Embedded within the United States Bill of Rights and the additional amendments to the Constitution are some principles that directly reflect moral rights and duties imposed by the Old Testament Law. For example, one could favorably compare the 5th Amendment to Deuteronomy 17:6 or the 8th Amendment to Deuteronomy 25:3, with the obvious conclusion being that at least portions of the amendments to the Constitution overlap with instructions in Mosaic Law. I noticed the 13th Amendment in particular as I was scanning a list of them several days ago and noticed that, as with several other amendments, the Bible concurred with it.
Let us compare the two:
13th Amendment--"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."
Exodus 21:16, 22:3--"Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death . . . A thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he must be sold to pay for his theft."
These principles are almost identical. Truly, it is downright hypocritical for people to hold that the U.S. Constitutional amendments are ethical while attacking the Old Testament for permitting limited slavery. Of course, in Biblical law the possession of a slave in the circumstances described in Exodus 22:3 also came with the moral obligation not to mistreat or maim the slave (Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27) and to release him or her after six years of service unless the slave wished to remain with his or her master until death (Exodus 21:1-6, Deuteronomy 15:12-18).
One of the seemingly darkest stains on America's past is the abominable slave trade which led to the kidnapping, involuntary enslavement, and immoral treatment of thousands of Africans. Yet, when American legislation finally prohibited the slave trade, it ensured that servitude as a criminal penalty was not abolished too. Some Americans seem all too aware of the horrific slave trade but not of the fact that the 13th Amendment still permits a specific type of slavery. What many people are certainly unaware of, however, is that the Bible explicitly agrees with the 13th Amendment, meaning anyone who objects to Exodus 22:3 but not to the amendment in question commits the grave error of intellectual and moral hypocrisy. Mosaic Law allowed for this limited and temporary form of slavery as a natural extension of the Bible's prominent legal doctrine of restitution, with thieves--or those who owed money for alternative crimes as well--who were unable to provide reimbursement and amends for their crimes working to restore the monetary value of what was lost, damaged, or stolen.
A superior response to theft with inability to restore has never been concocted by humans. Because a thief who had nothing to pay back his or her victim with likely stole out of desperation in order to obtain food or basic living items, having him or her live with the victim or someone else in order to generate income to pay off the debt removed the thief from the bleak circumstances, providing him or her with food, shelter, a way to possibly learn an occupation which could later be used to sustain the thief after release, and all the legal protection that came attached with the status of a slave (see two paragraphs above). Seen in this light, having a thief work as a temporary slave would have not only been restorative for the victim but possibly rehabilitative for the thief (or other criminal).
The Mosaic handling of slavery is the most ethical and benevolent one could ask for--and the 13th Amendment concurs. To object to one but not the other is completely inconsistent and logically indefensible. But people these days don't necessarily care about what is rational or defensible, do they?
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