Isaac Mayer Wise - Slavery

Slavery

Though some Reform institutions criticize Isaac Mayer Wise for his silence on the issue of slavery this characterization of "silence" is misinformed.

In an article from 1864, Isaac Mayer Wise wrote, "We are not prepared, nobody is, to maintain it is absolutely unjust to purchase savages, or rather, their labor, place them under the protection of law, and secure them the benefit of civilized society and their sustenance for their labor. Man in a savage state is not free; the alien servant under the Mosaic law was a free man, excepting only the fruits of his labor. The abstract idea of liberty is more applicable to the alien labor of the Mosaic system than to the savage, and savages only will sell themselves or their offspring. Negro slavery, if it could have been brought under the control of the Mosaic or similar laws, must have tended to the blessing of the negro race by frequent emigration of civilized negroes back to the interior of Africa; and even now that race might reap the benefit of its enslaved members, if the latter or the best instructed among them were sent back to the interior of Africa."

Though, this quote is taken from an article where Wise opened stating, "It is evident that Moses was opposed to slavery..." The article itself, entitled On the Provisional Portion of the Mosaic Code, with Special Reference to Polygamy and Slavery defends the Mosaic form of slavery as found in the Hebrew Bible while at the same time offering certain criticisms.