l. Can we
conceive of any greater?"

It was surely very kind in Dr. Wayland to undertake, with so much pains,
to instruct us poor, benighted sons of the South in regard to the
difference between right and wrong. We would fain give him full credit
for all the kindly feeling he so freely professes for his "Southern
brethren;" but if he really thinks that the question, whether arson, and
murder, and cruelty are offenses against the "supreme law of the
Creator," is still open for discussion among us, then we beg leave to
inform him that he labors under a slight hallucination. If he had never
written a word, we should have known, perhaps, that it is wrong for a
man to set fire to his neighbor's house, and shoot him as he came out,
and reduce his wife and children to a state of ignorance, degradation,
and slavery. Nay, if we should find his house already burnt, and himself
already shot, we should hardly feel justified in treating his wife and
children in so cruel a manner. Not even if they were "guilty of a skin,"
or ever so degraded, should we deem ourselves justified in reducing them
to a state of servitude. This is NOT "the question before us." We are
quite satisfied on all such points. The precept, too, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself, was not altogether unknown in the Southern
States before his letters were written. A committee of very amiable
philanthropists came all the way from England, as the agents of some
abolition society there, and told us all that the law of God requires us
to love our neighbor as ourselves. In this benevolent work of
enlightenment they were, if we mistake not, several months in advance of
Dr. Wayland. We no longer need to be enlightened on such points. Being
sufficiently instructed, we admit that we should love our neighbor as
ourselves, and also that arson, murder, and so forth are violations of
this law. But we want to know whether, _semper et ubique_, the
institution of slavery is morally wrong. _This is the question_, and to
this we intend to hold the author.

Sec. II. _The second fallacy of the abolitionist._

Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall state the
position of Dr. Wayland in his own words. In regard to the institution
of slavery, he says: "I do not see that it does not sanction the whole
system of the slave-trade. _If I have a right to a thing after I have
gotten it, I have a natural right to the means necessary for getting
it._ If this be so, I s