Indentured servitude

“ Business must be emancipated. How often are we told by the lawyers, in a saying handed down from antiquity, that “a wretched servitude exists where the law is uncertain”! But this is not true of the law only. Nothing short of that servitude which denies God-given rights can be more wretched than the servitude of an uncertain currency. And now that, by the blessing of God, we are banishing that terrible wrong which was so long the curse and shame of our Nation, let us apply ourselves to this other servitude, whose yoke we are all condemned to bear in daily life. ”

“ Let the prisoner for debt that has nothing to pay be discharged, let the vexatious action be quashed, let the servant that is forcibly detained beyond the time of his servitude be released, and thus break every yoke; not only let go those that are wrongfully kept under the yoke, but break the yoke of slavery itself, that it may not serve again another time nor any by made again to serve under it. ”

“ Whoever renders the one is entitled to the other. And this manifestly according to a mutual understanding and a voluntary arrangement. For the doctrine that I may force you to work for me for whatever consideration I may please to fix upon, fairly opens the way for the doctrine, that you, in turn, may force me to render you whatever wages you may choose to exact for any services you may see fit to render. Thus slavery, even as involuntary servitude, is cut up by the root. Even the Princeton professor seems to regard it as a violation of the principle which unites work with wages. ”

“ A man is in a state of involuntary servitude when he is forced to do, or prevented from doing, a thing, not by the law of the State, but by the simple will of another. He who enjoys less than the common rights of a citizen, he who can be forced from the public highway at the will of another, who can be denied entrance to the cars of a common carrier, is in a state of servitude. ”

“ The condition of one who contracts to render personal services in connection with the private business of another becomes a condition of involuntary servitude from the moment he is compelled, against his will, to continue in such service. He may be liable in damages for the nonperformance of his agreement, but to require him, against his will, to continue in the personal service of his master, is to place him and keep him in a condition of involuntary servitude. ”

“ In penal servitude you are like a crab in a basket: crowding, crushing, jostling, there’s no room to breathe; it’s downright hell—such hell, may the Queen of Heaven keep us from it! You are a robber and treated like a robber—worse than any dog. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat or even say your prayers. But it’s not like that in a settlement. In a settlement I shall be a member of a commune like other people. ”

“ If the term servant, of itself, and necessarily, signifies a slave, it follows not only that the kingdom of God has always been like the kingdom of the devil, in regard to servitude and personal rights, but that voluntary and requited servitude is a modern innovation, for which there is neither precedent nor example in Holy Writ ”

“ A private servitude is one vested in a determinate individual; for example, a right of way, of light, or of support, vested in the owner of one piece of land over an adjoining piece, or a right granted to one person of fishing in the water of another, or of mining in another’s land. ”

“ It was to substitute for civil imprisonment a temporary servitude for the benefit of the creditor, servitude which would have no other term that the extinction of the debt itself. The debtor, of whatever quality, man or woman, black or white, American or foreign, would become enslaved for some time, to give away not only his labour but also his freedom, to waive the free disposition of his own self. ”

“ Can the act of a mere individual, the owner of the inn, the public conveyance, or place of amusement, refusing the accommodation, be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant, or only as inflicting an ordinary civil injury, properly cognizable by the laws of the state, and presumably subject to redress by those laws until the contrary appears? ”

“ Punishment probably—certainly not labor—is the leading object in the one case as well as the other: and the labor of the bondman in the one, as well as of the convict in the other, constitutes but a subordinate consideration. To suppose that God would, with every consideration out of view, but that of having the best relation of employer and laborer, make choice of slavery—to suppose that He believes that this state of servitude operates most beneficially, both for the master and the servant—is a high impeachment of the Divine wisdom and goodness. ”

“ It is a strange thing to trace, in connection with this, the history of labor, and see how recent it is that the natural right of a man to sell his services for such a price as he could obtain has been acknowledged. History shows that until modern times, compulsory personal servitude has been in every age and country the lot of a large part of the human race. And when wages began to be paid for service, conditions were not much improved. ”

“ When a young man or a girl had an opportunity to get married, they had to pay their master five or six pounds for each year they had still to serve. Yet a steerage passage never cost more than ten pounds. Run-away servants had to serve one week for each day, one month for each week, and six months for each month of absence. If the master did not want to keep his servant, he could sell him for the unexpired time of his term of servitude. It was a daily occurrence that whole families were separated for ever. In short, the whole system was utterly vicious and little better than slavery. ”

“ And now, sir, admitting that the phrase, on which you lay so much stress—"bought with his money"—was used in connexion with a form of servitude which God approved—I put it to your candor, whether this phrase should be allowed to weigh at all against the facts I have adduced and the reasonings I have employed to show the true nature of that servitude, and how totally unlike it is to slavery? ”

“ Where such formal, legal status is absent the conditions are not servile; and the difference between servitude and freedom, appreciable in a thousand details of actual life, is most glaring in this: that the free man can refuse his labour and use that refusal as an instrument wherewith to bargain; while the slave has no such instrument or power to bargain at all, but is dependent for his well-being upon the custom of society, backed by the regulation of such of its laws as may protect and guarantee the slave. ”

