ESTIMATE OF VIRGINIA TIMES 151 appear. Mr. Mercer was not discussing the slave tradehe was pointing out the increase in the number of slaves which should normally accrue to their masters and the consequent reasonableness of the tax imposed upon them as compared with that assessed against the lands. It is believed that this explanation of the subject of Mr. Mercer's speech will qualify the conclusion which Mr. Smith has drawn from the statement cited in his text. The author next refers to an "estimate of the money arising from the sale of slaves during the year 1836-mak ing the aggregate $24,000,000.00." This estimate is cited as that of the Virginia Times and an explanation of how the figures are arrived at is set out by the author in the first of the three notes above quoted. By reference to Volume LI of Niles' Register, page 83, in which the extract from the Virginia Times appears, it will be seen that the latter paper does not attempt any discussion of the subject, any marshalling of statistics or any conclusions of its own drawn therefrom. It simply recites in an item of ten lines-that-"We have heard intelligent men estimate the number of slaves exported from Virginia within the last twelve months at 120,000." The item further recites that of this number "not more than onethird have been sold, the others having been carried by their owners, who have removed, which would leave in the state the sum of $24,000,000.00 arising from the sale of slaves." "We have heard intelligent men estimate" is a somewhat different statement from that of the author's text in which the Virginia Times is made to fix the exportation for the year 1836 at 120,000, 40,000 of whom were sold to dealers. How little value, however, can be attached to "the estimate" will be appreciated when we recall that an 152 THE SALE OF SLAVES EXAGGERATED exportation of 120,000 slaves per annum would in four years have depopulated the state of every single slave. The census showed that there were 469,758 slaves in Virginia in 1830 and 490,865 in 1860. By no possible process of computation can the Virginians of the period from 1830 to 1840 be charged with "the enormous profitableness of slave-breeding," arising from annual sales of 40,000 slaves, and a quarter of a century later their descendants be convicted of the crime of fighting to perpetuate the traffic. There would have been no slaves from which the commerce could have derived a supply. In his second note, Mr. Smith makes a quotation from the speech of Mr. Randolph in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 wherein the latter is made to declare "that Virginia had been converted into one grand menagerie where men are reared for the market like oxen for the shambles." By reference to the whole sentence and its exact quotation it will appear that Mr. Randolph's statement was not intended to warrant the conclusion here sought to be con veyed. Mr. Randolph said: "How can an honourable mind, a patriot and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie where men are to be reared for market like oxen for the shambles?"1 In the third note Mr. Smith cites an extract from the report of the "American Colonization Society, 1833." A careful examination of the report of the American Colonization Society, submitted at its meeting 1833, fails 'Slavery Debate, Virginia Legislature, 1833, Speech of T. J. Randolph, p. 13. MR. SMITH'S ERRONEOUS CITATIONS 153 to show any such statement-or any phrases or sentiments from which such an accusation could be inferred. The report in its whole tenor and contents is just to the contrary. Thus at page 16, referring to the condition of public sentiment in Virginia, it says: "That mighty evil (slavery) beneath which the minds of men had bowed in despair, has been looked at as no longer incurable. A remedy has been proposed; the sentiments of humanity, the secret wishes of the heart on this momentous topic have found a voice and the wide air has rung with it." Again, at page 17 it says: "Nearly half the colonists in Liberia have emigrated from Virginia; and many citizens of that state have sought aid from the Society for removing thither their liberated slaves during the last year." A like inspection of the reports of the Society for the years from 1827 to 1837 inclusive shows no such statement as that cited by Mr. Smith in his footnote. The leading officers of the Society were Virginians and its work had their cordial sympathy and co-operation. Mr. Smith has evidently accepted the statement of some other writer without examining for himself the original sources of information." 'Report of American Colonization Society presented January 20, 1833, pp. 16 and 17. 'Professor Hart, of Harvard University, in his recent work, Slavery and Abolition, says: "The fact that some thousands of negroes every year left the Border States for the South seemed to show that there was profit in keeping them alive; but recent investigation seems to establish that the greater number of these negroes were taken in a body by the men who owned them to settle in other states." (Slavery and Abolition, Hart, p. 124). SMALL PROPORTION OF SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE accusation that the people of Virginia of the Civil War period stood ready to fight "no matter whom and little matter how, for the protection of slavery and slave property," because of the profits derived from the inter-state slave trade, would seem to acquit those Virginians who derived no benefit from the traffic. We have seen, from the facts heretofore presented, what a small proportion of the people of Virginia were owners of slaves; and all available data indicate a still less proportion of slaveholders among the soldiers which the state contributed to the armies of the Southern Confederacy. Professor A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, says: "Out of 12,500,000 persons, in the slave-holding communities in 1860, only about 384,000 persons-or one in thirtythree-was a slaveholder." The same author estimates that each slaveholder was the head of a family and that, therefore, 350,000 white families in the South, out of a total of 1,800,000, owned slaves; though 77,000 of these families owned only one slave each, and 200,000 of the remaining owned less than ten slaves each.2 The author is, of course, in error in assuming that every slaveholder was the head of a family. Doubtless in a 'Slavery and Abolition, Hart, p. 67. SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE RANKS 155 large majority of cases such was the fact. The Federal census, however, from which his first figures are taken, is correct in showing the exact number owning slaves. This number included men, women and children, and, not infrequently, a number of persons were part owners of the same slave or slaves, and yet each was enumerated as a slaveholder. Admiral Chadwick's analysis of the census returns for Virginia shows that of the 52,128 slaveholders in the state, one-third held but one or two slaves, half one to four, and that but one hundred and fourteen persons held as many as one hundred each. He also points out the fact that the great majority of the soldiers in the ranks of the Confederate Armies, from Virginia and the South, possessed no such interest. From a mass of data bearing more directly upon the number of slaveholders in the ranks of the Virginia soldiers, we select two citations: Major Robert Stiles, late a prominent member of the Richmond Bar, referring to the personnel of the Richmond Howitzers (of which he was a member) and the motives which impelled them to fight, writes: 'Why did they volunteer? For what did they give their lives? . . . Surely, it was not for slavery they fought. The great majority of them had never owned a slave, and had little or no interest in the institution. My own father, for example, had freed his slaves long years before.”1 This command was composed of representatives of the leading families in the city of Richmond, at that time the largest slaveholding city in the state. Here one would expect to find the slaveholding soldiers. Four Years Under Marse Robert, Stiles, p. 49. |