Volume 1 — THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER NO 4. THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY. AN INQUIRY INTO THE PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS. Fourth Edition—Enlarged. (continued 2)

One prominent feature of patriarchal example has been quite overlooked by slaveholders. We mean the special care of Isaac to inform Jacob that those "given to him as servants" were "HIS BRETHREN," (twice repeated.) The deep veneration of slaveholders for every thing patriarchal, clears them from all suspicion of designedly neglecting this authoritative precedent, and their admirable zeal to perpetuate patriarchal fashions, proves this seeming neglect, a mere oversight: and is an all-sufficient guarantee that henceforward they will religiously illustrate in their own practice, the beauty of this hitherto neglected patriarchal usage. True, it would be an odd codicil to a will, for a slaveholder, after bequeathing to some of his children, all his slaves, to add a supplement, informing them that such and such and such of them were their brothers and sisters. Doubtless it would be at first a sore trial also, but what pious slaveholder would not be sustained under it by the reflection that he was humbly following in the footsteps of his illustrious patriarchal predecessors!

Great reformers must make great sacrifices, and if the world is to be brought back to the purity of patriarchal times, upon whom will the ends of the earth come, to whom will all trembling hearts and failing eyes spontaneously turn as leaders to conduct the forlorn hope through the wilderness to that promised land, if not to slaveholders, those disinterested pioneers whose self-denying labors have founded far and wide the "patriarchal institution" of concubinage, and through evil report and good report, have faithfully stamped their own image and superscription, in variegated hues, upon the faces of a swarming progeny from generation to generation.

OBJECTION I. "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Gen. ix. 25.

OBJECTION II.—"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of this regulation? Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offence should not be capital? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered from Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will often find a moot court in session, trying law points, settling definitions, or laying down rules of evidence. Num. xxxv. 10-22; Deut. xix. 4-6; Lev. xxiv. 19-22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are some of the cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect the intent, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judicial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions necessary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable them to get at the motive and find out whether the master designed to kill. 1. "If a man smite his servant with a rod."—The instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Num. xxxv. 16-18. A rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon—hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be inferred; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. But if the servant "die under his hand," then the unfitness of the instrument, is point blank against him; for, striking with a rod so as to cause death, presupposed very many blows and great violence, and this kept up till the death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence "He shall surely be punished." But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, the kind of instrument used, and the master's pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,") all made a strong case of presumptive evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill. Further, the word nākăm, here rendered punished, occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every place is translated "avenge," in a few, "to take vengeance," or "to revenge," and in this instance ALONE, "punish." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master, whereas it should refer to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged. The meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master. So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the death of the master, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places! One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal; the other, an accidental, and comparatively slight injury—of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! Now, just the discrimination to be looked for where GOD legislates, is marked in the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says, "It (the death) shall surely be avenged," that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be fined, (ānăsh.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word ānăsh, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19: "They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3: "He condemned (mulcted) the land in a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold." That avenging the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, nor stripes, nor a fine but that it was taking the master's life we infer, 1. From the use of the word nākām. See Gen. iv. 24; Josh. x. 13; Judg. xv. 7; xvi. 28; 1 Sam. xiv. 24; xviii. 25; xxv. 31; 2 Sam. iv. 8; Judg. v. 2; 1 Sam. xxv. 26-33. 2. From the express statute, Lev. xxiv. 17: "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be put to death." Also, Num. xxxv. 30, 31: "Whoso killeth ANY person, the murderer shall be put to death. Moreover, ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death." 3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem, "Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost." Jarchi, the same. The Samaritan version: "He shall die the death." Again, the clause "for he is his money," is quoted to prove that the servant is his master's property, and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY," proves not only that the servant is worth money to the master, but that he is an article of property. If the advocates of slavery insist upon taking this principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turning it loose, let them stand and draw in self-defence. If they endorse for it at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears the table, and tilts them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as the following: "This (bread) is my body;" "all they (the Israelites) are brass and tin;" this (water) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "the Lord God is a sun;" "the seven good ears are seven years;" "the tree of the field is man's life;" "God is a consuming fire;" "he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact literalities of the Bible is too amiable, not to be gratified in this case. The words in the original are (Káspo-hu,) "his silver is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is a philosopher's stone! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into solid silver! Quite a permanent servant, if not so nimble withal—reasoning against "forever," is forestalled henceforth, and, Deut. xxiii. 15, quite outwitted. The obvious meaning of the phrase, "He is his money," is, he is worth money to his master, and since, if the master had killed him, it would have taken money out of his pocket, the pecuniary loss, the kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living sometime after the injury, (if the master meant to kill, he would be likely to do it while about it.) all together make a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master from intent to kill. But let us look at the objector's inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his property as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he was equally his property, and the objector admits that in the first case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying his own property! The other inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of intent to kill, the loss of the servant would be a sufficient punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A pecuniary loss was no part of the legal claim, where a person took the life of another. In such case, the law spurned money, whatever the sum. God would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide, where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Num. xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a penalty adequate to the desert of the master, admits his guilt and his desert of some punishment, and it prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where man took the life of man, whether with or without intent to kill. In short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system—makes a new law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit. Divine legislation revised and improved! The master who struck out his servant's tooth, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him free. The pecuniary loss to the master was the same as though he had killed him. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so that he dies of his wounds; another accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth,—the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same. If the loss of the servant's services is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him, would God command the same punishment for the accidental knocking out of a tooth? Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertently, the loss of the servant's services was only a part of the punishment—mere reparation to the individual for injury done; the main punishment, that strictly judicial, was reparation to the community. To set the servant free, and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it—answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an example of the offender, that "those that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev. xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out his servant's tooth, the law smote out his tooth—thus redressing the public wrong; and it cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from perilous liabilities in future.

