  The Custom of Buying and Selling Slaves— Virginia's Attitude (Concluded) Approaching the subject from another side, and reviewing all the sources of evidence, we may reach certain fairly accurate conclusions. At the close of the Revolution, Virginia was the largest slaveholding state in the Union. There soon grew up the conviction that in the dispersion or colonization beyond her borders of at least a large portion of this population lay the only method of effectually solving the slavery and racial problems. In consequence of this condition, various movements were evolved, some designedly for the attainment of these objects and others, while without such purpose, yet working to the same end. DEPORTATION OF SLAVES FROM VIRGINIA As we have seen, slaves when emancipated were required to leave the state within one year from such date. Masters, ex-slaves and colonization societies were, therefore, all earnest to achieve this result. Hence arose the first cause for deportation—an influence and custom which continued up to the Civil War. The prospects of improving their fortunes by emigrating to the newer states of Kentucky, Missouri and the South impelled large numbers of slaveholders to leave Virginia. They carried their slaves with them and hence arose a second cause which operated to deport each year many slaves from the state. The ever increasing difficulty of obtaining (especially on the part of large slaveholders) any appreciable profit from The high prices which slaves commanded on the plantations of the far South and in the sparsely settled portions of the Southwest engendered the practice of buying slaves in Virginia and selling them for profit in those sections. Despite the opprobrium attached to this custom there were men willing to engage in the traffic and from choice or necessity there were slaveholders who supplied at least a portion of the demand. Hence, the fourth cause which contributed to the yearly deportation of slaves from Virginia. Neither the United States census nor any other official data avail to fix the number of slaves which annually went from Virginia for each of the four several reasons above referred to. It is evident, however, that, as a rule, publicists not informed as to the conditions have combined these exportations and attributed them all to the custom of selling slaves. We are safe in concluding, therefore, that the number of slaves sold annually from Virginia has been grossly exaggerated; that the custom was revolting to the moral sense of her people and maintained against an outraged rather than a sympathetic public sentiment. Most of the writers who have laid this damaging accusation at the door of the Virginia people have not attempted to fortify their position by authority or data of any kind. Others have and a careful analysis of the facts submitted ESTIMATE OF WILLIAM HENRY SMITH The recent work, A Political History of Slavery, by William Henry Smith, will serve to illustrate the character of publications last referred to. The author after pointing out that the Cotton and Rice Producing States looked to the older commonwealth for supplies of laborers, proceeds: "Mr. Mercer, one of the ablest of the members of that remarkable Convention (the Virginia Convention of 1829-30) said that the tables of the natural growth of the slave population demonstrated ... that an annual revenue of not less than a million and a half of dollars had been derived from the exportation of a part of that increase. Seven years later the Virginia Times published an estimate of the money arising from the sale of slaves exported during the year 1836 making the aggregate $24,000,000.00, which showed the enormous profitableness of slave breeding." In support of this conclusion the author appends to his text three notes, as follows: First: "The Times gave the whole number exported at 120,000 of whom 80,000 were taken out of the state by their owners who removed to new states and 40,000 were sold to dealers. The average price per head was $600." (Niles Register, Vol. LI, p. 83.) Second: "In the Legislature of Virginia in 1832 Thomas Jefferson Randolph declared that Virginia had been converted into 'one grand menagerie where men are reared for the market like oxen for the shambles.' This was confirmed by Mr. Gholson, another member." (See Reports in the Richmond Whig, 1832.) Third: "In Virginia and other grain-growing states the SPEECH OF MR. MERCER An examination of the speech made by Mr. Mercer on the occasion referred to, will show that he was answering the slaveholders' charge that they paid upon their slaves more than their just proportion of taxes, when compared with the amount paid by the land-owners of the state; he pointed out that for the four years following 1820 the land tax averaged $181,000.00 per annum and the slave tax $159,000.00, but for the current year (1829) the land tax amounted to $175,000.00 and the slave tax $97,000.00. "These facts," said Mr. Mercer, "bear me out in the position that in the current year the capital in slaves is taxed less than that in land." The census showed an increase in the number of slaves still in the hands of their Virginia masters, while the "tables of the natural growth of this population" also demonstrated that large numbers must have been exported beyond the state. The portion of increase in the slave population, thus exported, Mr. Mercer estimated at a value of one and a half million dollars per annum. It will be observed that he makes no attempt to distribute this exportation between the various classes heretofore referred to. Indeed, the averment that "the tables of the natural growth of the slave population" demonstrated that an annual revenue of any specific sum had been derived from their exportation is, of course, inaccurate. The tables referred to simply indicate the normal rate of increase and the consequent number of slaves which must have been exported. Whether the excess had been emancipated, or carried, or sent, or sold by their masters did not, of course, It is believed that this explanation of the subject of Mr. Mercer's speech will qualify the conclusion which Mr. Smith has drawn from the statement cited in his text. ESTIMATE OF VIRGINIA TIMES The author next refers to an "estimate of the money arising from the sale of slaves during the year 1836—making the aggregate $24,000,000.00." This estimate is cited as that of the Virginia Times and an explanation of how the figures are arrived at is set out by the author in the first of the three notes above quoted. By reference to Volume LI of Niles' Register, page 83, in which the extract from the Virginia Times appears, it will be seen that the latter paper does not attempt any discussion of the subject, any marshalling of statistics or any conclusions of its own drawn therefrom. It simply recites in an item of ten lines—that—"We have heard intelligent men estimate the number of slaves exported from Virginia within the last twelve months at 120,000." The item further recites that of this number "not more than one-third have been sold, the others having been carried by their owners, who have removed, which would leave in the state the sum of $24,000,000.00 arising from the sale of slaves." THE SALE OF SLAVES EXAGGERATED "We have heard intelligent men estimate" is a somewhat different statement from that of the author's text in which the Virginia Times is made to fix the exportation for the year 1836 at 120,000, 40,000 of whom were sold to dealers. How little value, however, can be attached to "the estimate" will be appreciated when we recall that an In his second note, Mr. Smith makes a quotation from the speech of Mr. Randolph in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 wherein the latter is made to declare "that Virginia had been converted into one grand menagerie where men are reared for the market like oxen for the shambles." By reference to the whole sentence and its exact quotation it will appear that Mr. Randolph's statement was not intended to warrant the conclusion here sought to be conveyed. Mr. Randolph said: "How can an honourable mind, a patriot and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie where men are to be reared for market like oxen for the shambles?" In the third note Mr. Smith cites an extract from the report of the "American Colonization Society, 1833." MR. SMITH'S ERRONEOUS CITATIONS A careful examination of the report of the American Colonization Society, submitted at its meeting 1833, fails "That mighty evil (slavery) beneath which the minds of men had bowed in despair, has been looked at as no longer incurable. A remedy has been proposed; the sentiments of humanity, the secret wishes of the heart on this momentous topic have found a voice and the wide air has rung with it." Again, at page 17 it says: "Nearly half the colonists in Liberia have emigrated from Virginia; and many citizens of that state have sought aid from the Society for removing thither their liberated slaves during the last year." A like inspection of the reports of the Society for the years from 1827 to 1837 inclusive shows no such statement as that cited by Mr. Smith in his footnote. The leading officers of the Society were Virginians and its work had their cordial sympathy and co-operation. Mr. Smith has evidently accepted the statement of some other writer without examining for himself the original sources of information.
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