44 



FARMERS' REGISTER— AGRICULTURAL REVIEW. 



for breaking a certain quantity, cmcl all arc paid alike. — 

 Yet tlie Leibcigeners could not at first be prevailed up- 

 on to break more than one-third of the quantity which 

 formed the ordinary task of the Prussians. The men 

 were mixed, in the hope that the example and the gains 

 of the more industrious, would animate the sluggish. — 

 Now mark the result. A contrary effect followed ; the 

 Leibcigeners did not improve, but the exertions of the 

 other laborers sensibly s'.ackencd, and at the time my in- 

 formant (the English engineer who superintended the 

 work,) was speaking to me, the men were again at work 

 in separate gangs carefully kept asunder.'* And thus 

 do we find,"by an investigation of this subject, that if 

 we should introduce, by any means, free labor in the 

 stead of slave labor deported to Africa, that it will be 

 certain to deteriorate by association with slave labor, 

 until it sinks down to and even below its level. So far, 

 ■we have admitted the possibility of exchanging slave 

 for free labor, and have endeavored to prove, upon the 

 principles of the abolitionists, that nothing would be 

 gained by it. We will now endeavor to prove, and we 

 think we can do it incontestibly, that the scheme of abo- 

 lition and deportation will not and cannot possibly effect 

 this exchange of slave labor for free, even if it were de- 

 sirable. And in order that we may examine the pro- 

 ject fully in this point of view, we will endeavor — first, 

 to trace out its operation on the slave population, and 

 then on the white. 



"Since the publication of the celebrated work of Doc- 

 tor Malthus on the ' Principle of Population,' the know- 

 ledge of the causes which aflect its condition and in- 

 crease, is much more widely diffused. It is now well 

 known to every student of political economy, that in 

 the wide range of legislation, there is nothing more 

 dangerous than too much tampering with the elastic and 

 powerful spring of population. 



"The energies of government are for the most part 

 feeble or impotent when arrayed against its action. — 

 It is this procreatlve power of the human species, either 

 exerted or dormant, which so frequently brushes away 

 in reality the visionary fabrics of the philanthropists, 

 and mars the cherished plots and schemes of statesmen. 

