoking [2 Corinthians 6:14] plainly means mixed marriages between believers and unbelievers and is clearly forbidden. But Deuteronomy 22:10 not only forbids unequal religious yoking by inference, and as a case law, but also unequal yoking generally…. Man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26), and woman in the reflected image of God in man, and from man (1 Cor. 11:1-12; Gen. 2:18, 21-23). “Helpmeet” means a reflection or mirror, an image of man, indicating that woman must have something religiously and culturally in common with her husband. The burden of the law is thus against inter-religious, inter-racial, and inter-cultural marriages, in that they normally go against the very community which marriage is designed to establish.

Unequal yoking means more than marriage. In society at large it means the enforced integration of various elements which are not congenial. Unequal yoking is in no realm productive of harmony; rather, it aggravates the differences and delays the growth of the different elements toward a Christian harmony and association.¹²

In an article entitled “Mixed Up: The Case Against Interracial Marriage: A Black Speaks Out Against Interracial Marriage,” Emanuel McLittle concurred:

…interracial marriage … is contrary to all known laws of physiology, physics, and nature. …the mixture of different peoples, substances, chemicals, races, and even atoms, weakens all its altered parts…. It is interesting to note that prior to the early 1900s, everyone on earth, with very few exceptions, knew that marriage to one’s own racial kind, was the most natural and undisputed of all human traditions….

All living things express a genetic mandate to remain separate. Be it tree, dog, molecule, atom or apples. This fact does not imply a kind of prejudice in the fingers of nature. Instead it speaks to a creative wisdom working to preserve each element, kind, species and race as it was originally created – forming a universe where an unnumbered variety cooperate in the shaping of a beautiful whole. I argue that a similar mandate exists for humans, but unlike the pine tree, a blade of grass, or the great white shark, we can ignore this mandate….

…nature “intermarries nothing.” It is a natural law of existence to pair, or reproduce “like kinds only.” …The science of creation has demonstrated through all of existence that it is, by nature, “purist.”

…79% of all interracial marriages fail within four years, while the national average for mainstream divorce is 50%....

Deeper than the obvious, race mixing serves an obtuse political purpose that tends to undermine the social stability of all races…. The Tower of Babel is only one of the many instances where the Creator demonstrates his distaste for the amalgamation of the races. The new and sophisticated modus operandi began four decades ago with the gradual elimination of national boarders [sic], removing racial and cultural differences and a vicious campaign that ripped away the credibility of “white men.” All this, in the latest attempt to erect a strange global community.¹³

Racial variations of which McLittle wrote (particularly among those of a mixed racial makeup) were recently demonstrated by bone marrow donor statistics:

Medical science and ethnic disparities in bone marrow donor registry lists have once again illustrated the reality of race as a biological concept, disproving leftist lies which claim it is a “social construct.” New reports which have focused on the problems surrounding suitable matches for bone marrow transplant patients have inadvertently revealed why race does exist, and why it matters for humanity’s sake. The statistics revealed that: -White British people have a 1 in 3 likelihood of finding a bone marrow transplant match. –Asian or black people living in Britain have a 1 in 125,000 likelihood of finding a bone marrow transplant match. –People of mixed race living in Britain have a 1 in 200,000 or more likelihood of finding a bone marrow transplant match.

There are 16.9 million people on the NHS Organ Donor Register. Of this number only 1.2 percent are Asian and 0.4 percent are black…. The statistics are significant because they reveal that race is major factor in determining biological diversity….

According to the World Donor Marrow Association (WDMA), the chances of white people finding a match within their racial group is two out of three, while other racial groups have a one in four chance…. The changes of a person of mixed racial origin finding a match is even less because of the complex genetic issues involved…. Usually, only people of identical racial origin even have a hope of finding a matching donor….¹⁴

Miscegenation was not allowed long before these statistics became known. H.B. Clark stated it thusly:

Mosaic law forbids the marriage of a man to … a “strange woman” – one of another race or [forbidden] nation…. A time-honored rule forbids marriages with persons of another nation, race or tribe. Abraham required his eldest servant to swear that he would “not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell,” but would “go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.” [Genesis 24:34] And Mosaic law provides that “thou (shalt not) make marriages” with those of other nations, “thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son; nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” [Deuteronomy 7:3] The reason assigned for this rule was that “they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” But it was doubtless intended also to preserve the racial integrity of the Israelites. [Deuteronomy 7:4, see also Ezra 9:2]¹⁵

Another reason that Israel is not allowed to miscegenate is to protect their inheritance:

…The people of Israel … have not separated themselves from the people of the … Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands…. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied…. And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto YHWH my God. And said, O my God, … for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day. …we have forsaken thy commandments … saying, … Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever. (Ezra 9:1-12)

Remember, O YHWH, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. (Lamentations 5:1-2)

Even as ungodly as were those in Judges 19-21 (every man doing that which was right in his own eyes, Judges 21:25), they did not look outside the tribes of Israel for wives for the decimated tribe of Benjamin (Judges 21:7ff). It is indeed a sad state of affairs when such ungodly men have more morality concerning ethnic integrity than do the vast majority of pastors today who appear to be more concerned with being politically correct than they are with being biblically correct, at least on this issue.

The second reason I would have opposed the African slave trade is because it is a violation of Yahweh’s law against kidnapping. In America, African slavery was not the consequence of a military defeat (as was sometimes condoned under the Old Covenant), nor was it the result of indentured servitude, either willingly, for fiscal reasons, or as judicial punishment. African slavery was the result of American greed and amounted to kidnapping and human trafficking, which is a capital crime for both slave merchant and buyer alike:

And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:16)

It should not be overlooked that Exodus 21, in which we find Yahweh’s condemnation of kidnapping, is also where we find some of Yahweh’s provisions and conditions regarding slavery. While Yahweh permitted certain forms of slavery, He did not allow kidnapping as a means of securing slaves.

Could one of the reasons why the South was defeated in the War Between the States be because it was so deeply entrenched in kidnapping?

They were buyers of stolen goods. They were the accomplices of kidnappers. As such, they became subject to the death penalty (Ex. 21:16). God imposed this penalty on the South during the war, over half a century after slave imports from abroad had ceased. The south’s slave-owners had ceased being the accomplices of kidnappers, but had instead become slave farmers: raising people as if they were cash crops….¹⁶

Southerners were not the only ones culpable for this crime, which included the deaths of an estimated two to four million slaves en route to America. Article 1 of the Constitution, approved by the southern and northern states alike, not only provided for kidnapping, it also allowed the government to profit from it for nearly twenty-one years:

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importations, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1)

Constitutional vs. Biblical Slavery

Although the principal purpose of Amendment 13 was to abolish the African Slave Trade, the Constitution did not abolish all slavery. Almost no one talks about the provision in Amendment 13 for both slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes. In other words, the Constitution reserved for the government what it made illegal for private citizens. It is completely within a constitutional judges’ prerogative to sentence a convicted criminal to a prison sentence – what amounts to one of the most cruel and unusual forms of slavery and involuntary servitude known to man. This is, in part, a consequence of Amendment 8’s repudiation of Yahweh’s punishments.

