356 COMPARED WITH TOBACCO AND COTTON. 



only 450,000, and it is probably less now. The number 

 sold, therefore, exceeds in a small degree (by 2000 a-year) 

 the natural increase. Now the annual increase of the 

 whole slave population is about 3 per cent, which, upon 

 450,000, is 13,500. And if only 1500 slaves a-year be 

 sold beyond this natural increase, about 15,000 will 

 every year go south to the slave-markets from the State 

 of Virginia. As these will generally be sold in the 

 prime of life, they may be reckoned worth at least 300 

 dollars a-head, which for the 15,000 gives 4,500,000 

 dollars as the price received for human stock exported 

 every year from Virginia. 



But Virginia produces yearly 50,000,000 Ib. of 

 tobacco, and 2,500,000 Ib. of cotton, the value of which, 

 at an average of 8 cents a Ib., is 4,375,000 dollars. 

 That is to say, the slave-rearing husbandry brings in 

 more money yearly to Virginia than all its tobacco and 

 cotton do ! Is it surprising, then, that the Virginians, 

 both individually and as a State, should be anxious to 

 enlarge and keep up the southern demand. 



How profound a moral degradation is implied in such 

 a means of industrial subsistence, carried out on so large 

 a scale ! 



It is right, however, to mention, as having an impor 

 tant influence upon the public sentiment in regard to 

 this slave-rearing husbandry, that by far the largest 

 proportion of the slaves are found in eastern Virginia 

 east of the Blue Ridge, and are the property of less than 

 half the white population of the State. The large 

 income from this source, therefore, flows intothe pockets 

 of this smaller half of the white inhabitants ; and though 

 these are bribed by their gains to defend the system 

 more warmly, we may hope that the absence of self- 

 interest in the majority of the State may by-and-by 

 lead to the entire removal of the evil. 



But, besides the actual slaves, the growing body of 



