40 



FARMERS' REGISTER— AGRICULTURAL REVIEW. 



richer for his sons, is at a loss to provide for them — there 

 is no diversity of occupations, no incentive to enter- 

 prise. Labor of every species is disreputable because 

 performed mostly by slaves. Our towns are stationary, 

 our villages almost everywhere declining, and tlic gene- 

 ral aspect of the country marks the curse of a wasteful, 

 idle, reckless population, who have no interest in tiie 

 soil, and care not how much it is impoverished. Public 

 improvements are neglected, and the entire continent 

 does not present a region for which nature has done so 

 much, and art so little. If cultivated by free labor, the 

 soil of Virginia is capable of sustaining a dense pojiu- 

 lation, among whom labor would be honorable, and 

 where " the busy hum of men'' would tell that all were 

 happy, and that all were free.' 



" Virginia has suffered, and is now suffering under 

 all the ten specifications just given, and in a greater de- 

 gree than any other of the slave holding states could. — 

 Her statesmen and engineers mourn over her inertness 

 of spirit for public improvements ; her economists 

 mourn over the little inclination of her citizens to labor 

 of any kind ; her agriculturists upbraid her for letting 

 the soil sink into irrecoverable exhaustion, that she is 

 burdened with the dearest sort of labor, and jiersists in 

 applying to a country of originally moderate fertility, a 

 System absolutely ruinous to any but the richest allu- 

 vial soils; that industry and frugality are banished; 

 that she renders it virtually impossible to open a new 

 source of wealth in manufactures, and that Avhile the 

 princi^Dle of population is almost stagnant among her 

 whites, and her own sons are departing from her, she 

 repulses by her domestic relations all the emigrants to 

 ^America from the old world, who might else come in to 

 repair her ruin. It is ridiculous to talk of the prosperity 

 of a country wholly agricultural, with slave labor and 

 ■exhausted lands. The proud homes of Virginia, from 

 the revolution down to this day, have been passing 

 from the hands of their high-minded proprietors, to the 

 humble overseers that used to sit beloiv the salt at their 

 board, and from them in their turn to some otb.er newer 

 parvenus: agriculture has failed to enrich. Of the white 

 emigrants from Virginia, at least half are hard working 

 men, who carry away with them little besides their 

 tools and a stout heart of hope : the mechanic trades 

 have failed to give them bread. Commerce she has 

 little, shipping none, and it is a fact that the very staple 

 of the state, tobacco, is not exported by her own capi- 

 tal — the statedoes virtually a commission business in it. 

 All the sources of prosperity, moral and economical, 

 are deadened ; there is a general discontent v/iih one's 

 lot ; in some of the first settled and choicest parts of 

 Jier territory, symptoms are not wanting»of desolate an- 

 tiquity. And all this in youthful America, and m Vir- 

 ginia too, the fairest region of America, and with a race 

 of people inferior to none in the world in its capacity 

 to constitute a prosperous nation. 



" There are some facts disclosed by the population 

 returns for 1830, which we are not aware Imve been 

 fully brought to the pubHc notice. Every one is now 

 acquainted with the uncomfortabletruth, that the whites 

 east of the Blue Ridge had in 1790 a majority of 25,000, 

 and that in the course of forty years they have not only 

 lost it, but suffered the blacks to get an ascendency in 

 number to the extent of 81,000: thus the advance of the 

 blacks is 106,000 in that half of the state in that period. 

 But we may see by the subjoined table that there are 

 not a few counties of middle as well as lower Virginia, 

 (component parts of eastern Virginia) which have actu- 

 ally diminished in white population in the last ten 

 years! The first five are counties between the Blue 

 Ridge and the head of tide-water; the others below the 

 head of tide-water. 



Whites in 1S20. 1830. 



Brunswick, 5B89 5397 



Amelia, 3409 3293 



Goochland, 3976 3857 



Loudoun, 16144 15516 



Whites in 1820. 1830, 



Mecklenburg, 7710 7543 



Fairfax, 6224 4892 



James City, 1 556 1284 



King and Q.ueen, 5460 4714 



King William, 3449 3155 



Lancaster 2388 1976 



Northumberland, 41 34 4029 



Sussex, 4155 4118 



Stafford, 4788 4713 



Warwick, 620 619 



These counties at an average annual increase of three 

 per cent, (which is sufficiently moderate) would have 

 added more than 20,000 to their aggregate numbers ; 

 they have sustained a loss of near 5000 in ten years, 

 which is fully one twelfth of their capital in 1820. — 

 Conjccturally the people in these counties are as pro- 

 lific as elsewhere ; emigration, the result of the charac- 

 teristic ills of Virginia, has done most to occasion this 

 loss. All of these are fine counties." 



We next proceed to tlie means proposed by Mr. 

 Harrison, for removing slavery from Virginia. 



"We believe that means may be found to colonize the 

 annual surplus of the slaves of Virginia, and to pur- 

 chase such a portion of that surplus as it may be neces- 

 sary to purchase. 



"The annual increase of slaves in Virginia (leaving- 

 out of view the 6000 supposed to be taken off to the 

 southern markets) is less than 5000. If this number of 

 slaves be valued at the average of !§200 per head, the 

 sum necessary to purchase them will be about a million 

 of dollars. To defray the expense of their deportation 

 to Africa and subsistence there for some months will, 

 on the satisfactory calculation of Mr. Mathew Carey, 

 to wliich we must refer, at $25 per head for adults and 

 children, require $125,000 — add to which the cost of de- 

 portation of 1200 free blacks (their annual increase,) 

 $30,000, and we have the sum of )>; 150,000. That the 

 state of Virginia has no possible means of purchasing 

 5000 slaves per annum is obvious. But were the entire 

 cost that of transportation onlj^, $150,000, we should 

 insist that the Lcjiislature take it into serious considera- 

 tion how far that expense exceeds its means. In any 

 event, our adversaries will allow us to set down the 

 item of transportation to the charge of the state: if this 

 be all, it is to ofler no insurmountable embarrassment. 

 Perhaps it may be thought best to deport the free ne- 

 groes first, and then the whole expense is that of trans- 

 portation. Where, however, shall we find that greater 

 fund which will presently be needed for the purchase 

 of the surplus of the slaves, and before long for the pur- 

 chase of a part of the capital number ? There is not 

 far off a fund to which we believe our eyes may be 

 turned. We have come to the conclusion that such a 

 fund is the proceeds of the public lands in the treasury 

 of the general government ; and we do now invite the 

 friends of the removal and colonization of the negroes 

 to fix hereafter their thoughts and to press their pre- 

 tensions on this fund. The annual income to govern- 

 ment from the public lands is now estimated at three 

 millions. Let one-third of this amount be demanded 

 for this object, to be under the entire management of the 

 state authorities, 



" In coincidence with the known opinion of Virginia, 

 we are not willing to demand a simple appropriation of 

 money from Congress, But we are inclined to think, 

 that an appropriation from the receipts of the public 

 lands would not be liable to the constitutional objection, 

 which would forbid a grant of money raised by taxes. 

 We have an unfeigned respect for constitutioonal scru- 

 ples, but we are not ambitious ourselves of entertaining 

 more scruples than Mr. Madison. Let us hear then 

 what tliat greatest living authority says upon the sub- 

 ject, in his letter to Mr. Gurley, of December last: — 



" ' In contemplating the peexmiary resources needed 

 for the removal of such a number to a great distance, 

 my thoughts and hopes hcive been long turned to the 



