We freely avow that the line of argument which occupies this section is not to our taste; nor, as was intimated in the introduction, do we regard it as the safest means of ascertaining the moral influences of the two systems. But it has not been by our choice that it has been introduced. The slanders of our accusers have thrust it upon us. We now gladly dismiss it with this general concluding remark; that the comparative general virtue of Southern masters, and the purity of Southern Christianity, are a strong evidence that we were not living in a criminal relation, as to the African race. For sins are always gregarious. One sin, permanently established in the heart and life, always introduces its foul kindred. Sin is contagious. An unsound spot in the character ultimately taints the whole. The misguided gentleman who first yields to the passion of gaming, solely for its amusement and excitement, cannot continue a habitual gamester and a gentleman. The ingenuous youth who harbours the habit of intoxication, in due time ceases to be even ingenuous. These unhallowed passions, once established, introduce fraud, selfishness, meanness, falsehood. So, we argue, if slaveholding were a sin, its practice would surely tell upon the honour and integrity of those who continue in it. But Southern character exhibits no such general effect. § 8. _Slavery and the African Slave Trade._ It is a plausible ground of opposition to slavery, to charge it with the guilt of the slave trade. It is argued that unless we are willing to justify the capture of free and innocent men, on their own soil, and their reduction from freedom to slavery, with all the enormous injustice and cruelty of the African slave trade, we must acknowledge that the title of the Southern master to his slave at this day is unrighteous; that a system which had its origin in wrong cannot become right by the lapse of time; that, if the title of the piratical slave catcher on the coast of Africa was unrighteous, he cannot sell to the purchaser any better title than he has; and that an unsound title cannot become sound by the passage of time. It need hardly be said that we abhor the injustice, cruelty, and guilt of the African slave trade. It is justly condemned by the public law of Christendom--a law which not Wilberforce, nor the British Parliament, nor British, nor Yankee Abolitionists, have the honour of originating, but the slaveholding Commonwealth of Virginia. It is condemned by the law of God. Moses placed this among the judicial statutes of the Jews: "And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." We fully admit, then, that the title of the original slave catcher to the captured African was most unrighteous. But few can be ignorant of the principle, that a title, originally bad, may be replaced by a good one, by transmission from hand to hand, and by lapse of time. When the property has been