FARMERS' REGISTER— AGRICULTURAL REVIEW. 



47 



himself how many he can sjDarc from his plantation — 

 and he will be suqDrised to see how few can be dispens- 

 ed with. If that intelligent gentleman, from the store- 

 house of his knowledge, would but call up the history 

 of the past, he would see that mere phllmdhropy, with 

 all her splendid boastings, has never yet accomplished 

 one great scheme; he would find the remark of that 

 great judge of humm nature, the illustrious author ot 

 the Wealth of Nations, that no people had the gene- 

 rosity to liberate their slaves until it became their inte- 

 rest to do so, but too true ; and the philosopiiic ])age of 

 Hume, Robertson, Stuart, and Sismondi, would inform 

 him that the serfs of Europe have been only gradually 

 emancipated through the operation of self interest and 

 not phUaiithropy : and v^e shall soon see that it was 

 fortunate for both parties that this was the cause. 



" But it is strange indeed that gentlemen have never 

 reflected, that the pecuniary loss to the state, will be 

 precisely the same, whether the negroes be purchased 

 or gratuitously surrendered. In the latter case the bur- 

 then is only shifted from the whole state to that portion 

 where the surrender is made — thus if we own 510)000 

 worth of this property, and surrender the whole to go- 

 vernment, it is evident that we lose the amount of 

 SlOjOOO ; and if the whole of Lower Virginia could at 

 once he induced to give up all of this property, and it 

 could be sent away, the only effect of this generosity 

 and self-devotion would be to inflict the bloio of desola- 

 tion more exclusively on this portion of the state — the 

 aggregate loss would be the same, the burthen would 

 only be shifted from the whole to a part — the West 

 would dodge the blow, and perhaps every candid citi- 

 zen of Lower Virginia would confess that he is devoid 

 of that refined incomprehensible patriotism which would 

 call for self immolation on the shrine of folly, and 

 would most conscientiously advise the eastern Virginians 

 never to surrender their slaves to the government with- 

 out a fair equivalent. Can it be genuine philanthropy 

 to persuade them alone to step forward and bear the 

 whole burthen ? 



" Again ; some have attempted to evade the diflicul- 

 tics by seizing on the increase of the negroes after a cer- 

 tain time. Thus Mr. Randolph's plan proposed that 

 ail born after the year 1810, should be raised by their 

 masters to the age of eighteen lor the female and twen- 

 ty-one for the male, and then hired out, until the nett 

 sum arising therefrom amounted to enough to send them 

 away. Scarcely any one in the legislature — we believe 

 not even the author himself— entirely approved of this 

 plan.* It is obnoxious to the objections we have just 

 been stating against voluntary sun-ender. It proposes 

 to saddle the slave-holder with the whole burthen ; it 

 infringes directly the rights of property ; it converts the 

 fee simple possession of this kind of property into an 

 estate for years; and it only puts oft' the great sacrifice 

 required of the state to 1840, when most of the evils 

 will occur that have already been described. In the 

 mean time it destroys the value of slaves, and with it 

 all landed possessions — checks the productions of the 

 state, imposes (when 1840 arrives) upon the master the 

 intolerable and grievous burthen of raising his young 

 slaves to the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, and then 

 liberating them to be hired out under the superintend- 

 ence of government (the most miserable of all mana- 

 gers,) until the proceeds arising therefrom shall be suffi- 

 cient to send them away. If any man at all conversant 

 with political economy should ever anticipate the day 

 when this shall happen, we can only say that his faith 

 is great indeed, enough to remove mountains, and that 

 he has studied in a totally different school from our- 

 selves. Let us ask in the language of one of Virginia's 

 most cherished statesmen, who has stood by and de- 



* The difficulty of f Ming vpon any definite plan which 

 can for a moment command the approbation of even a few 

 of the most intelligent abolitionists, is an unerring symptom 

 of the difficulty and impracticahility of the whole. 



fended with so much zeal and ability the interests of 

 Lower Virginia — and who shone forth one of the bright- 

 est stai-s in that constellation of talent which met to- 

 gether in the Virginia Convention— 'Is it supposed that 

 any tyranny can subdue us to the patient endurance of 

 such a state of things ? Every prudent slave holder in 

 tlie slave holding parts of the state, would either mi- 

 grate with his slaves to some state where his rights in 

 slave property would be secured to him by the laws, or 

 would surrender at once his rights in the parent stock 

 as well as in their future increase, and seek some land 

 where he may enjoy at least the earnings of his own 

 industry. In the first case, the country would be de- 

 serted ; in the other it would be abandoned to the 

 slaves, to be cultivated under the management of the 

 state. The plan would result in a sacrifice, more pro- 

 bably an abandonment, of our landed, as well as the 

 abolition of our slave property. Can any thing but 

 force, can any force tame us to wrongs like these ?'* 



" Again; we entirely agree with the assertion of Mr. 

 Brown, one of the ablest and most promising of Vir- 

 ginia's sons, that the ingenuity of man, if exerted for 

 the purpose, could not devise a more efficient mode of 

 producing discontent among our slaves, and thus en- 

 dangeruig the peace of the community. There are 

 born annually of this population about 20,000 children. 

 Those which are born before the year 1840 are to be 

 slaves ; those which are born after that period are to be 

 free at a certain age. These two classes will be reared 

 together; they will labor together, and commune to- 

 gether. It cannot escape the observation of him who 

 is doomed to servitude, that although of the same color 

 and born of the- same parents, a far different destiny 

 awaits his more fortunate brother — as his thoughts 

 again and again revert to the subject, he begins to re- 

 gtird himself as the victim of injustice. Cheerfulness 

 and contentment will flee from his bosom, and the most 

 harmless and happy creature that lives on earth, will be 

 transformed into a dark designing and desperate rebel. 

 (Broivn^s Speech, pp. 8, 9.) 



" There are some again who exhaust their ingenuity 

 in devising schemes for taking off the breeding portion 

 of the slaves to xlfrica, or carrying away the sexes in 

 such disproportions as will in a measure prevent those 

 left behind from breeding. All of these plans merit 

 nothing more than the appellation of vain juggling legis- 

 lative conceits, unworthy of a wise statesman and a 

 moral man. If our slaves arc ever to be sent away in 

 any systematic manner, humanity detnands that they 

 should be carried in families. The voice of the world 

 would condemn Virginia if she sanctioned an)' plan of 

 deportation by which the male and female, husband 

 and wife, parent and child, were systematically and re- 

 lentlessly separated. If we are to indulge in this kind 

 of regulating vice, why not cure the ill at once, by fol- 

 lowing the counsel of Xenophon in his Economics, and 

 the practice of old Cato thcCensor ? Let us keep the 

 male and female separatef in Ergastula or dungeons, if 

 it be necessary, and then one generation will pass av/ay, 

 and the evil will be removed to the heart's content of 

 our humane philanthropists! But all these puerile con- 

 ceits fall far short of surmounting the great difficulty 

 which, like Memnon, is eternally 23resent and cannot be 

 removed. 



' Sedet etermcmque sedebit.'' 



"There is $100,000,000 of slave property in the state 

 of Virginia, and it matters but little how you destroy 

 it, whether by the slow process of tlie cautious practi- 

 tioner, or with the frightful des})atch of the self confi- 

 dent quack; when it is gone, no matter how, the deed 

 will be done, and Virginia will be a desert." 



* Letters of Appomattox to people of Virginia, \st Let- 

 ter, p. 13. 



f See Hume''s Essay on the populousness of Ancient Na- 

 tions, where he ascribes this practice to Cato and others, to 

 prevent their slaves from breeding. 



