I guess it depends on what the meaning of slavery is. I happen to think taking away people’s free choice to where they can work or live is slavery. Your quotes do not deter me from my opinion. If today, you found that Barbra Streisand was forcing Mexicans off the street of Los Angeles to work at Versailles...er, I mean her extensive estate at Malibu, without a means of escape, you wouldn’t call that slavery? I would. (She’s done no such thing.) In fact, here on the east coast, we’ve had examples of rich middle-eastern emigres enslaving their hired servants from the Philippines and being arrested and prosecuted for it. So, I guess it is all in the definition.
You know I love you Pelham, even if we disagree on this one!!!
It may be that having been subject to the draft inclines me to see it differently. If they selected your name you didn’t have any choice in it. It was show up or jail. They ‘own’ you for the duration but it’s not slavery. It’s military conscription and that has existed for millennia.
It has its own negatives that differ markedly from slavery. You could get maimed or killed, whereas no master would willingly endanger his slaves because they were valuable. The canals in New Orleans were famously dug by immigrant Irish because no one was about to risk a slave in a trench collapse.