Slaveholders, and the apologists of slavery, have eagerly seized upon this little passage of scripture, and held it up as the masters' Magna Charta, by which they were licensed by God himself to commit the greatest outrages upon the defenceless victims of their oppression. But, my friends, was it designed to be so? If our Heavenly Father would protect by law the eye and the tooth of a Hebrew servant, can we for a moment believe that he would abandon that same servant to the brutal rage of a master who would destroy even life itself. Do we not rather see in this, the _only_ law which protected masters, and was it not right that in case of the death of a servant, one or two days after chastisement was inflicted, to which other circumstances might have contributed, that the master should be protected when, in all probability, he never intended to produce so fatal a result? But the phrase "he is his money" has been adduced to show that Hebrew servants were regarded as mere _things_, "chattels personal;" if so, why were so many laws made to _secure their rights as men_, and to ensure their rising into equality and freedom? If they were mere _things_, why were they regarded as responsible beings, and one law made for them as well as for their masters? But I pass on now to the consideration of how the _female_ Jewish servants were protected by _law_.
1. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto another nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
2. If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters.
3. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
4. If he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out _free_ without money.
On these laws I will give you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not sell his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she was at the age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost indigence. Besides when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was _always_ with the presumption that he would take her to wife. Hence Moses adds, 'if she please not her master, and he does not think fit to marry her, he shall set her at liberty,' or according to the Hebrew, 'he shall let her be redeemed.' 'To sell her to another nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her;' as to the engagement implied, at least of taking her to wife. 'If he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters, i.e. he shall take care that his son uses her as his wife, that he does not despise or maltreat her. If he make his son marry another wife, he shall give her her dowry, her clothes and compensation for her virginity; if he does none of these three, she shall _go out free_ without money." Thus were the _rights of female servants carefully secured by law_ under the Jewish Dispensation; and now I would ask, are the rights of female slaves at the South thus secured? Are _they_ sold only as wives and daughters-in-law, and when not treated as such, are they allowed to _go out free?_ No! They have _all_ not only been illegally obtained as servants according to Hebrew law, but they are also illegally _held_ in bondage. Masters at the South and West have all forfeited their claims, (_if they ever had any_,) to their female slaves.