“ It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it. ”

“ The abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude was intended to make every one born in this country a freeman, and as such to give to him the right to pursue the ordinary avocations of life without other restraint than such as affects all others, and to enjoy equally with them the fruits of his labor. ”

“ Suppose somebody should charge you with holding the people under compulsory servitude, and you should answer that you laid no hand on them but that they willingly resorted to you and kissed your hands for the privilege of being allowed to serve you in exchange for water, food, or clothing, would not that be a very transparent evasion on your part of the charge of slaveholding? ”

“ It was replied in behalf of justice, that this ruling of the provinces is just, because servitude may be advantageous to the provincials, and is so when rightly administered,—that is to say, when lawless men are prevented from doing harm. And further, as they became worse and worse so long as they were free, they will improve by subjection. ”

“ A person allowed to pursue only one trade or calling, and only in one locality of the country, would not be, in the strict sense of the term, in a condition of slavery, but probably none would deny that he would be in a condition of servitude. He certainly would not possess the liberties nor enjoy the privileges of a freeman. ”

“ One must have lived among those placid and humane people to be sensible that servitude—hopeless, endless servitude—could exist with so little servility and fear on the one side, and so little harshness or even sternness of authority in the other. In Europe, the footing on which service is placed in consequence of the corruptions of society, hardens the heart, destroys confidence, and embitters life. The deceit and venality of servants not absolutely dishonest, puts it out of one’s power to love or trust them. ”

“ If we are right in our supposition, then it is evident that employers have it in their power to take away the reproach from domestic servitude, by assimilating the conditions of household employment to those which attach to industrial occupations. Why should not servants have regular hours of work, outside which they would be absolutely free to go where, or to do as they please, without asking permission or fearing interruption? ”

“ Imprisonment at hard labor, compulsory and unpaid, is, in the strongest sense of the words, 'involuntary servitude for crime,' spoken of in the provision of the ordinance of 1787, and of the thirteenth amendment of the constitution, by which all other slavery was abolished. ”

“ I think no one, not radically averse to the whole system of domestic servitude, would have treated servants, of whatever class, with such uniform and thoughtful consideration,—a regard which wholly merged their factitious condition in their antecedent and permanent humanity. ”

“ In the Targum of Jonathan, "Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the servitude of servants."A The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service, with permanent domestics. The remainder of the regulation is,—"But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their masters: they still retained their own family organization, without the surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority ”

“ Slaves yield to the impulses of nature, and propagate a race of slaves; but save in a few rare instances, servitude is as fatal to domestic love as to all the other virtues. Some few choice spirits indeed, will still rise superior to their condition, and when cut off from every other support, will find within their own hearts, the means of resisting the deadly and demoralizing influences of servitude. ”

“ But, sir, if we could, by any process of reasoning, be brought to believe it justifiable to hold others to involuntary servitude, policy forbids that we should increase it. Even the present slaveholding states have an interest, I think, in limiting the extent of involuntary servitude; for, should slaves become much more numerous, and, conscious of their strength, draw the sword against their masters, it will be to the free states the masters must resort for an efficient power to suppress servile insurrection. ”

“ The point, for instance, which is really debated in the vigorous controversy still carried on upon the subject of negro servitude, is whether the status of the slave does not belong to by-gone institutions, and whether the only relation between employer and labourer which commends itself to modern morality be not a relation determined exclusively by contract. ”

“ The wage slave, who must work or starve was serving a much more exacting and cruel master than the most heartless owner of chattel slaves ever could have been. In the great sphere of human servitude the tables had been completely turned. ”

“ I have been visiting a farm, cultivated entirely by free labour. The proprietor told me that he was first led to disuse slave-labour, not from any economical considerations, but because he had become convinced that there was an essential wrong in holding men in forced servitude with any other purpose than to benefit them alone, and because he was not willing to allow his own children to be educated as slave-masters. ”

“ Even now, however, every element of servitude has not disappeared in the position of the worker; the capitalist system "permits a minority of privileged individuals to dispose of the work, the strength and the health of the working classes and to levy on them a perpetual tribute." ”

“ There is nothing picturesque or beautiful, in the family attachment of old servants, which is not to be found in countries where these servants are legally free. The tenants on an English estate are often more fond and faithful than if they were slaves. Slavery, therefore, is not the element which forms the picturesque and beautiful of Southern life. What is peculiar to slavery, and distinguishes it from free servitude, is evil, and only evil, and that continually. ”

“ The penalty for concealing a runaway servant was twenty shillings, and any one purchasing any goods from a servant without the consent of the master or mistress was fined treble the value of the goods, to the use of the owner, "and the servant, if a white, shall make satisfaction to his or her master or owner by servitude after the expiration of his or her time, to double the value of said goods, and if the servant be a black, he or she shall be severely whipped in the most public place in the township in which such offence was committed." ”