word, that we should be free from the dominion of men, who, as a general
thing, are humane and wise in their management of us, only to become the
victims--the most debased and helpless victims--of every evil way? We
answer, No! Even the spirit of abolitionism itself has, in the person of
Dr. Wayland, declared that such treatment would, in all probability, be
the greatest of calamities. We feel sure it would be an infinite and
remediless curse. And as we believe that, if we were in the condition of
slaves, such treatment would be so great and so withering a curse, so we
cannot, out of a feeling of love, proceed to inflict this curse upon our
slaves. On the contrary, _we would do as we so clearly see we ought to
be done by_, if our conditions were changed.

Is it not amazing, as well as melancholy, that learned divines, who
undertake to instruct the benighted South in the great principles of
duty, should entertain such superficial and erroneous views of the
first, great, and all-comprehending precept of the gospel? If their
interpretation of this precept were correct, then the child might be set
free from the authority of the father, and the criminal from the
sentence of the judge. All justice would be extinguished, all order
overthrown, and boundless confusion introduced into the affairs of men.
Yet, with unspeakable self-complacency, they come with such miserable
interpretations of the plainest truths to instruct those whom they
conceive to be blinded by custom and the institution of slavery to the
clearest light of heaven. They tell us, "Thou shouldst love thy neighbor
as thyself;" and they reiterate these words in our ears, just as if we
had never heard them before. If this is all they have to say, why then
we would remind them that the _meaning_ of the precept is the precept.
It is not a mere _sound_, it is _sense_, which these glorious words are
intended to convey. And if they can only repeat the words for us, why
then they might just as well send a host of free negroes with good,
strong lungs to be our instructors in moral science.

Sec. VIII. _The eighth fallacy of the abolitionist._

An argument is drawn from the divine attributes against the institution
of slavery. One would suppose that a declaration from God himself is
some little evidence as to what is agreeable to his attributes; but it
seems that moral philosophers have, now-a-days, found out a better
method of arriving at what is implied by his perfecti