An anti-death penalty argument describes incarceration:

Life in prison is a worse punishment [than the death penalty]…. For those of you who don’t feel much sympathy for a murderer, keep in mind that death may be too good for them. With a death sentence, the suffering is over in an instant. With life in prison, the pain goes on for decades. Prisoners are confined to a cage and live in an internal environment of rape and violence where they’re treated as animals.¹⁷

The modern penal system is an American invention:

The prison system, as a means of correction … was introduced to America by the Quakers, who posited that the criminal, being basically good [the antithesis of Psalm 14:1-3 and Romans 3:23], would surely repent if sequestered to meditate on the error of his way….

It is ironic that many Christians have come to accept the ungodly and humanistic prison system as the norm, while they react in horror to the Bible’s humane system of indentured servitude. Enslavement to the state is sanctioned, while private household “slavery” is anathema.¹⁸

Incarceration has proven to be not only extremely expensive, but also absolutely inept at curtailing America’s ever escalating crime. It can be argued, in fact, that the United States penal system has contributed to our crime problems. U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) articulated some of the inherent problems:

America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace…. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation’s prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

…Twenty-five years ago, I went to Japan on assignment for PARADE to write a story on that country’s prison system. In 1984, Japan had a population half the size of ours and was incarcerating 40,000 sentenced offenders, compared with 580,000 in the United States. As shocking as that disparity was, the difference between the countries now [March 2009] is even more astounding – and profoundly disturbing. Since then, Japan’s prison population has not quite doubled to 71,000, while ours has quadrupled to 2.3 million.¹⁹

The United States has by far the world’s highest incarceration rate. With 5% of the world’s population our country now houses nearly 25% of the world’s reported prisoners. We currently incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the average worldwide of 158 for every 100,000. In addition, more than 5 million people who recently left jail remain under “correctional supervision,” which includes parole, probation, and other community sanctions. All told, about one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release. This all comes at a very high price to taxpayers: Local, state, and federal spending on corrections adds up to about $68 billion a year….

With so many of our citizens in prison compared with the rest of the world, there are only two possibilities: Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different and vastly counterproductive. Obviously, the answer is the latter.²⁰

What makes these figures even more alarming is that upwards of “90% of all criminal cases do not go to court because the criminal pleads guilty to a lesser charge.” ²¹ Worse yet, the majority of crimes go unsolved, meaning that only a minority of criminals is ever arrested and indicted to begin with. A law-abiding citizen has a greater chance of being victimized by a violent criminal than he does of being injured in an automobile accident. Under the United States current penal system, crime does pay.

The following is cited from Lois G. Forer’s Criminals and Victims: A Trial Judge Reflects on Crime and Punishment. The following information is telling, even more so in that nothing has changed in thirty years:

The Model Penal Code [of the American Law Institute, 1962] requires the judge to employ “generally accepted scientific methods.” Until at least 1978, the consensus of the criminology establishment was that offenders could be rehabilitated in prisons and also in the community under the tutelage of probation officers. This opinion prevailed even though irrefutable statistics revealed that at least two thirds of all offenders upon release from prison or discharge from probation commit other offenses.

The goals and standards embodied in the Model Penal Code are really little more than vague concepts which at one time were found palatable by the criminology and jurisprudence establishments…. It is interesting and significant that the word “punishment” is not used nor is the concept of making whole the victims of crime any part of the purposes of sentencing. Indeed, the victim of crime is not even mentioned except in a passing reference in Section 7…. Neither restitution nor reparation is included in the purposes of sentencing.²²

Non-violent criminals are often housed with hardened, violent criminals. Place a non-violent criminal in confinement with a violent criminal, and the violent criminal is not going to be converted to the non-violent criminal’s lifestyle. Instead, the non-violent criminal is much more likely to become hardened and violent. America’s prisons are fertile training grounds for compounded criminal behavior. The result of such reckless policy is a fulfillment of the Apostle Paul’s warning: “Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:33, NASB)

Moreover, the non-violent criminals often become physical and sexual victims of the hardened lifers. Although a case can be made that prisons provide an escape from life’s responsibilities for many prisoners at taxpayers’ expense, no one who knows what goes on behind prison bars would ever describe incarceration as humane. King Solomon described the consequences of the misguided compassion of those who believe it is more humane to imprison criminals than to indenture them or put them to death: “…the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel” (Proverbs 12:10).

In no stretch of anyone’s imagination have American’s prisons proven to be institutions of rehabilitation. Rare exceptions do not make America’s current penal system a viable choice for crime control in a civilized society – except, that is, by those who have blinded themselves to the facts by their woeful, so-called empathy:

Long prison sentences cause immeasurable psychological damage to inmates by wasting their lives away in useless and profitless pursuits, while the soaring costs of prison upkeep place a heavy financial penalty on those who observe the law.²³

Incarceration as punishment is a relatively recent innovation:

The herding of large numbers of men into vast prison complexes is a relatively new development in criminlolgy.²⁴

…as late as 1771, a French criminologist wrote that imprisonment was permissible only in the case of people awaiting trial.²⁵

This was, in fact, biblical. Except as a means to hold criminal suspects for trial (Leviticus 24:12, Numbers 15:34), long-term incarceration as punishment is unbiblical. When Yahweh’s judicial protocol is followed, prisons are completely superfluous.

Restitution and restoration are the essence of justice. The prison system as an answer to the problem of crime is a modern and anti-Biblical scheme: it does nothing to further either restitution or restoration and accomplishes little other than removing the criminal from society temporarily. It does not remedy the crime, nor does it remedy the criminal, as it purports to do.²⁶

Prisons are not only superfluous, they are a counterproductive form of slavery. Ironically, although the Bible is often denounced for its provisions for slavery, the Constitution is rarely condemned for providing its own barbaric and inept version:

This is the “dirty little secret” of those atheists, pietists, and antinomians who ridicule the biblical system of slavery: they have accepted the horror of unproductive imprisonment in place of the biblical institution of penal labor servitude, out of which an industrious slave could purchase his freedom. If the criminal in ancient Israel was financially unable to pay his victim, his sale to a slave-buyer was what provided the victim with his lawful restitution payment. The prison system has always been the Bible-hater’s preferred substitute for the Old Testament’s system of law-restricted labor servitude. In short, in order to enforce the Bible’s principle of economic restitution to victims by criminals, there always has to be a more fearful support sanction in reserve: death, imprisonment, whipping, banishment, or indentured servitude. But only one of these reserve sanctions raises money for the victims: indentured servitude. The critics of biblical law just never seem to remember to mention this fact. ²⁷

The modern prison system is the product of the perverse logic of humanism…. The prison system is a widely acknowledged institutional failure, but humanists cannot bring themselves to abandon it, because in order to do so, they might be forced to reconsider their denial of the biblical principle of restitution to victims, as well as its economic concomitant, legalized bondservice … a bondservice which points all too clearly to God’s eternal punishment of unrepentant rebels who refuse to accept God’s exclusive system of restitution: the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.²⁸

Yahweh’s law provides a three-layered judgment. If a thief is unable to pay his debt to his victim and refuses to submit to indentured servitude, his crime then becomes contempt of court, which, according to Deuteronomy 17:9-13, is a capital crime. Consequently, it is almost certain that convicted thieves will “gladly” pay restitution or submit to indentured servitude.²⁹

As with everything man does (knowingly or unknowingly) in rejecting Yahweh’s laws, the United States Constitutional Republic’s prison system has been an utter failure in deterring criminal behavior and rehabilitating criminals. What has been the response to this failure? Build more prisons. Yahweh’s answer is shut them all down!³⁰

Slavery or No Slavery

Because of the way Americans have been programmed to react to the African slave trade (as portrayed by Hollywood), the idea of any kind of involuntary servitude is repugnant to the average American (with the exception, of course, of the United States penal system).

Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, renounced domestic slavery as anti-Christian:

Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity…. It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.³¹

Rush did not provide any biblical basis for his claims. Consequently, his argument is merely emotionalism. He also did not provide any biblical support in his “An Enquiry into the Effects of Public Punishments Upon Criminals, and Upon Society,” in which he promoted the prison slave system (“abode of misery,” as he identified it) and rejected Yahweh’s punitive system of public executions and restitution. Instead of Yahweh’s Word, Rush, in the tradition of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, lauded capricious reason as the means of determining what is right:

…truth in government, as well as in philosophy, is of progressive growth…. Reason, tho’ deposed and oppressed, is the only just sovereign of the human mind. Discoveries … have derived their credit and usefulness only from their according with the decisions of reason.

…all public punishments tend to make bad men worse, and to increase crimes by their influence upon society….

LET it not be supposed, from any thing that has been said, that I wish to abolish punishments. Far from it – I wish only to change the place and manner of inflicting them, so as to render them effectual for the reformation of criminals and beneficial to society…. LET a large house … be erected in a remote part of the state…. Let its doors be of iron…. Let a guard constantly attend at a gate…. To increase the horror of this abode of discipline and misery, let it be called by some name that shall import its design….

I HAVE said nothing upon the manner of inflicting death as a punishment for crimes because I consider it as an improper punishment for any crime. Even murder itself is propagated by the punishment of death for murder….

I SUSPECT the attachment to death as a punishment for murder in minds otherwise enlightened upon the subject of capital punishments arises from a false interpretation of a passage contained in the Old Testament, and this, “He that sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”…. Laws, therefore, which inflict death for murder, are, in my opinion, as unchristian as those which justify or tolerate revenge….

Whatever is humane is wise – whatever is wise is just – and whatever is wise, just, and humane will be found to be the true interest of states….

FOR the honour of humanity, it can be said that in every age and country there have been found persons in whom uncorrupted nature has triumphed over custom and law…. These things are the latent struggles of reason, or rather the secret voice of God himself, speaking in the human heart against the folly and cruelty of public punishments.³²

According to Rush, because Yahweh’s judgments are not humane, Yahweh is neither wise nor just – and this from a man lauded by David Barton, founder of Wallbuilders.³³ This alone provides reason to reconsider the authenticity of the brand of Christianity so prevalent at the time the Constitution was framed and ratified.

Noah Webster went even further in his repudiation of slavery:

Justice and humanity require it [the elimination all forms of slavery] – Christianity commands it.³⁴

If what Webster said is true, why did he not provide the commandment that forbids slavery? He did not provide it because there is no commandment that forbids slavery. Instead, there are Fourth Commandment statutes that provide for slavery. The Ten Commandments nowhere condemn slavery, and the Ninth even protects it:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. (Exodus 20:17)

In Genesis 24:35, we are told that menservants (same Hebrew word translated “bondmen” in Leviticus 25:44) and maidservants were a part of Yahweh’s blessings upon Abraham. At the time of Lot’s kidnapping, Abraham had three hundred and eighteen adult male bondservants (Genesis 14:14).

Contrast Rush’s and Webster’s Scripture-deficient remarks with 19th-century Presbyterian minister Robert L. Dabney’s biblically based comments:

…concerning the lawfulness of domestic slavery. The two sides of this issue are defined with perfect sharpness. The political [humanistic] theory says the subjection of one Human being in bondage to another, except for conviction of crime, is essentially and always unrighteous. The Scriptures indisputably declare, in both Testaments, that it is not always essentially unrighteous, since they legitimate it under suitable circumstances, and declare that godly masters may so hold the relation as to make it equitable and righteous. …the leading facts: (a,) That God predicted the rise of the institution of domestic bondage as the penalty and remedy for the bad morals of those subject to it (Gen. ix. 25); (b,) That God protects property in slaves, exactly as any other kind of property, in the sacred Decalogue itself (Exod. xx. 17); (c,) That numerous slaves were bestowed on Abraham, the “friend of God,” as marks of the favor of divine providence (Gen. xxiv. 35); (d,) That the relation of master and bondman was sanctified by the administration of a divine sacrament, which the bondman received on the ground of the master’s faith (Gen. xvii. 27); (e,) That the angel of the covenant himself remanded a fugitive slave, Hagar, to her mistress, but afterwards assisted her in the same journey when legally manumitted (Gen. xxi. 17-21); (f,) That the civil laws of Moses expressly allowed Hebrew citizens to purchase pagans as life-long and hereditary slaves (Lev. xxv. 44-46); (g,) That the law declares such slaves (that is, their involuntary labor) to be property.³⁵

Obviously, Yahweh is not revolted by slavery. For man to be repulsed by anything Yahweh commands or permits is an expression of humanism. Worse, anytime we conclude our morality is superior to that of Yahweh’s, it is ultimately an attempt to usurp Yahweh’s divinity. In Job 35:2, Elihu accused Job of this very serious breach, “Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more [magnanimous] than God’s?” In Job 40:8, Yahweh asked Job a similar question, “Wilt thou disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?”

