Part 12

It would seem impossible to reconcile the existence of this public sentiment with the idea that the state had degenerated into "the mother of slave breeders," and that her people, enamored of the profits, were given over to the work of rearing and selling slaves.

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT, 1832

Against the charge, however, that the abolition of the foreign slave trade in 1808 and the contemporaneous invention of the cotton gin so enhanced the market value of slaves as to destroy the sentiment previously existing in Virginia for their emancipation, we place the well-attested fact that anti-slavery sentiment did not die at the time and for the causes specified. The truth is just to the contrary. Anti-slavery sentiments among the people grew steadily during the next quarter of a century. The setback which occurred in 1832-33 arose, as we have seen, from other causes. The existence of the strongest anti-slavery sentiment at the latter date cannot be questioned. Said Charles James Faulkner in the great debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1832: "Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no gentleman has yet arisen in this hall, the avowed advocate of slavery. The day has gone by when such a voice could be listened to with patience or even forbearance."[205]

George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, writing a half century later, says: "It may be asserted as positively as anything in history that in the year 1832 there was nowhere in the world a more enlightened sense of the wrong and evil of slavery than there was among the public men and people of Virginia."[206]

Was the anti-slavery sentiment of 1833 a reminiscence or a growth? Had it simply survived with diminishing strength the fervor of the Revolution or was it an increasing power which had its origin at that period? The Rev. Dr. Philip Slaughter writes: "That (1831) was the culminating point—the flood-tide of anti-slavery feeling which had been gradually rising for more than a century in Virginia."[207]

Thomas Jefferson Randolph in his speech before the Legislature of 1832 deplored the fact that Mr. Jefferson had not lived: "to see the revolution of the public mind of Virginia. He has not lived to see a majority of the House of Delegates in favor of abolition in the abstract."[208]

Washington and Jefferson have both left on record the fact that the people of Virginia of the Revolutionary period would not tolerate any proposal of emancipation. Mr. Randolph in his speech just quoted from said: "Sixty-two years ago when a proposition was made in the Legislature of Virginia by one of the oldest, ablest and most respected members ... to ameliorate the condition of the slaves he was ... denounced as an enemy of his country."

The constitutions of the ante and post-Revolutionary periods in Virginia all required property qualification as a prerequisite to the suffrage, and apportioned representation in the General Assembly to the several cities and counties on the basis of property and white population, rather than on the latter alone. Under this system, the slaves being taxed as property, the slaveholders and their counties exercised a power far in excess of that enjoyed by their brethren in the non-slaveholding sections. The General Assembly elected every state official, including the Governor and the judges of the higher courts, and thus in the hands of that body was lodged complete control of every department of the state government.

GROWING POWER OF NON-SLAVEHOLDERS

The constitution of 1830 admitted to the suffrage, in addition to property-owners, only the citizen "who for twelve months next preceding (the election) has been a housekeeper and head of a family ... and shall have been assessed with a part of the revenue of the commonwealth within the preceding year and actually paid the same." But this constitution retained in the hands of the General Assembly the election of all the state officials, including the Governor, and continued in force the "mixed basis" in apportioning representatives among the several cities and counties.[209] With suffrage thus restricted, with a General 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 un-Republican, 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.[210] 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 forty-eight giving majorities in the negative.[211]

Footnote 197:

_Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_, