session. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children
after you, to inherit them for a possession they shall be your bond-men
forever." I ask any candid man, if the words of this institution could
be more explicit? It is from God himself; it authorizes that people, to
whom he had become _king and law-giver_, to purchase men and women as
property; to hold them and their posterity in bondage; and to will them
to their children as a possession forever; and more, it allows _foreign
slaveholders_ to _settle_ and _live among them_; to _breed slaves_ and
_sell them_. Now, it is important to a correct understanding of this
subject, to connect with the right to _buy_ and _possess_, as property,
the amount of authority _to govern_, which is granted by the
_law-giver_; this amount of authority is implied, in the first place, in
the law which prohibits the exercise of rigid authority upon the
Hebrews, who are allowed to sell themselves for limited times. "If thy
brother be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not _compel
him_ to serve as a _bond servant_, but as a _hired servant_, and as a
_sojourner_ he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee until the year
of jubilee--_they shall not be sold as bond-men_; thou _shalt not rule
over them with rigor_."--Levit. xxv: 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. It will be
evident to all, that here are _two states_ of servitude; in reference to
_one_ of which, _rigid_ or _compulsory_ authority, is _prohibited_, and
that its _exercise is authorised in the other_.

Second.--In the criminal code, that conduct is punished with death, when
done to a _freeman_, which is not punishable at all, when done _by a
master to a slave_, for the express reason, that the slave is the
_master's money_. "He that smiteth a man so that he die, shall surely be
put to death."--Exod. xxi: 20, 21. "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."--Exod. xxi: 20. Here is precisely the
same crime: smiting a man so that he die; if it be a freeman, he shall
surely be put to death, whether the man die under his hand, or live a
day or two after; but if it be a servant, and the master continued the
rod until the servant died under his hand, then it must be evident that
such a chastisement could not be necessary for any purpose of wholesome
or reasonable authority, and