I distinctly have taken, and do take, that
ground in its widest sense, and am prepared to maintain it against all
comers. He made it right for the sons of Adam to marry their sisters. He
made it right for Abraham to marry his half-sister. He made it right for
the patriarchs, and David and Solomon, to have more wives than one. He
made it right when he gave command to kill whole nations, sparing none. He
made it right when he ordered that nations, or such part as he pleased,
should be spared and enslaved. He made it right that the patriarchs and
the Israelites should hold slaves in harmony with the system of servile
labor which had long been in the world. He merely modified that system to
suit his views of good among his people. So, then, when he saw fit, they
might capture men. So, then, when he forbade the individual Israelite to
steal a man, he made it crime, and the penalty death. So, then, that crime
was not the mere _stealing_ a man, nor the _selling_ a man, nor the
_holding_ a man,--but the _stealing and selling_, or _holding_, a man
_under circumstances thus forbidden of God_.
_Was the Israelite Master a Man-Stealer?_
I now ask, Did God intend to make man-stealing and slave-holding the same
thing? Let us see. In that very chapter of Exodus (xxi.) which contains
the law against man-stealing, and only four verses further on, God says,
"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his
hand, he shall be surely punished: notwithstanding, if he continue a day
or two he shall not be punished; for he is his money.
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