CHAPTER XXIX.
SLAVERY—POLYGAMY.
Slavery.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions the infamous crime of human slavery.
“Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you; of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever” (Lev. xx. v, 44–46).
In certain cases they were even permitted to enslave the members of their own race.
“If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out by himself” (Ex. xxi, 2–4).
If he desires his liberty he must desert his wife and little ones. To become a freeman he must become an exile.
“And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ears through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever” (5, 6).