In maintaining the institution of domestic slavery, we are either right or wrong, in a moral point of view. We ask no mere apology on the score of necessity, and we can certainly claim none on the ground of ignorance. Those who affirm that we are wrong, directly attack our morals. In doing this, they arraign the character of many thousands, who are among the most civilized and pious people now living. This fact alone is a sufficient refutation of so foul an aspersion; and in this view, it may be readily admitted that any attempt at a more formal refutation is a humiliating condescension, to which few Southern men can willingly submit. But there is another stand-point from which this subject is to be viewed, and which reflects it in a very different light, and clearly indicates the duty of submitting it to the test of the soundest principles of philosophy and religion. It is this: _the ascendency which certain popular errors on the subject of African slavery have acquired, and the extent to which they peril the peace of the country, if not the very liberties of the whole republic_. I allude to the fact that there are many in the country--and not a few of this number spread through our Southern States--who would not intentionally arraign the piety of their fellow-citizens, but whose minds (it is painfully humiliating to know) are in a state of great embarrassment on this subject; so much so, that they are constantly liable to be made the victims of any fanatical influences abroad in the land, no less than the dupes of that large class of political aspirants who, reckless of both truth and morals, would secure their elevation at any price. Nor need we wonder at the ascendency of erroneous opinions on the subject of slavery, any more than at the results which they threaten.