William A. Smith, DD. President of Randolph-Macon College , and Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy., Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery as exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States: withe Duties of Masters to Slaves.

[219] perishing menials. They prefer the slaves, in any view of the subject. We may conclude, then, that the position established is not weakened in any degree by considerations of either direct or gradual emancipation. No: the emancipation and removal to Africa of those, and those only, whose moral and social condition entitles them to a higher form of political freedom, as the voluntary act of the individual owner, is the only natural and safe method of emancipation. It affords the only hope of Africa, and of the African in America.

The proposition discussed, and, I think, clearly established, relates to the essential propriety and the fitness of the system of domestic slavery as an institution. Whether this institution is capable of improvement, and, if so, what improvements are demanded by the progress of civilization, are questions quite independent of any thing yet discussed. These topics may engage our attention at a future period in these lectures. I would only remark, in this place, that the system has undergone great modifications since its adoption. Laws and usages that were, no doubt, eminently adapted to the extremely barbarous character of the race, when first brought into the country, have long since become obsolete, and the same may be said of many subsequent regulations. Even the stringent measures adopted on the rise of abolition