statement, which you can test at your leisure; it is this: the number of Africans who have died in the communion of the Methodist and Baptist churches of America to the present time--and who, therefore, we may assume, were christianized by their residence in this country--exceeds the whole number of all the heathen who have been christianized by the labors of all the Protestant denominations of Christendom since the days of Luther. Hence, we conclude, that whatever were the cruelties of individuals engaged in the original slave trade, (for which they were responsible,) and whatever may have been the abuses of the system since, by individual slave owners, the system itself was originally founded in a profound view of the principles of political science, so far as regards this country, and of political economy, and the claims of Christian benevolence, so far as it regards the Africans themselves. The resources of this vast country have been rapidly developed. It is already the asylum of the oppressed, and the home of the poor, of all lands. Slave labor has had no small share in all this. The regeneration of the continent of Africa has already commenced, and the ultimate result is looked to with increasing confidence. Thus we have invalidated the _doctrine_, and also the hypothesis, which form the basis on which the abolitionists rest their argument against the justice and policy of the South. That their position is not tenable is no direct proof that ours is right; but it does afford a _presumption_ that we are right. This _presumption_ we claim, for the several reasons given. The direct argument in vindication of the system of domestic slavery, upon its own merits, is reserved for the next lecture. LECTURE VIII. DOMESTIC SLAVERY, AS A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT FOR THE AFRICANS IN AMERICA, EXAMINED AND DEFENDED ON THE GROUND OF ITS ADAPTATION TO THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE RACE. There should be a separate and subordinate government for our African population--Objection answered--Africans are not competent to that measure of self-government which entitles a man to political sovereignty--They were not prepared for freedom when first brought into the country, hence they were placed under the domestic form of government--The humanity of this policy--In the opinion of Southern people they are still unprepared--The fanaticism and rashness of some, and the inexcusable wickedness of others, who oppose the South.