Had he confined the application of his principles to the rights which belong to a civilized people, we should have no cause to complain; or had he adduced facts to invalidate the position of the South in regard to its African population, we should be bound to regard him as maintaining an honorable discussion; or, yielding this point, had he attempted to define that form of government most appropriate to a mass of semi-barbarians, dwelling in the midst of a highly civilized people, with whom they could not amalgamate; or, declining this, had he frankly confessed his incompetency (as indeed will really appear upon a discussion of his basis principle) to do justice to the subject of Moral Philosophy at this point at least--in either case we should be bound to respect his effort. But departing, as he evidently does, from all these obvious lines of duty in the pathway of his desolating errors, and inflicting so deep a wound upon the feelings of the whole Southern community, it must be allowed that our charity is heavily taxed in accounting for his course. He can have no cause to complain that we adopt the opinion that he has permitted an early prejudice to grow into a feeling of fanaticism, so fixed as to warp his judgment on points of very simple application in Moral Science. Dr. Wayland’s treatise is a text-book in many of our literary institutions, and he himself is eminently distinguished both in the religious and literary world. Such a text-book, thus endorsed by both piety and learning, put into the hands of our young men, could rarely fail of its object--especially if the professor concur in enforcing its doctrines. This is frequently the case in Northern institutions, and has often occurred in Southern; and where it has not, the professor, as a general thing, is either silent, or he concedes the _doctrines_ of the text, and rests the defence of the South upon the false position, that “she cannot help herself!” The assumption that God has placed men in circumstances in which they cannot avoid a violation of his own immutable principles of right, may be so entirely overlooked, as to leave the doctrines and arguments of the text to work an increasing conviction that there is moral wrong in African slavery. If this state of things continue, we must not be surprised if abolition fanaticism should have a still more rapid growth in our land. LECTURE IV. THE QUESTION OF RIGHTS DISCUSSED. Why it is necessary to define the term RIGHTS--The right in itself defined to be _the good_--The doctrine that the will of God is the origin of the right considered--The will of God not the origin of the right, but an expression of _the right_ which is the good--Natural rights and acquired rights, each defined.