We may not always understand Yahweh’s actions or commands, but this does not give us the right to shun or ignore His instructions. The question we are faced with is not one of slavery or no slavery, but a question of constitutional slavery or biblical slavery, and which provides what is best.

If you are working from the paradigm that Yahweh’s law is perfect and His judgments altogether righteous (Psalm 19:7-9), the answer to this question is a given: the forms of slavery and indentured servitude provided for in Yahweh’s laws are far better than what is provided for in the United States Constitution, whether or not we completely understand Yahweh’s reasons.

Because most people (consciously or unconsciously) work from the paradigm that their morality is better than Yahweh’s, even most Christians are embarrassed by Yahweh’s law authorizing slavery and indentured servitude. They fail to see the beauty of His law, particularly as contrasted with constitutional slavery, as found in the United States penal system.

The Bible provides for four types of servitude: voluntary indentured servitude, judicially mandated servitude, militarily subjugated servitude, and purchased foreign servitude.

Voluntary Indentured Servitude

And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith YHWH thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and YHWH thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day. And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee; then thou shalt take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and YHWH thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest. (Deuteronomy 15:12-18)

And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee [sells himself to you, NASB]; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant: But as an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee: And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as [permanent] bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. (Leviticus 25:39-43)

These and other passages are problematic for most Bible readers. What is often missed is Yahweh’s provision to help restore the financially destitute, as contrasted with modern America’s welfare programs, which exacerbate the problems of the poor and further burden the struggling working class.

Voluntary indentured servitude provides a means for someone financially impoverished or indebted to climb out of the fiscal hole in which he finds himself and improve his financial standing:

There are cases where righteous people fall into poverty or trials through no fault of their own. In order to give them a way back into profitable service as debt-free producers, God makes indentured servitude available to them. It is God’s means of grace to them, a means of release from debt bondage. It is clear that the society at large is not supposed to become burdened with extra taxes in order to care for such people. …bondservice is … the Bible-sanctioned remedy for poverty…. The poor man is expected to bear the unpleasant burden of becoming a bondservant as the means of his restoration economically. The taxpayers are not to become his servants. A welfare State cannot develop when the biblical laws of servitude are honored.

It should also be noted that in modern societies where these laws are not honored, the enslavement of taxpayers to the economically incompetent has become the political norm. Debt is seen as a blessing, bondservitude as a cursing, and theft by the ballot box as liberation. What the welfare State does is to put legally innocent, economically competent people into servitude to the economically incompetent.³⁶

Indentured servitude also provides incentive and training for future fiscal responsibility:

The purpose of slavery [indentured servitude] … is to train irresponsible men into productive covenant members.³⁷

The major form of capital that he was to take from his place of former servitude was ethical and psychological…. He had been under the direction of a successful manager, someone who could afford to purchase a servant. Being managed by a good manager is one of the best ways to become a good manager…. Thus, short-term indentured servitude was designed to produce long-term independence….³⁸

Indentured servitude functioned in the Hebrew commonwealth as a means of dealing with men who were unwilling or unable to manage their own affairs. Indentured servitude provided tools, supervision, education, food, shelter [much the same as with prisons, but with a far better conclusion], and some of the comforts of prosperity to those without capital. It also provided security. It was a way of building a capital base. Jacob served Laban for seven years in order to earn Rachel as his wife (Gen. 29:20). He became, in effect, an indentured servant…. He was a future-oriented man. He was also [a] … man who amassed a great deal of capital in his 20 years of service to his corrupt uncle and father-in-law.³⁹

This form of servitude had two forms and two time limitations. The first form provided for in Deuteronomy 15 was a short-term means for helping someone get back on his feet financially. This servitude lasted a maximum of six years, unless the security of slavery was more appealing than freedom and the servant volunteered himself to become a permanent slave. The provision for voluntary permanent slavery is addressed in both Deuteronomy 15 and Exodus 21. Biblical slavery could not have been as unconscionably barbaric as its opponents have made it out to be, nor as cruel as constitutional slavery. No one volunteers to be imprisoned, except as a plea bargain.

Probably the most difficult aspect regarding biblical slavery is Exodus 21:4’s stipulation that “If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.” However, as with everything Yahweh legislates, there are important reasons for this provision:

At first glance, this may seem cruel and unreasonable. However, the slave could stay with his wife and family by agreeing to remain in the service of the master for the rest of his life, as provided for in 21:5-6. Or he could work hard and earn the money to redeem his wife and children, once he had finished paying off his previous unpaid debts. This law, preventing a husband from taking with him a wife he had married while a slave was actually for the protection of the woman. This law was given in the context of a society where every woman was supposed to have a man who was responsible for her upkeep and maintenance.

…for the unmarried girl, the man who protected her was her father, and for married women, it would be the husband. But in the case of a woman married off to a debt-slave, the owner or master retained responsibility for the wellbeing of the woman. The husband, being a slave and in debt, was not considered competent to take responsibility for a woman.

…it was considered essential that a potential husband demonstrate his ability to support a woman and children…. Naturally, a debt-slave was in no position to pay a dowry or to provide economic security for a woman wishing to marry him. For this reason, the Law provided that such a woman, having married a debt-slave, would remain with the master, who would be responsible for and capable of providing for the material welfare of that woman and her children.

This provision of the law was an obvious incentive for a woman to think twice about marrying a debt-slave. It would encourage her to consider choosing for a husband another man who not in debt slavery and could properly provide for her. Or it would encourage her to wait until the debt-slaver’s 6-year term of servitude was over. Once his burden of debt was paid off, they could then go ahead and get married in a much more stable and practical situation that would allow the former slave to provide properly for his family.⁴⁰

The second form of indentureship provided for in Leviticus 25 lasted no longer than forty-nine years. The context of Leviticus 25 associates this with leased land provisions, which were also tied to the year of jubilee:

The second form of servitude was different. It applied to someone who had leased his land to another person, and who subsequently fell into poverty again. Let us consider the land lease first. A poor person could go to another person, Hebrew or resident alien, and offer him a long-term leasehold arrangement. The purchaser of the lease was able to make a cash payment to buy control over the first person’s land. Such a purchase was temporally limited by the occurrence of the next jubilee year, the year following the seventh national sabbatical year. The individual could legally redeem the land at any time by paying to the leaseholder the pro-rated value remaining until the jubilee year. Also, his kinsman was allowed to re-purchase the land for him on the same basis (Lev. 25:25-28)….