OBJECTION III. "Both thy bondmen and 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. xxv. 44-46.

The points in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic system sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." 4. "FOREVER."

We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery is derivable from these terms.

1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called "bondmen," while others are called "servants," is quoted as proof that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The Hebrew word "ĕbĕdh," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen," is often applied to Christ. "Behold my servant (bondman, slave?) whom I uphold." Isa. xlii. 1. "Behold my servant (Christ) shall deal prudently." Isa. lii. 13. "And he said it is a light thing that thou (Christ) shouldst be my servant." Isa. xlix. 6. "To a servant of rulers." Isa. xlix. 7. "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant (Christ) justify many." Is. liii. 11. "Behold I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH." Zech. iii. 8. In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, it is applied to King Rehoboam. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a servant unto this people, then they will be thy servants forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation. The word is used to designate those who perform service for individuals or families, about thirty-five times in the Old Testament. To designate tributaries about twenty-five times. To designate the subjects of government, about thirty-three times. To designate the worshippers both of the true God, and of false gods, about seventy times. It is also used in salutations and courteous addresses nearly one hundred times. In fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service for others, and that merely to designate them as the performers of such service, whatever it might be, or whatever the ground on which it might be rendered. To argue from the fact, of this word being used to designate domestic servants, that they were made servants by force, worked without pay, and held as articles of property, is such a gross assumption and absurdity as to make formal refutation ridiculous. We repeat what has been shown above, that the word rendered bondmen in Lev. xxv. 44, is used to point out persons rendering service for others, totally irrespective of the principle on which that service was rendered; as is manifest from the fact that it is applied indiscriminately to tributaries, to domestics, to all the subjects of governments, to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to younger sons—defining their relation to the first born, who is called lord and ruler—to prophets, to kings, and to the Messiah. To argue from the meaning of the word ĕbĕdh as used in the Old Testament, that those to whom it was applied rendered service against their will, and without pay, does violence to the scripture use of the term, sets at nought all rules of interpretation, and outrages common sense. If any inference as to the meaning of the term is to be drawn from the condition and relations of the various classes of persons, to whom it is applied, the only legitimate one would seem to be, that the term designates a person who renders service to another in return for something of value received from him. The same remark applies to the Hebrew verb ăbădh, to serve, answering to the noun ĕbĕdh (servant). It is used in the Old Testament to describe the serving of tributaries, of worshippers, of domestics, of Levites, of sons to a father, of younger brothers to the elder, of subjects to a ruler, of hirelings, of soldiers, of public officers to the government, of a host to his guests, &c. Of these it is used to describe the serving of worshippers more than forty times, of tributaries, about thirty five, and of servants or domestics, about ten.

If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if Abraham had thousands, and if they abounded under the Mosaic system, why had their language no word that meant slave? That language must be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an "ĕbĕdh," yet he "owned" (!) twenty ĕbĕdhs! In our language, we have both servant and slave. Why? Because we have both the things, and need signs for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some name for it: but our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such thing. But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word ĕbĕdh if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their national servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestics servants so rarely, that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under heathen laws and usages, proclaimed their liabilities; their locality made a specific term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had not only servants, but a multitude of slaves, a word meaning slave, would have been indispensible for every day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages between the without and the within.

2. "BUY." The buying of servants, is discussed at length. pp. 17-23. To that discussion the reader is referred. We will add in this place but a single consideration. This regulation requiring the Israelites to "buy" servants of the heathen, prohibited their taking them without buying. Buying supposes two parties: a price demanded by one and paid by the other, and consequently, the consent of both buyer and seller, to the transaction. Of course the command to the Israelites to buy servants of the heathen, prohibited their getting them unless they first got somebody's consent to the transaction, and paid to somebody a fair equivalent. Now, who were these somebodies? This at least is plain, they were not Israelites, but heathen. "Of them shall ye buy." Who then were these somebodies, whose right was so paramount, that their consent must be got and the price paid must go into their pockets? Were they the persons themselves who became servants, or some other persons. "Some other persons to be sure," says the objector, "the countrymen or the neighbors of those who become servants." Ah! this then is the import of the Divine command to the Israelites.

