Now I assume here, what I shall prove in a future lecture, that the African came into this country in a state of extreme barbarism; and that, in the judgment of Southern people--whom prejudice itself can hardly deny are honest and the only competent judges in this matter--they are still, as a race, in a state of semi-barbarism, to say the least. If we are right in this position, they also are an example of persons who are clearly not entitled to the rights which inure only to a state of civilization. With what propriety, therefore, could any decent man, whose object is not to insult, affirm that we are “odious tyrants,” for withholding from the African the rights which are appropriate only to a state of civilization: unless he were prepared first to show that we are wrong in our position as to the question of fact, that they are still in a state of semi-barbarism, and, therefore, not entitled to civil freedom? How shall we characterize the course of Dr. Wayland! After drawing an ingenious argument through many pages of his performance: appealing to the facts and principles of Holy Scripture: not failing, in the progress and application of his false position, to stigmatize the system of African slavery as an odious tyranny, and this for the obvious purpose of degrading the Southern States of this Union in the eyes of the whole civilized world: then, when he is confronted, as he necessarily was, in the progress of his own argument, by the only material fact in the whole discussion, he adroitly evades all consideration of it whatever! On page 216, fourth edition, he states the position of the South, that the “slaves are not competent to self-government,” and shortly replies, “This is a question of fact which it is not the province of Moral Philosophy to decide.” Why then did he decide it by an application of his false position to the South? Echo answers, Why?