HAVING in the preceding chapter discussed and defined the nature of civil liberty, as well as laid down some of the political conditions on which its existence depends, we shall now proceed to examine the question of slavery. In the prosecution of this inquiry, we shall, in the first place, consider the arguments and positions of the advocates of immediate abolition; and, in the second, point out the reasons and grounds on which the institution of slavery is based and its justice vindicated. The first branch of the investigation, or that relating to the arguments and positions of the abolitionist, will occupy the remainder of the present chapter. It is insisted by abolitionists that the institution of slavery is, in all cases and under all circumstances, morally wrong, or a violation of the law of God. Such is precisely the ground assumed by the one side and denied by the other. Thus says Dr. Wayland: "I have wished to make it clear that slavery, or the holding of men in bondage, and 'obliging them to labor for our benefit, without their contract or consent,' is always and everywhere, or, as you well express it, _semper et ubique_, a moral wrong, a violation of the obligations under which we are created to our fellow-men, and a transgression of the law of our Creator." Dr. Fuller likewise: "The simple question is, Whether it _is necessarily, and amid all circumstances, a crime to hold men in a condition where they labor for another without their consent or contract_? and in settling this matter all impertinences must be retrenched." In one word, Dr. Wayland insists that slavery is condemned by the law of God, by the moral law of the universe. We purpose to examine the arguments which he has advanced in favor of this position. We select his arguments for examination, because, as a writer on moral and political science, he stands so high in the northern portion of the Union. His work on these subjects has indeed long since passed the fiftieth thousand; a degree of success which, in his own estimation, authorizes him to issue his letters on slavery over the signature of "THE AUTHOR OF THE MORAL SCIENCE." But the very fact that his popularity is so great, and that he is _the_ author of _the_ Moral Science, is a reason why his arguments on a question of such magnitude should be subjected to a severe analysis and searching scrutiny, in order that, under the sanction of so imposing a name, no error may be propagated and no mischief done.