"When you go among the heathen round about to get a man to work for you, I straightly charge you to go first to his neighbors, get their consent that you may have him, settle the terms with them, and pay to them a fair equivalent. If it is not their choice to let him go, I charge you not to take him on your peril. If they consent, and you pay them the full value of his labor, then you may go and catch the man and drag him home with you, and make him work for you, and I will bless you in the work of your hands and you shall eat of the fat of the land. As to the man himself, his choice is nothing, and you need give him nothing for his work: but take care and pay his neighbors well for him, and respect their free choice in taking him, for to deprive a heathen man by force and without pay of the use of himself is well pleasing in my sight, but to deprive his heathen neighbors of the use of him is that abominable thing which my soul hateth."

That "forever" refers to the permanent relations of a community, rather than to the services of individuals, is a fair inference from the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the heathen. OF THEM shall ye buy." "They shall be your possession." "THEY shall be your bondmen forever." "But over your brethren the CHILDREN OF ISRAEL," &c. To say nothing of the uncertainty of these individuals surviving those after whom they are to live, the language used applies more naturally to a body of people, than to individual servants. Besides perpetual service cannot be argued from the term forever. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter limit it absolutely by the jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * * throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means Israelitish inhabitants alone. The command is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in by the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock that made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of OUR salvation lives. "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of EVERY kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."

3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." "Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a POSSESSION. This, as has been already remarked refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants procured from the senations. The holding of servants as a possession is discussed at large pp. 47-64. To what is there advanced we here subjoin a few brief considerations. We have already shown, that servants could not he held as a property possession, and inheritance; that they became such of their own accord, were paid wages, released from their regular labor nearly half the days in each year, thoroughly instructed and protected in all their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their masters. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable "possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition! Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, "OUR PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages—and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words nahal and nahala, inherit and inheritance, by no means necessarily signify articles of property. "The people answered the king and said, "we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of property? "Children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps. cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine inheritance." Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them articles of property? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes? "I am their inheritance." Ezek. xliv. 28. "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Ps. ii. 18. See also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 18.

The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"possession," has been already discussed, pp. 47-64, we need add in this place but a word. As an illustration of the condition of servants from the heathen that were the "possession" of Israelitish families, and of the way in which they became servants, the reader is referred to Isa. xiv. 1, 2. "For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers will be joined with them, and they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over the oppressors."

We learn from these verses, 1st. That these servants which were to be "possessed" by the Israelites, were to be "joined with them," i.e., become proselytes to their religion. 2d. That they should "CLEAVE to the house of Jacob," i.e., that they would forsake their own people voluntarily, attach themselves to the Israelites as servants, and of their own free choice leave home and friends, to accompany them on their return, and to take up their permanent abode with them, in the same manner that Ruth accompanied Naomi from Moab to the land of Israel, and that the "souls gotten" by Abraham in Padanaram, accompanied him when he left it and went to Canaan. "And the house of Israel shall possess them for servants," i.e. shall have them for servants.

Now whatever we call that condition in which servants were, whether servitude or slavery, and whatever we call the persons in that condition, whether servants or slaves, we have at all events, the testimony that the Israelites were prohibited to subject a Stranger to that condition, or in other words, the free choice of the servant was not to be compelled.

OBJECTION IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39, 40.

The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, the memory of his home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the lowest class of servants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast, that he exclaimed, "How many hired servants of my father, have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart broke. "I will arise," he cried, "and go to my father;" and then to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add; "Make me as one of thy hired servants." If hired servants were the superior class—to bespeak the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthiness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries "unclean." Unhumbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner "seeking an injured father's face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an unchiding welcome; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he sobs aloud, "The lowest place, the lowest place, I can abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy HIRED servants." The supposition that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an element of winning beauty and pathos.

It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members of the family. Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." If this were the hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by himself, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of all ill-desert? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.

We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each.

This gratuity at the close of the service shews the principle of the relation; equivalent for value received.

It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal, natural and religious rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own people who were not servants. They also shared in common with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, whether servants of Jewish masters, or masters of Jewish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively political and national. 1. They, in common with all Strangers, could not own the soil. 2. They were ineligible to civil offices. 3. They were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged; agriculture being regarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute, and deemed unjewish.

Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all protected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to political privileges, their condition was much like that of unnaturalized foreigners in the United States; whatever their wealth or intelligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privileges, and loaded with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The recent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration. Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil, of eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government "rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.

[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted investigation.]