Abolitionism bear its fruit unto perfection: and the world will some day understand it. We shall possess at this time another advantage in defending our good name, derived from our late effort for independence. Hitherto we have been little known to Europeans, save through the very charitable representations of our fraternal partners, the Yankees. Foreigners visiting the United States almost always assumed, that when they had seen the North, they had seen the country, (for Yankeedom always modestly represented itself as constituting all of America that was worth looking at.) Hence the character of the South was not known, nor its importance appreciated. Its books and periodicals were unread by Europeans. But now the very interest excited by our struggle has caused other nations to observe for themselves, and to find that we are not Troglodytes nor Anthropophagi.

Another introductory remark which should be made is, that this discussion, to produce any good result, must distinctly disclaim some extravagant and erroneous grounds which have sometimes been assumed. It is not our purpose to rest our defence on an assumption of a diversity of race, which is contradicted both by natural history and by the Scripture, declaring that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Nor does the Southern cause demand such assertions as that the condition of master and slave is everywhere the normal condition of human society, and preferable to all others under all circumstances. The burden of odium which the cause will then carry, abroad, will be immeasurably increased by such positions. Nor can a purpose be ever subserved by arguing the question by a series of comparisons of the relative advantages of slave and free labour, laudatory to the one part and invidious to the other. There has been hitherto, on both sides of this debate, a mischievous forgetfulness of the old adage, "comparisons are odious!" When Southern men thus argued, they assumed the disadvantage of appearing as the propagandists, instead of the peaceful defenders, of an institution which immediately concerned nobody but themselves; and they arrayed the self-esteem of all opponents against us by making our defence the necessary disparagement of the other parties. True, those parties have usually been but too zealous to play at this invidious game, beginning it in advance. We should not imitate them. It is time all parties had learned that the lawfulness and policy of different social systems cannot be decided by painting the special and exceptional features of hardship, abuse, or mismanagement, which either of the advocates may imagine he sees in the system of his opponent. The course of this great discussion has too often been this: Each party has set up an easel, and spread a canvas upon it, and drawn the system of its adversary in contrast with its own, in the blackest colours which a heated and angry fancy could discover amidst the evils and abuses imputed to the rival institution. The only possible result was, that each should blacken his adversary more and more; and consequently that both should grow more and more enraged. And this result did not argue the entire falsehood of either set of accusations. For, unfortunately, the human race is a fallen race—depraved, selfish, unrighteous and oppressive, under all institutions. Out of the best social order, committed to such hands, there still proceeds a hideous amount of wrongs and woe; and that, not because the order is unrighteous, but because it is administered by depraved man. For this reason, and for another equally conclusive, we assert that the lawfulness, and even the wisdom or policy of social institutions affecting a great population, cannot be decided by these odious contrasts of their special wrong results. That second reason is, that the field of view is too vast and varied to be brought fairly under comparison in all its details before the limited eye of man. First, then, if we attempt to settle the matter by endeavouring to find how much evil can be discovered in the working of the opposite system, there will probably be no end at all to the melancholy discoveries which both parties will make against each other, and so no end to the debate: for the guilty passions of men are everywhere perpetual fountains of wrong-doing. And second, the comparison of results must be deceptive, because no finite mind can take in all the details of both the wholes. Our wisdom, then, will be to take no extreme positions, and to make no invidious comparisons unnecessarily. It is enough for us to place ourselves on this impregnable stand; that the relation of master and slave is recognized as lawful in itself by a sound philosophy, and above all, by the Word of God. It is enough for us to say (what is capable of overwhelming demonstration) that for the African race, such as Providence has made it, and where He has placed it in America, slavery was the righteous, the best, yea, the only tolerable relation. Whether it would be wise or just for other States to introduce it, we need not argue.

And in conclusion, we would state that it is our purpose to argue this proposition chiefly on Bible grounds. Our people and our national neighbours are professedly Christians; the vast majority of them profess to get their ideas of morality, as all should, from the Sacred Scriptures. A few speculative minds may reason out moral conclusions from ethical principles; but the masses derive their ideas of right and wrong from a "Thus saith the Lord." And it is a homage we owe to the Bible, from whose principles we have derived so much of social prosperity and blessing, to appeal to its verdict on every subject upon which it has spoken. Indeed, when we remember how human reason and learning have blundered in their philosophizings; how great parties have held for ages the doctrine of the divine right of kings as a political axiom; how the whole civilized world held to the righteousness of persecuting errors in opinion, even for a century after the Reformation; we shall feel little confidence in mere human reasonings on political principles; we shall rejoice to follow a steadier light. The scriptural argument for the righteousness of slavery gives us, moreover, this great advantage: If we urge it successfully, we compel the Abolitionists either to submit, or else to declare their true infidel character. We thrust them fairly to the wall, by proving that the Bible is against them; and if they declare themselves against the Bible (as the most of them doubtless will) they lose the support of all honest believers in God's Word.

This discussion will therefore be, in the main, a series of expositions. The principles of scriptural exposition are simply those of common sense; and it will be the writer's aim so to explain them that they shall commend themselves to every honest mind, and to rid them of the sophisms of the Abolitionists.

But before we proceed to this discussion we propose to devote a few pages to the exposition of the historical facts which place the attitude of Virginia in the proper light.

CHAPTER II.
THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

This iniquitous traffick, beginning with the importation of negroes into Hispaniola in 1503, was first pursued by the English in 1562, under Sir John Hawkins, who sold a cargo at the same island that year. The news of his success reaching Queen Elizabeth, she became a partner with him in other voyages. Under the Stuart kings, repeated charters were given to noblemen and merchants, to form companies for this trade, in one of which, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., was a partner. The colony of Virginia was planted in 1607. The first cargo of negroes, only twenty in number, arrived there in a Dutch