If a person without land fell into poverty again, he could lease himself in the same way that he had previously leased his land. He could seek an immediate cash payment in exchange for the promise of personal household service until the next jubilee year….

Such a jubilee-release bondservant could not legally be treated as harshly as a sabbath-year-release bondservant could be. This was therefore a less rigorous form of servitude physically, but more extensive temporally….⁴¹

Judicially Mandated Servitude

If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. …he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. (Exodus 22:1-3)

Under Yahweh’s juridical system, the first time a thief is apprehended, tried, and judged guilty, he is required to repay what he stole and, in most instances, an additional two-to-five times more, depending upon the nature of his crime.⁴² If he is unable to pay the required restitution, he is not released to steal again, nor is he thrown into prison. Instead, he is indentured – sold into what amounts to slavery – until he has worked off his debt to either the one whom he victimized or a slave buyer who has bought and paid his debt. Either way, the criminal is punished and the victim is compensated for his losses:

The thief is always fully liable economically to make restitution for his criminal acts…. It was the threat of compulsory labor servitude (bondservice) that reinforced the Old Testament’s judicial sanction of economic restitution from criminals to their victims…. If the criminal was unable to pay his victim, he was sold into slavery in order to raise the money necessary for repayment. This sale for cash was possible only because a buyer expected to profit from the transaction. He expected to gain a net return from the future productivity of the slave. He was therefore willing to capitalize this expected future productivity by means of a cash payment to the victim.⁴³

…criminals were not under the release provisions of the sabbatical year or the jubilee year. He had become a covenantal stranger in Israel, and so did not gain the protection of the jubilee year. To interpret his situation differently would mean that as the year of jubilee approached, the declining sanctions chronologically would have acted as a subsidy to criminal behavior. The criminal might think: “since I cannot be enslaved beyond the jubilee year; I cannot be compelled to make full restitution.” This would have subsidized crime….⁴⁴

Exodus 22:3 may initially sound very much like Amendment 13’s phrase “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” However, in my research I could not find any instance in Constitutional America in which thieves were indentured to compensate their victims. On the other hand, we do have evidence of this Eighth Commandment statute being adjudicated in pre-Constitutional Puritan New England (although the restitution amount cited below should have been either two or fourfold, depending upon whether the stolen items were still in the thief’s possession):

When one Owen Jones was convicted “of stealing a rug and a coate from Phillip Keane valued at twenty six Shillings,” the court ordered that he make threefold restitution and “in case hee make not Satisfaction accordingly that hee bee sold.”⁴⁵

What we have had in America since the ratification of the Constitution is state-approved and citizen-funded penitentiaries, which amount to slave labor camps. Prisoners are “employed” making boxes, stickers, license plates, mattresses, canned goods, textiles, road signs, etc., all to be sold on the open market. They are paid little or nothing. Their employer is the federal government, doing business as UNICOR (the trade name for Federal Prison Industries, Incorporated):

Under current law, all physically able inmates who are not a security risk or have a health exception are required to work, either for UNICOR or at some other prison job. Inmates earn from US$0.23 per hour up to a maximum of US$1.15 per hour, and all inmates with court-ordered financial obligations must use at least 50% of this UNICOR income to satisfy those debts.⁴⁶

Despite the significant cost to taxpayers to house, feed, clothe, and entertain prisoners, government propaganda claims these cut-rate wages provide a means for prisoners to pay their debt to society:

“Serving time” in prison is today preposterously referred to as “paying one’s debt to society.” In fact, the reverse is true: society (tax-payers) must finance the criminal’s period of incarceration. …it is the State’s bureaucratic functionaries who become the recipients of the tax money. The State, as the operational god of this age, receives its restitution payment. But in today’s humanistic theocracy, victims receive nothing except subpoenas to testify in court and bills from the tax collector.⁴⁷

UNICOR does not pay social security, unemployment benefits, workmen’s compensation, health insurance, pensions, holiday and vacation pay, or income tax on their profits. Additionally, UNICOR’s low wages provide for inequitable labor advantages to a favored few state-approved businesses with which other comparable free-market businesses (which are paying their laborers at least the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour) cannot fairly compete. UNICOR amounts to a government-created monopoly.⁴⁸

The question we face is not whether we should allow slavery but whether we are going to choose unproductive prison slavery that must be paid for by tax-paying United States citizens or productive biblical slavery that requires the criminal to pay for his crime by reimbursing his victim. Prisons do next to nothing to rehabilitate criminals, but the deterrent effect of restitution and judicially mandated servitude contributes to reforming thieves and deterring others from the same criminal lifestyle.

Many Americans are troubled about migrant workers, many of whom are in our country illegally and who, in many instances, are taking jobs away from Americans. However, many farmers and business owners rely upon migrant laborers, often illegals, to do labor others will not do. Indentured servitude provides an answer to both sides of this dilemma. Shut down our borders and put every un-biblically imprisoned thief in the fields, factories and working on highways and other civic improvement projects until they have paid off their debt to their victims. If this were done, Americans would benefit in at least five ways: 1) victims would be reimbursed, 2) tax-subsidized prisons would be shut down, 3) illegal immigration would be reduced, 4) crime would be decreased, and 5) government-funded welfare would be reduced. It should be evident which slavery system provides what is best for everyone involved.

Military Subjugated Servitude

Yahweh allowed the Israelites to take slaves from nations they subjugated in biblical warfare:

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries [forced labor, NASB] unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when YHWH thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which YHWH thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which YHWH thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as YHWH thy God hath commanded thee. (Deuteronomy 20:10-17)

It is undeniable that Yahweh allows for permanent slaves from foreign nations (excepting the nine forbidden lineages – the Moabites and Ammonites and the seven nations listed in Deuteronomy 7:1-3 – and, by extension, other races⁴⁹). These slaves are identified as property and can, therefore, be passed on as inheritance to one’s children (Leviticus 25:44-46). Anyone inclined to be appalled at Yahweh’s provision for such slavery should consider that complete annihilation was the only other alternative for a subjugated country.

The Gibeonites in Joshua 9 offered themselves as permanent slaves to the Israelites. They obviously thought slavery a better option than annihilation.

Military subjugated servitude would also serve as a deterrent against other nations invading us.

