r braiding, nor even stripes, but double _of the same kind_. Why was
not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why was not the thief
required to restore double of the same kind--two men, or if he had sold
him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not _have_ them? So
the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But
if God permitted men to hold _men_ as property, equally with oxen, the
man-thief, could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the
ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the legal penalty was
a compensation to the person injured. But when a _man_ was stolen, no
property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent,
would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations.
Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against
immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To
have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double,
would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the
infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of
reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the
testimony of blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth
of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS
INVIOLABLE."--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--"I
die accursed, and God is just."

[Footnote A: "Those are _men-stealers_ who abduct, _keep_, sell, or buy
slaves or freemen." GROTIUS.]

If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish for
stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any
other kind of property? Why punish with death for stealing a very little
of _that_ sort of property, and make a mere fine the penalty for
stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of
property--especially if by his own act, God had annihilated the
difference between man and _property_, by putting him on a level with
it?

The guilt of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and
condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or
whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal
it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my
neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the _nature_ of
the article, but in taking as _mine_ what is _his_. But when I take my
neighbor himself, a