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Slavery Revived
The Prediction
According to Ellen White, there would be both slaves and slave masters at the Second Coming:
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Then commenced the jubilee, when the land should rest. I saw the pious slave rise in triumph and victory and shake off the chains that bound him, while his wicked master was in confusion and knew not what to do; for the wicked could not understand the words of the voice of God. Soon appeared the great white cloud.—Early Writings, p. 35. . . . the master must endure the seven last plagues and then come up in the second resurrection and suffer the second, most awful death.—Ibid., p. 276. |
In making this prediction, Ellen White was not alone, as an appendix note for the second quote above points out:
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Page 276: Slaves and Master.—According to Revelation 6:15, 16 there will be slavery at the second advent of Christ. Here we find the words "every bondman, and every free man." The statement by Ellen White under discussion indicates that she was shown in vision the slave and the slave master at the second advent of Christ. In this she is in perfect accord with the Bible. Both John and Mrs. White were shown conditions that would exist at the second coming of our Lord. |
That's interesting. John in Revelation more than once spoke about slavery at the very end of time.
In 1895, three decades after the Emancipation Proclamation was proclaimed, Ellen White was even more direct. In this quote she specifically predicted that slavery would be revived in the South:
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At present, Sundaykeeping is not the test. The time will come when men will not only forbid Sunday work, but they will try to force men to labor on the Sabbath. And men will be asked to renounce the Sabbath and to subscribe to Sunday observance or forfeit their freedom and their lives. But the time for this has not yet come, for the truth must be presented more fully before the people as a witness. . . . Slavery will again be revived in the Southern States; for the spirit of slavery still lives. —Manuscript Releases, vol. 2, p. 299. |
Could a revival of slavery really take place?
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
A question that arises is whether the U.S. Constitution would have to be amended in order to allow the type of slavery Ellen White specifically refers to, namely, punishment for the "crime" of working on Sunday. Here is how the 13th Amendment presently reads:
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Article XIII. 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. |
"Except as a punishment for crime." That means that there would not need to be any change at all to the 13th Amendment in order to punish Sunday-breakers with enslavement.
"The Spirit of Slavery Still Lives"
Some might agree, and some might disagree with Ellen White's 1895 statement that the spirit of slavery still lives. Yet it is interesting to note that of the 36 states in the Union at the time the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865,
- New Jersey rejected it on March 16, 1865, and then ratified it ten months later.
- Delaware refused to ratify it until 1901.
- Kentucky couldn't bring itself to ratify it until 1976.
- Mississippi finally took the plunge and ratified it in 1995.
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A 21st-Century Problem?
Seems like everyone wants to get into the act on this one, whether they be government agencies, religious groups, or the media. Everyone wants to be on record as opposing today's rampant slave trade. We'll cite just a few of the many references out there.
First, National Geographic did a 24-page story in their September 2003 issue. It was entitled, "21st Century Slaves," and on page 12 gave the following list of countries known by the U.S. State Department where more than 100 slaves were sold in 2002, even though slavery is illegal there:
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Out of around 192 countries in the world, 116 have an active slave trade going on. That's far too many, and it shows that even when slavery is illegal, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
How big is the slave trade really? A Department of Justice press release in July of 2004 that reported the president's participation in a conference in Tampa, Florida, on slavery gave the following statistic:
| Trafficking in persons, a modern day form of slavery, is a serious problem in the United States and throughout the world. Each year, an estimated 600,000-800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked against their will across international borders. Of those, 14,500-17,500 are trafficked into America. Victims are forced into prostitution, or to work in sweatshops, quarries, as domestic labor, or child soldiers, and in many forms of involuntary servitude.—"Bush Administration Hosts First National Training Conference to Combat Human Trafficking." |
Statistics like these have prompted politicians to make the following statements, reported by the BBC on January 25, 2005:
| There is more slavery now than there was at the height of the slave trade, former Conservative leader William Hague has warned.—"Slavery 'worse than ever' — Hague." |
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Slavery in the South
That 2003 National Geographic article described one of five cases of slavery exposed in Florida over the previous six years. The Ramos family used at least 700 slaves in their citrus-picking operation in the town of Lake Placid. In June 2002, three members of the family found out that they would be spending a total of almost 35 years in jail for their slave trafficking.
National Geographic points out that the Ramos operation was in full view. Their main slave camp was next to the Ramada Inn, and a retirement community and golf course on the edge of town. One of the Ramoses' stores where their slaves were regularly forced to turn over their paychecks on payday was but a block from a police station.
How often is slavery going on right under our noses without our noticing it? Often enough that the Palm Beach Post's lengthy 2003 special report entitled "Modern-Day Slavery" uses the following as a heading:
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Give Us Your Opinion
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