Purchased Foreign Servitude

Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do 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. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever…. (Leviticus 25:44-46)

Except in situations where a thief’s debt to his victim(s) is so substantial (as in the Bernie Madoff scam⁵⁰) that it would require permanent slavery to satisfy the debt, this is the only provision for permanent involuntary enslavement in the Bible:

…no matter how much Christian commentators wriggle to get free, they cannot escape the fact that [Leviticus 25:44-46] … unquestionably condones perpetual … chattel slavery…. The Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the Trinity, the Lord God Jehovah, unquestionably sanctioned slavery…. Thus, at least for fourteen hundred years, slavery, when regulated by God’s law, was not immoral. To have challenged its moral legitimacy and to have sought to abolish it during that period would have been an act of revolution against God. Whether or not modern Christian and Jewish commentators feel comfortable with this fact, it is nonetheless a fact.⁵¹

Although Leviticus 25:44-46 may initially seem to justify the early American slave trade, it does no such thing. This provision must be harmonized with Yahweh’s prohibition against kidnapping. The slaves described in Leviticus 25 were either non-Israelite prisoners of war sold to Israelites by others or non-Israelites who, because of financial impoverishment, sold themselves into permanent slavery.

Such slavery and indentured servitude was not without stringent conditions:

• It is to be administered without severity – Leviticus 25:43, 46
• Flogging is permitted when required, but only with strict stipulations – Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27, Deuteronomy 24:145
• If a slave is maimed, the slave is to be set free – Exodus 21:26-27
• Wages are to be paid promptly – Deuteronomy 24:15
• Provided they are circumcised, slaves are to share in Passover – Genesis 17:12, Exodus 12:43-44, Colossians 2:11-13
• Slaves must be provided Sabbath rests – Exodus 20:9-11, Deuteronomy 5:13-15
• Fugitive slaves are not to be returned to masters (which, itself, dictates exceptional care of one’s slaves or all slaves would be continually attempting to escape) – Deuteronomy 23:15-16
• Hebrew slaves were to be released with severance pay – Deuteronomy 15:12-15
• Masters are to rule as Yahweh does – Ephesians 6:9
• Masters are to treat their slaves justly and fairly in the fear of Yahweh – Colossians 4:1

Additionally, some slaves had high positions in their master’s household and sometimes shared in the inheritance – Genesis 24:2; Proverbs 17:2, 29:21. Ephesians 3:22-25, 6:5-7; Colossians 3:22-23; 1 Timothy 6:1-2; Titus 2:9-10; and 1 Peter 2:18-20 also provide instructions regarding slave conduct.

Although Yahweh does provide for foreign slaves to be lifetime possessions, nothing in the Scriptures indicates anything but a minority of Israelites possessed such slaves. Gary North points out one reason why this was an exception rather than the rule:

We know that large families are a sign of God’s covenantal blessing (Ps. 127:3-5). The larger that Israel’s families grew in response to the nation’s covenantal faithfulness to God, the smaller each family’s inherited land holding would become. This made it economically impossible for any branch of a family to amass a large number of heathen slaves during periods of God’s covenantal blessings, for it was illegal to amass permanently the large tracts of land that were necessary for the support of slaves. Thus, at the beginning of each jubilee year, when all land holdings reverted to the heirs of the original land-owners, most heathen slaves would have been released by their owners, whether or not the law allowed them to retain ownership of them indefinitely.⁵²

A growing population of permanent foreign slaves would therefore have been a visible warning to Israel that they were disobeying God’s law [regarding the jubilee]…. Slavery very clearly was not supposed to become a major institution in Israel.⁵³

Evangelism

As it was with America’s African slaves, slavery is a means of evangelism, of introducing slaves to Yahweh and His morality as found in His laws:

Thus saith YHWH, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no [other] God. (Isaiah 45:14)

Exodus 12 provided for indentured servants and slaves to partake of Passover, provided they were circumcised:

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger [Leviticus 25:44-46], which is not of thy seed…. And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin…. In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son. And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him. (Genesis 17:12, 24-27)

And YHWH said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: But every man’s servant that is bought for money [Leviticus 25:44-46], when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. (Exodus 12:43-44)

The blessings of the covenant were extended to non-Israelite slave proselytes:

Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do. Ye stand this day all of you before YHWH 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 YHWH thy God, and into his oath, which YHWH thy God maketh with thee this day: That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deuteronomy 29:9-13)

The only hope for some non-Israelites to ever learn of Yahweh would have been by means of slavery. Better to be a slave and learn of Yahweh than to be free serving idols. In other words, “all things [even slavery] work together for good to them that love God.” This is one of the reasons the Apostle Paul could write to the Corinthian Christians, “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant [doulous, slave]? Care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather [rather do that, NASB]” (1 Corinthians 7:19-21).

Conversely, Moses Maimonides, the infamous twelfth-century Talmudic expositor, wrote “It is forbidden for a man to teach his slave the Scriptures.”⁵⁴ White supremacists who refuse to teach non-whites the Scriptures, take their lead from Moses Maimonides and the Talmud rather than the Bible.

New Covenant Slavery

What the modern humanist dares not admit to himself or in public – and what embarrassed Christians also are fearful of admitting – is that the Bible’s system of indentured servitude for criminals was and still is basic to the Bible’s system of justice in which criminals are made legally and economically responsible for the harm they have caused.⁵⁵

Yahweh’s law on these matters has not changed. Although, the New Testament does not directly promote slavery and indentured servitude, it does endorse them. Although in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul declared that if a slave can manage to become free, it is good to do so, he did not condemn slavery. How could he have condemned it when the Ninth Commandment protects slave ownership?

The entire epistle of Philemon is devoted to Paul’s returning Onesimus, a runaway slave, to his master Philemon, who was Onesimus’ flesh and blood brother:

For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; not now as a servant [doulos], but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? (Philemon 1:15-16)

Deuteronomy 23:15-16’s decree that runaway slaves are not to be returned to their masters only applies to permanent slaves. To skip out of voluntary indentured servitude would be a breach of contract, which, in turn, would be a form of theft, which would result in involuntary servitude if punished. To run away from a judicially mandated judgment would be contempt of court, punishable by death.

The fact that Paul offered to pay Onesimus’ debt is further evidence that it was not permanent slavery to which Paul was returning Onesimus. Furthermore, Israelites, such as Philemon, were not permitted to permanently enslave fellow Israelites. Consequently, Paul returned Onesimus (now a Christian) to fulfill either a debt obligation or a judicial judgment.

