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