That no misunderstanding may attend the discussion, we must define at the outset, what we mean by that domestic slavery which we defend. By this relation we understand _the obligations of the slave to labour for life, without his own consent, for the master_. The thing, therefore, in which the master has property or ownership, is the involuntary labour of the slave, and not his personality, or his soul. A certain right of control over the person of the slave is incidentally given to the master by his property in the bondsman's labour; that is, so much control as is necessary to enable him to secure the labour which belongs to him. But we repeat, it is not the person, but the labour of the slave, which is the master's property. This is substantially the definition of Paley, an enemy of slavery; and it is obviously correct; it expresses the general result of the laws of all modern nations which have had slaves, touching that relation. The abolitionists clamorously insist upon a different definition, which makes the master claim property in the very personality of the slave, in his soul, in the highest capacities which connect him with his God, and in his very being. According to this description, slavery converts the responsible, rational being, into a mere thing, a chattel, a commodity, by converting him into mere property of another man. The motive of this preposterous definition is obvious enough. One of the most astute of American Abolitionists has been candid enough to avow it, saying that if our definition be adopted, there is an end of the discussion; for every logician must see that it is absurd to declare the mere ownership of one man's labour by another, an essential and necessary moral wrong; which is the character it suits them to ascribe to slavery. Their object is so to represent it, that it shall appear a self-evident injustice, and the apologist shall be overwhelmed and silenced by a foregone prejudice. For, if it gave a literal ownership in the person and being of the slave, which can belong to none but the Creator; if it made not only his labour, but his conscience, the property of the master, destroying his moral responsibility, it would indeed dehumanize him, and would be an iniquity indefensible by any fair mind. The trick of securing the victory before the contest begins, by raising a false issue, is not very novel. The utter absurdity of applying such a definition to African slavery in America, appears from this: that it is contrary to the whole tenour of the legislation which establishes and regulates the institution among us. These laws, first, legislate for the slave, as to his own conduct, as a responsible human being, govern him by precepts sanctioned by rewards and punishments, and require of him intelligent obedience to the same moral rules which are enforced on his master. Second, the laws assign to the master precisely that amount of control over his slave's person which they suppose (whether