146 GROWING POWER OF NON-SLAVEHOLDERS Assembly in which property in slaves secured for the slaveholders and their counties an additional representation over that of the non-slaveholders, and with every officer of the state government elected by the Legislature thus constituted, the political dominance of the slaveholding counties over the non-slaveholding counties will be readily appreciated. The scheme was alike inequitable and unRepublican, yet it was not until the Reform Convention of 1850-51 that white manhood suffrage was established, the privilege of electing all state officials accorded to the people, and the changes made with respect to the basis of representation which would have eventually accorded to all the counties and cities representation in the General Assembly in proportion to their white populations.' To strip the slaveholding counties of their political power, to admit on an equal basis to the suffrage every white man in the commonwealth, and to accord to the electorate thus constituted the privilege of electing every high state official did not indicate the growth of pro-slavery sentiment. These achievements of the Convention were confessedly the most signal victories for liberty and progress which had marked the history of Virginia since her liberation from British rule. These fundamental changes in the constitution and in the relative rights and powers of the slaveholders and the slaveholding sections, as compared with the non-slaveholders and non-slaveholding sections, were ratified by the people by a vote of 75,748 to 11,063—only five counties in the state out of the one hundred and fortyeight giving majorities in the negative.2 'Article III, Section 1, and Article IV, Section 5, Constitution of Virginia, 1851. Representation in Virginia, Chandler, 1896, p. 7. THE CUSTOM OF BUYING AND SELLING SLAVES- 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. 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 148 DEPORTATION OF SLAVES FROM VIRGINIA the labor of their slaves in the grain and tobacco fields of Virginia induced these proprietors to purchase cotton and sugar plantations in the South and thither from time to time to transport their slaves. These slaveholders did not always emigrate themselves. They simply changed the situs of their slaves, the latter being often accompanied by the sons of their masters. Thus a third cause carried annually from Virginia many hundreds of slaves. 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 149 will assist in determining the measure of truth contained in the original charge. 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 1A Political History of Slavery, William Henry Smith, 1903, Vol. I, p. 3. 150 SPEECH OF MR. MERCER blacks do not support themselves, and the only profit their masters derive from them is, repulsive as the idea may justly seem, in breeding them, like other live stock, for the more Southern states. (American Colonization Society, 1833.) 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, |