"We find the Most High prescribing, Exodus xxi. 20, 21, that a master who kills his servant under chastisement shall be punished (but not put to death); and if the servant survives a day or two, the master shall not even be 'punished' for the death of his slave!
"The reason which the Most High gives is this: 'For he is his money'!
"A human being, 'money'! An immortal soul, 'money'! God's image, 'money'! And this the reasoning, these the very words of my Maker! Is it not astonishing, if your principles are correct, that there has been no controversy for ages against this? and that the Bible, with such passages in it should have retained its hold on the human mind? 'He is his money'! It would have been no different had it read: 'He is his cotton.' You see that the Most High recognized 'ownership,' 'property in man.' Why is it said, 'He is his money'? Poole (Synopsis) says,—'that is, his possession bought with money; and therefore 1. Had a power to chastise him according to his merit, which might be very great. 2. Is sufficiently punished with his own loss. 3. May be presumed not to have done this purposely or maliciously.'
"Either and all of which explanations, or any other which can be given, only bring more clearly to view the idea of 'money' as a reason why the master is not to be punished, for causing the death of a slave by whipping, if the slave happens to continue a day or two, no matter under what mutilations and sufferings.
"Furthermore. We find the Most High decreeing perpetual bondage in certain cases, and more than all, as we have seen, the forcible separation of husband and wife among slaves. Let me turn to Exodus xxi. and read:—
"'1. Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
"'2. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
"'3. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
"'4. 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.'
"I have not finished my reading," said I; "but what do you say to that,
Mr. North?"