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done, “that divers masters freed from this doubt may more carefully endeavour the propagating of Christianity, by permitting their slaves to be baptized.” It would have been happy for this unfortunate race of men if the same tender regard for their bodies, had always manifested itself in our laws, as is shewn for their souls in this act. But this was not the case; for two years after, we meet with an act, declaring, “That if any slave resist his master, or others, by his master’s orders correcting him, and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, such death should not be accounted felony: but the master or other person appointed by his master to punish him, be acquit from molestation: since if could not be presumed that prepensive malice, which alone makes murder felony, should induce any man to destroy his own estate.”[1] This cruel and tyrannical
- ↑ Among the Israelites, according to the Mosaical law, “If a man smote his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he died under his hand, he should surely be punished—notwithstanding if he continue a day or two, he should not be punished:”** Exod. c. 21. for, saith the text, he is his money. Our legislators appear to have adopted the reason of the latter clause, without the humanity of the former part of the law.
