Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of servants, where slavery is abolished.  In the British West Indies, where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still “bought.”  This is the current word in West India newspapers.  Ten years since servants were “bought” in New-York, as really as in Virginia, yet the different senses in which the word was used in the two states, put no man in a quandary.  Under the system of legal indenture in Illinois, servants now are “bought."[A] Until recently immigrants to this country were “bought” in great numbers.  By voluntary contract they engaged to work a given time to pay for their passage.  This class of persons called “redemptioners,” consisted at one time of thousands.  Multitudes are “bought” out of slavery by themselves or others.  Under the same roof with the writer is a “servant bought with money.”  A few weeks since, she was a slave; when “bought” she was a slave no longer.  Alas! for our leading politicians if “buying” men makes them “chattels.”  The Whigs say that Benton and Rives are “bought” by the administration; and the other party, that Clay and Webster are “bought” by the Bank.  The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was “bought” by British gold.  When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus hits off the indecency, “The cotton bags bought him.”  Sir Robert Walpole said, “Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can buy him,” and John Randolph said, “The northern delegation is in the market, give me money enough, and I can buy them;” both meant just what they said.  The temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey; and the oracles of street tattle that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the late trial of Robinson were bought, yet we have no floating visions of “chattels personal,” man auctions, or coffles.

[Footnote A:  The following statute is now in force in the free state of Illinois—­No negro, mulatto, or Indian shall at any time purchase any servant other than of their own complexion:  and if any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to purchase a white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deemed and taken.]

The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to the use of “buy” and “bought with money.”  Gen, xlvii. 18-26.  The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants.  When the bargain was closed, Joseph said, “Behold I have bought you this day,” and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons bought as articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on certain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine.  The idea attached by both parties to “buy us,” and “behold I have bought you,” was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in return for value