If the institution is the moral evil it is alleged to be by abolitionists, if it is essentially a violation of basic human right and liberty, if slave-holding is the monstrosity claimed, it is, to say the least, very strange that the apostles who were so directly concerned with these evils did not overtly condemn the institution and require slave-holders to practice emancipation. If slavery per se is immorality and, because of its prevalence, was a rampant vice in the first century, we would be compelled to conclude that the high ethic of the New Testament would have issued its proscription. But this is not what we find.⁵⁶

Dabney provides additional evidence, demonstrating that nothing changed regarding slavery and indentured servitude under the New Covenant:

…let us see what the New Testament says concerning the relation of master and bondman. It does indeed command all, if they assume this relation, to fulfill it in a Christian spirit, in the fear of an impartial God. (Eph. vi. 9.) It also prohibits all unrighteous abuses of the relation, whether by masters (Col. iv. 1) or by bondmen. (Col. iii. 22-25.) Slave-holders, like the godly centurion (Luke vii. 2-9) and Cornelius (Acts x.34, 35), are commended for their Christian consistency, without a word of caution or exception, on account of this relation. The Redeemer, in Luke xvii. 7-10, grounds his argument to prove that not even the truest Christian obedience can bring God in our debt, upon a logical analogy, whose very point is that the master is legally invested with a prior title to, and property in, the labor of his bondman…. The apostles enjoin on bondmen conscientious service to their masters, even when unjust (1 Pet. ii. 18, 19); but so much the more willing and conscientious when those masters are brother members in the Christian church. (1 Tim. vi. 1, 2). The Apostle Paul holds that, if masters do their duty, the relation may be lawfully continued, and is just and equitable. The Apostle Paul remands a fugitive slave to his master Philemon…. And so distinctly does he recognize Philemon’s lawful property in the … labor of his fugitive slave that he actually binds himself, in writing, to pay its pecuniary value himself, that thereby he may gain free forgiveness for Onesimus. In 1 Tim. vi. 3-5, the apostle condemns such as would dare to dispute the righteous obligation of even Christian bondmen, as proud, ignorant, perverse, contentious, untruthful, corrupt in mind and mercenary; and he requires believers to separate themselves from such teachers.⁵⁷

As an important side note, a part of Clause 3, Section 2 of Article 4 of the Constitution reads “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” This provision was made obsolete by Amendment 13, but for the time in which it was in existence it was the antithesis of Deuteronomy 23:15-16, by which runaway foreign slaves were not to be returned to their masters. In essence, it once again legalized kidnapping. This is but another instance demonstrating that the Constitution is not compatible with Yahweh’s laws and is, in many instances, immoral.

Draft Slavery

Although constitutional courts⁵⁸ have refused to recognize military conscription as indentured servitude, it is precisely that. Ask any drafted soldier whether he belongs to himself or to Uncle Sam.

Debt Slavery

Another type of slavery, provided for in part by an obligation in Amendment 1 for debt and unlawful taxation, is seldom discussed:

The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7)

Shackled with both national and private debt (via the Federal Reserve, fiat “money,” usury banking, income and property taxes), all United States citizens are, in fact, slaves:

Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt. (Ezra Pound, 1885-1972)

When the Africans were freed, they went from private slaves to federal slaves. With combined taxation presently at an approximate national average of 51%, it might be argued they had more freedom before 1865:

Those four million slaves of the mid-1880s were “privately owned,” force to labor on private plantations. Today’s slaves are “federally owned;” they labor on government plantations…. Each of us is made part slave and each of us is left part free. That way we can live in our “own” home, work at our “own” job, attend our “own” church, and even go bowling on Friday nights … as long as we render unto Caesar that which he demands. Such a convenient arrangement should not blind us to the fact that involuntary servitude is being forced upon citizens by excessive government spending.⁵⁹

Spiritual Slavery

Psalm 123 compares our relationship with Yahweh as servant to master:

Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God…. (Psalm 123:2)

All men are spiritual slaves. The question is to whom or what?

The majority of people on the earth are presently enslaved to Babelic statist powers, owned in body and usually in soul as well by political masters. Moreover, even in the ostensibly free West, increasingly large numbers of persons forsake the [biblical] dominion mandate and place themselves on the dole, crying out to the messianic state to become their sovereign provider. Scripture speaks to these matters, in the language of slavery. …man is still essentially a creature who needs an absolute reference point, a supreme master, to whom he can relate with absolute passivity. Man’s rejection of the Creator as God does not result in his having no god at all, but in his having some false god. Man does not obliterate his psychological need for an absolute, he “exchanges” it for a lie (Rom. 1:23). Thus, man may be said to have a “slave drive” which ever seeks some god to submit to.⁶⁰

If men refuse to place themselves under God and God’s required law-order for society, then they will inevitably place themselves in bondage to someone other than God…. Man cannot achieve freedom by rebelling against God and His law. We must begin our journey on the road from serfdom by placing ourselves under covenantal bondage to the God of liberation. We must seek to become passive toward God and active over His creation (Gen. 1:26-28). The only alternative to this unqualified ethical subordination to God is to become passive toward something or someone else – other men (tyranny), demonic spirits (occultism, mysticism), some aspect of nature (environmental determinism), the “cunning of history” (Hegel), “inevitable social forces” (Marx), the “unconscious” (Freud), alcohol or drugs, or even outright madness.⁶¹

Every man is a slave to sin or to righteousness (Romans 6:11-23, Ephesians 6:6). No one can be enslaved to two masters at one time, unless one master is himself subordinate to the prime master (Matthew 6:24). This is one reason that there can be no halfway or partial covenants with Yahweh; He demands all of you:

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

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End Notes

1. Exodus 33:16; Leviticus 20:24-26; Numbers 23:9; Deuteronomy 32:8; 1 Kings 8:51-53; Nehemiah 9:2, 10:28-29; Hosea 7:8-9; Acts 17:26, 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, etc. For a more thorough explanation concerning the biblical injunctions against interracial integration, multiculturalism, and miscegenation, “The Seventh Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not commit adultery may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $6 donation.*

2. All Scripture is quoted from the King James Version, unless otherwise noted. Portions of Scripture have been omitted for brevity. If you have questions regarding any passage, please open your Bible and study the text to ensure it has been properly used.

3. Where the Tetragrammaton YHWH – the four Hebrew characters that represent the personal name of God – has been unlawfully rendered the LORD or GOD in English translations, I have taken the liberty of correcting this error by inserting YHWH where appropriate. For a more thorough explanation concerning the sacred names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

4. Not everyone claiming to be a Christian in 1776 had been properly instructed in the biblical plan of salvation. The same is true today. Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:36-41, 22:1-16; Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:26-27; Colossians 2:11-13; and 1 Peter 3:21 should be studied to understand what is required to be covered by the blood of Yeshua (Jesus’ given Hebrew name) and forgiven of your sins. For a more thorough explanation concerning baptism and its relationship to salvation, “Baptism by the Scriptures” and “Fifty Objections to Baptism Answered” may be read online, or the book Baptism: All You Wanted to Know and More may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for free.

