The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1859-06-09
BY THOMAS FOWLER.

The word inheritance" carries with it
the idea of perpetual ownership. There is
no right Of inheritance granted by the law
in the property right of the Hebrew servants;
but it is limited to the jubilee.
And further, the labor due from the He
brew servant, shall not be exacted with Sc
verify, as that of the slave or bondman may
be, but shall be characterized with the mild
ness of the treatment of hired servant
" But over your brethren, the Children of
Israel, We shall not rule one over another with
rigor" The one is sold for limited time,
without the power tc transfer or convey, in
perpetuity, to third person; or to be ruled
over with rigor. The other is sold with per-
petual right of property; sold for life, sold
With the right to transfer. r>
We asked Mr.. Taunton, that if the Jews
had no right to sell their bondmen, why the
necessity of prohibiting the sale of the He
brew servant by special enactment. "He
WAS num-" We took it for granted that he
had no answer, and at the time pardoned his
silence.
Mr.. Taunton is very solicitous for an ans
wer to the language: "And we shall hallow
the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty through
all the land, unto all the inhabitants there
of"-Lev. XIV, 10. We might answer,
by asking question. Suppose the Legis-
lature Of the State of Iowa, in the revenue
law, should say: "All property, real and per-
sonal, within the State, is subject to taxation,
in the manner herein directed" and then go
on and describe how land and horses should
be taxed, and enact that sheep and hogs
should not be taxed. What would Mr..
Taunton do with the sheep and hogs? Ac-
cording to his law of Interpretation he would
have to go on and tax them, because the first
clause of the law says all property, and
sheep and hogs are property, therefore sheep
and hogs must be taxed, notwithstanding
the exempting clause. Such appears to be
Mr.. Taunton's idea Of language.
v An instance of the severity with which
the Divine law gives the master power over
the slave, may be found in Elk. XI, 90, 81 !:
"And if man smite his man-servant, or
his maidservant, with rod, and he die un-
der his hand, he shall not be punished; for
he is his money" Again, "If man smite
'the eye of his servant or his maid, that it
perish, he shall let him go free for his eyes
sake."-Ex. XI, 26. Their laws are more
favorable to the master than the laws for
similar offences in the Slaves States of the
Union. While the only penalty for the
crime of killing a servant in one instance is
no more than the loss of the slave, while in
the other the master may, in addition to the
loss OF the slave, have an opportunity Of SER
wing time in the States Prison. Also for
the putting out of an eye, under the laws Of
the States, the master may be Penitentiaried.
So much for the milder form of Slavery, un-
der the Mosaic Law.
Mr.. Taunton, after laboring hard to show
that the Slavery spoken Of by Moses, resem.
bled, in no respect, the Slavery of the United
States, fearing that he had not succeeded, de-
dared it all repealed, anyway; that the old
Bible remained at present but the deca-
logue; aud Slavery was not there to be
found.
In our answer, we replied, it mattered not
what portion of the Bible nigh: be repealed,
yet the eternal truth, by which it was first
dictated, was as lasting as the immutable
principle and unchanging justice of God
And that If slavery ever existed in accordance
with the just law of God, that principle was
anchangoable, "For am God, and change