 Euler has endeavored to prove, by some calculations, 

 that the human species, itnder the most favorable cir- 

 stanccs, is capable of doubling itself once in twelve 

 years. In our western country, the progress of popu- 

 lation has, in many extensive districts, been so rapid as 

 to show, in our opinion, most conclusively, that it is ca- 

 pable of doubling itself once in fifteen years without the 

 aid of imigration. The whole of our population, since 

 the independence of the United States, has shown itself 

 fully capable of duplication in periods of twenty-five 

 years, without the accession from abroad. f In some 

 portions of our country, the population is stationary, in 

 others but very slowly advancing. We will assume 

 then for the two extremes in our country, the stationary 

 condition on the one side, and such increase on the other 

 as to give rise to a duplication every fifteen years. — 

 Now as throughout the whole range comprehended be- 

 tween these extremes, population is capable of exerting 

 various degrees of energy, it is very evident that the 

 statesman "who wishes to increase or diminish popula- 

 tion, must look cautiously to the effect of his measures 

 on its spring, and sec how this will be acted on. If for 

 example, his object be to lessen the number of a slowly 

 increasing population, he must be convinced that his 

 plan does not stimulate the procreative energies of so- 

 ciety to produce more than he is cajiable of taking 

 away; or if his object be to increase the numbers, take 

 heed lest this project deaden and paralyze the source 

 of increase so much as to more than counterbalance any 



eflbrt of his. Now looking at the texture of the Vugi- 

 nia population, the desideratum is to diminish the blacks 

 and increase the whites. , Let us see how the scheme of 

 emancipation and deportation will act. We have al- 

 ready shown that the first operation of the plan, if slave 

 property were rigidly respected and never taken with- 

 out full compoisation, would be to put a stop to the ef- 

 flux from the stale through other channels ; but this 

 woukl not be the only effect. Government entering in- 

 to the market with individuals, would elevate the price 

 of slaves beyond their natiu-al value, and consequently 

 the raising of them would become an object of primary 

 importance throughout the whole state. We can readi- 

 ly imagine that the price of slaves might become so great 

 that each master would do all in his power to encourage 

 marriage among them — would allow the females almost 

 entire exemption from labor, that they might the better 

 breed and nurse — and would so completely concentrate 

 his efforts upon this object, as to neglect other schemes 

 and less productive sources of wealth. Under these 

 circumstances the prolific African might no doubt be'sli- 

 mulated to press hard ujion one of the limits above sta- 

 ted, doubling his numbers in fifteen years ; and such is 

 the tendency which our abolition schemes, if ever seri- 

 ously engaged in, will most undoubtedly produce ; they 

 will be certain to stimulate the procreative powers of 

 that very race which they are aiming to diminish ; they 

 will enlaige and invigorate the very monster which they 

 are endeavoring to stifle, and realize the beautiful but 

 melancholy fable of Sisyphus, by an eternal renova- 

 tion of hope and disappomtment. If it were possible 

 for Virginia to purchase and send ofl' amnially for the 

 next twenty-five or fifty years, 12,000 slaves, we should 

 have very little hesitation in affirming, that the number 

 of slaves in Virginia woukl not be at all lessened by tlie 

 operation, and at the conclusion of the period such hab- 

 its would be generated among our blacks, that for a 

 long time after the cessation of the drain, population 

 might advance so rapidly as tp produce among us all 

 the calamities and miseries of an over crowded peo- 

 ple. 



" We arc not now dealing in mere conjecture ; tlierc is 

 ample proof of the correctness of these anticipations in 

 the history of our own hemisphere. The West India 

 Islands, as we have before seen, are supplied with slaves 

 more cheaply by the African slave trader than they can 

 raise them, and consequently the black population in 

 the Islands nowhere keeps up its numbers by natural in- 

 crease. It appears by a statement of Mr. F. Buxton, I'e- 

 cently 25ublished, that the total number of slaves in the 

 British West Indies in IS 17, was 730,112. After a 

 lapse of eleven years, in 1828, the numbers were re- 

 duced to 678,527, making a loss on the capital of 1817, 

 in the short space of eleven years, of 51,585.* In the 

 Mauritius in the same space of time, the loss on the ca- 

 pital of 1817 amounting to but 76,774, was 10,767. — 

 Even in the Island of Cuba, where the negro slave is 

 treated as humanely as any where on the globe, from 

 1804 to 1817, the blacks lost 4,401 upon the stock of 

 1S04; 'Prior to the annexation of Louisiana to the 

 United States,' saj's Mr. Clay jn his Colonization 

 Speech of 1830, ' the supply of slaves from Africa was 

 abundant. The price of adults was generally about 

 one hundred dollars, a price less than the cost of raising 

 an infant. Then it was believed that the climate of the 

 province was unfavorable to the rearing of negro chil- 

 dren, and comjiaratively few were raised. After the 

 United States abolished the slave trade, the price of 

 adults rose very considerably — greater attention was 

 consequently bestowed on their children, and now 



* See Jones'' Political Economy, vol. 1 pp. 51, 52; Lon- 

 don Edition. 



t The longest period of duplication has been about Iwen- 

 ty-three years and seven months, so that the addition of one 

 year and five months will more than compensate for the cmi- 

 gj-ation. 



* Bryan Edwards attributes the decrease of the slaves in 

 the West Indies jwincipally to the disproportioji of the sex- 

 es. But in the present instance, ive are constrained to at- 

 tribute it to another cavse, for ice find of the 730,112 

 slaves in the sugar islands in 1S17, 369,577 Jt'cre males, 

 and 363,535/e)nnie5, being'very nearly unequal division of 

 the sexes. 



