moral propriety, indentured to householders, during their minority; and the labour thus conveyed is hired, sold, bequeathed, just as any other property. Dr. Wayland argues that there cannot be ownership in man, because ownership as he defines it, consists in our "_right to use the property as we please!_" This definition was made to suit abolitionism, and is not the truth. May we, because we have property in our horses, use them living as we would our logs of wood, for fuel? The ethics of common sense, as that of all true science, (what Dr. W. should have known, if he had been fit to do what he assumed, teach science,) define ownership to be _a right to use our property according to its nature_. Thus defined, property in man presents no solecism whatever, inconsistent with righteousness. § 6. _The Slave Received due Wages._ But it is charged that the injustice of our system is apparent in this, that it takes the slave's labour without compensation. It is simply untrue. Southern slaves received, on the average, better and more certain compensation than any labouring people of their capacity in the world. It came to them in the form of that maintenance, which the master was bound by the laws,[91] as well as his own interests, to bestow upon them. During childhood, they were reared at his expense; in sickness they received maintenance, nursing, and the same medical advice which he provided for his own children; all at his expense. When they married and had children, (which all did, single-blessedness was unknown among them,) their families were provided for by the masters without one additional toil or anxiety on their part. When they died, their orphans had, in the master's estate, an unfailing provision against destitution; and if old age overtook them, they received, without labour, the same supplies and comforts which were allotted to them in their prime. How many of the sons of toil in nominally free countries would seize with rapture the offer of such wages for their labour, if the name of slavery were detached from them? To be able to secure, by the moderate labours of their active years, a certain and liberal provision for their daily wants, for their families, however large, and for sickness and old age, would be a contract so advantageous, in comparison with the hardships and uncertainties of the peasant's usual life, that few thoughtful persons of that class would hesitate, from love of novelty or dim hope of a more lucky career, to embrace it. But this is just what our laws and customs gave to our slaves, as wages of their easy labour. [Footnote 91: See Code of Va., 1849, Chap. 10 § 6.]