Was Gradual Emancipation a Biblical Position?

In 1688, German Quaker immigrants in Germantown, Pennsylvania, offered a petition condemning the slave trade. Their analysis was based on the “golden rule” and urged fellow Quakers not to participate in the institution. They did not offer any specific solution to end slavery. It should be noted that since Quakers do not acknowledge Scripture as the final authority, (but rather rely on an “inner light”) they are deeply affected by culture. A 17th-century Quaker is likely more theologically conservative than many 21st-century evangelicals. This petition was the first ever of its kind in an English-speaking colony.

It took time for this idea to percolate into the culture. Then on March 1, 1780, almost 600 days before the war for independence ended with the British surrender at Yorktown, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a groundbreaking law. The legislature was aware of the hypocrisy of fighting a war of independence to assure liberty while keeping a portion of the population enslaved. They were willing to deal with this contradiction even before victory over the world’s greatest superpower was assured. The legislature was faced with the task of charting a course that would navigate Pennsylvania from its current position of a slave state to one where all citizens were free.

The preamble to the legislation acknowledged the slaves were created in God’s image. “It is not for us to enquire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion… It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty Hand.” The legislature chose gradual emancipation as the best way to eliminate slavery from Pennsylvania.

• 1) You had to register your slave with your county government. If you were late or messed up the paperwork, the slave was emancipated.
• 2) The registered slave is a slave for life, but anyone born to a slave after 3/1/1780 is an indentured servant.
• 3) At age 28 the indenture is over. Those years of labor were considered compensation to the master for raising a literate child with math skills and a trade to enter a free society.

In 1783 New Hampshire embarked on gradual emancipation after the Pennsylvania model. In the same year, Massachusetts had a court decision stating that slavery was incompatible with the state constitution. In 1784 Connecticut and Rhode Island also passed laws for gradual emancipation.

Some of our countrymen believe the war for independence was fought to preserve slavery. They place our founding year at 1619 and not 1776. They need to answer two questions:

Why would Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island join in a risky war against the world’s most powerful nation if the goal is to preserve an institution they would all shortly abolish? Why were more than 20% of the continental soldiers laying siege to the British at Yorktown of African descent.

An Analysis of Gradual Emancipation

At first glance, gradual emancipation looks very unfair. If slavery is indeed wrong, why keep it around for a generation? How does the Pennsylvania solution stack up with verses like Leviticus 19:15? “You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor.”

There are three groups the legislature had to consider when navigating the course from slave state to free state:

• Non-slave-holding taxpayers: These outnumber the slaveholders and the slaves.
• Slaveholders: These invested in slaves as a method of getting the labor they required. It was completely legal at the time of their investment
• Slaves: This group included everyone from infants to the infirm and the elderly. The young required care. Elderly, and infirm slaves had no savings and were, by custom, supposed to be given light duty by their masters. (Although Northrup, in his book “Twelve Years A Slave” describes some Louisiana slaveholders illegally murdering their elderly slaves.) Then there was the working-age group. These slaves were young and able-bodied. They could work and save for their elderly years, but with perhaps just a few exceptions, they were illiterate and had no math skills.

How does the gradual emancipation stack up in being fair to these groups? Immediate emancipation would have economically harmed the slaveholders. They would have demanded compensation from the state treasury. This compensation would have greatly increased taxes harming the non-slaveholding majority.

Immediate emancipation would have tossed the existing slaves into a free-market economy. The slaves that would have done the best would have been the working-age, but many of them, along with the elderly and the infirm, would likely have to resort to begging or theft.

It’s possible the legislature considered the effects of an immediate emancipation recorded in history. The Israelites were immediately emancipated from slavery in Egypt. Despite the many manifestations of God’s hand in their emancipation, history shows that with just a few exceptions the generation raised in slavery was not prepared for freedom. Only two out of the twelve spies, Joshua and Caleb, were confident enough to risk taking the Promised Land. It was the next generation that was able to take that risk.

The gradual emancipation path chosen by the legislature assured that the next generation would know from their cradles, like the Israelites born in the desert, that they were destined for a life of freedom. They could prepare. The generation already born March 1, 1780, would know their children would have a better life. What parent doesn’t want that?

Does gradual emancipation meet the Leviticus 19:15 criterion of being fair to all groups? Gradual emancipation was not perfect. It was unfair to the “Joshua and Caleb” subset of the March 1, 1780 slave population who would have prospered with freedom, but it had fewer problems than immediate emancipation.

Problems with Immediate Emancipation

Virginia recognized that some slaveholders could use manumission (or emancipation) to avoid their responsibilities. Virginia passed a law in 1782 requiring that slaves set free either while the slaveholder still lived or by testament upon the death of the slaveholder must be “in the judgment of the court, of sound mind and body.” The law included minimum and maximum ages for the slaves. The law authorized the sheriff to confiscate resources from the estates of slaveholders to care for freed slaves not meeting the court’s criterion. In 1800 South Carolina passed a similar law that stated, “It hath been a practice for many years past in this state, for persons to emancipate … slaves [that] have been … from age or infirmity, incapable of gaining their livelihood by honest means.” the law required five freeman, appointed by the magistrate, along with the master appear in court to attest to the slave’s ability to support himself in freedom. These laws were passed to protect the slaves.

How Gradual Emancipation Worked in Practice

Sometime before July 1800 the U.S. Navy ship Ganges captured two ships containing 118 Africans bound for Cuba. One of the captives would be known as Samuel Ganges, who evidently took his last name from the ship that rescued him. He was born in Guinea (West Africa) circa 1777. In all probability, Samuel would have worked hard on a sugar plantation. Slavery would not be abolished in Cuba until 1886.

What could the Navy do with Samuel and the others? Where would the rescued captives get fair treatment? They were taken to Philadelphia. Thanks to the March 1st, 1780, action of the legislature, Philadelphia was one of the few seaports where Samuel and the others would get fair treatment. Remember, Samuel was 23 years old and lived his life in West Africa. He was bound for a Spanish-speaking colony. It is doubtful he spoke English. It is unlikely he could read or do rudimentary arithmetic.

Edward Brinton Temple of Pennsbury bought a 4-year indenture on Samuel. The terms of the indenture required that, within 4 years, Temple teach Samuel a marketable skill as well as reading and writing. Samuel stayed in Chester County for the rest of his life. He married, had children, and worked as a servant. Sometime after his 70s, he moved to the Chester County poorhouse and passed away in 1868 at the age of 91. Samuel has progeny today. As of 2019, one of his descendants owns an ice cream shop in West Chester, Pennsylvania. As an enslaved person in 1800 bound for Cuba, Samuel Ganges won life’s lottery thanks to the U.S. Navy, the Pennsylvania legislature, and some German immigrants in 1688.

Conclusion

The institution of slavery has been around for thousands of years. Fallen men just can’t resist the temptation, “to get a free lunch.” In the late 1840s, the French economist, Fredrick Bastiat, wrote that the double sorrowful inheritance from the Old World of slavery and tariffs threatened to rupture the Union in the New World. Transitioning from slave-state to free-state is complex. In the USA, the transition from slave states to free states began with some Quakers who thought Biblical principles should apply to public policy. Real tangible progress started in 1780 with gradual emancipation and ended in 1865 with a civil war and the immediate emancipation of an ill-prepared population into a war-torn landscape.