5. Religions of the United States, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Religions_of_the_United_States.png>.

6. Cheryl Russell, “Most Americans Claim Religious Affiliation,” The Official Guide to the American Marketplace (Ithaca, NY: New Strategist Publications, Inc., 1995) p. 252.

7. Martin E. Marty, quoted in Tom Heinen, “Scholar sees strength in abundance of faiths,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 26 April 1999.

8. For a more thorough explanation regarding Hebrew 8:8-9’s relationship to European Christianity, the book The Mystery of the Gentiles: Who Are They and Where Are They Now? may be read online, or it may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 639363, for a suggested $10 donation.*

9. R.J. Rushdoony, Law and Society (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1982) pp. 83-84.

10. YHWH (most often pronounced Yahweh) is the English transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, the principal Hebrew name of the God of the Bible. For a more thorough explanation concerning the sacred names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

11. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) p. 179.

12. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) pp. 256-57.

13. Emanuel McLittle, “Mixed Up: The Case Against Interracial Marriage: A Black Speaks Out Against Interracial Marriage,” 26 January 1999.

14. “Bone Marrow Donor disparities Reveal Reality of Race Once Again,” 23 June 2010, BNP News, <http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/bone-marrow-donor-disparities-reveal-reality-race-once-again>.

15. H.B. Clark, Clark’s Biblical Law, Second Edition (Portland, OR: Metropolitan Press, 1943) pp. 134-35.

16. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) p. 373.

17. Joe Messerli, “Should the Death Penalty be Banned as a Form of Punishment?”, <http://www.balancedpolitics.org/death_penalty.htm>, 21 November 2009.

18. Dennis Woods, Discipling the Nations: The Government Upon His Shoulder (Franklin, TN: Legacy Communications, 1996) pp. 164-65.

19. Bureau of Justice Statistics, <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm>.

20. Senator Jim Webb, “Why We Must Fix Our Prisons,” Parade, 29 March 2009, <http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html>.

21. Phillip G. Kayser, Is the Death Penalty Just? (Omaha, NE: Biblical Blueprints: 2007/2009) p. 1.

22. Lois G. Forer, Criminals and Victims: A Trial Judge Reflects on Crime and Punishment (New York, NY: Norton, 1980) pp. 77-78, quoted in Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) p. 1167.

23. Wilmot Robertson, The Dispossessed Majority (Cape Canaveral, FL: Howard Allen Enterprises, 1972) p. 426.

24. Ibid., pp. 425-26.

25. Martin Mayer, The Lawyers (New York, NY: Dell Publishing Co., 1966/1968) p. 208, quoted in R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) p. 228.

26. Rousas John Rushdoony, Law and Society (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1982) p. 32.

27. North, p. 46.

28. Ibid., p. 119.

29. See Chapter 17, “Amendment 8: Bail, Fines, & Cruel and Unusual Punishments?” for more regarding the United States Constitutional Republic’s unbiblical penal system.

30. The book Prisons: Shut Them All Down! may be read online, or it may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $3 donation.*

31. Benjamin Rush, Minutes of the Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States Assembled at Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA: Zachariah Poulson, 1794) p. 24, quoted in David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion (Aledo, TX: WallBuilders, 1996/2005) p. 293.

32. Benjamin Rush, “An Enquiry into the Effects of Public Punishments Upon Criminals, and Upon Society,” read in the Society for Promoting Political Inquiries, convened at the house of His Excellency, Benjamin Franklin, Esquire, in Philadelphia, March 9, 1787, <http://english2.byu.edu/facultysyllabi/KLawrence/RUSH.punishments.pdf>.

33. David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion (Aledo, TX: WallBuilders, 1996/2005).

34. Noah Webster, Effect of Slavery on Morals and Industry (Harford, CT: Hudson and Goodwin, 1793) p. 48, quoted in David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion (Aledo, TX: WallBuilders, 1996/2005) p. 293.

35. Dr. Robert L. Dabney, Anti-Biblical Theories of Rights, which first appeared in the Presbyterian Quarterly, July 1888, (Hueytown, AL: Society for Biblical and Southern Studies, 1998) pp. 22-23.

36. North, p. 221.

37. James B. Jordan, The Law of the Covenant: An Exposition of Exodus 21-23 (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1984) p. 77.

38. North, p. 127.

39. Ibid., p. 137.

40. Thomas Williamson, “Lessons From the Old Testament Institution of Debt Slavery,” quoted in The Biblical Examiner, June 2010. See Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1982) for more detailed explanation regarding Exodus 21 and other potentially problematic slavery passages.

41. Ibid., p. 128.

42. See Chapter 17, “Amendment 8: Bail, Fines, & Cruel and Unusual Punishments?” for the distinction between oxen and sheep, and for their modern applications.

43. North, p. 117.

44. Ibid., p. 134.

45. Suffolk Court Records, 631, quoted in Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family (New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966) p. 111, quoted in Dennis Woods, Discipling the Nations: the Government Upon His Shoulder (Franklin, TN: Legacy Communications, 1996) p. 162.

46. “Federal Prison Industries, Inc.,” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries,_Inc>.

47. North, p. 119.

48. See Chapter 4, “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” for more regarding monopolies.

49. For a more thorough explanation concerning the biblical injunctions against integration, “The Seventh Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not commit adultery may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $6 donation.*

50. In March 2009, Bernard “Bernie” Madoff, former Chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, pleaded guilty to eleven felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars.

51. North, p. 124.

52. Ibid., p. 141.

53. Ibid., p. 142.

54. Moses Maimonides, Acquisition, “Laws Concerning Slaves,” Chapter Eight, Section Eighteen, p. 278, quoted in Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) p. 231.

55. North, p. 120.

56. John Murray, Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957) p. 94, quoted in Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) p. 187.

57. Dabney, pp. 24-26.

58. Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1918).

59. Rus Walton, One Nation Under God (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1975) p. 215.

60. James B. Jordan, Slavery in Biblical Perspective, unpublished master’s thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia (April 1980) pp. 4-5, quoted in Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) pp. 154-55.

61. North, p. 155.

*We are admonished in Matthew 10:8 “freely ye have received, freely give.” Although we have a suggested a price for our books, we do not sell them. In keeping with 2 Corinthians 9:7, this ministry is supported by freewill offerings. If you cannot afford the suggested price, inform us of your situation, and we will be pleased to provide you with whatever you need for whatever you can send.

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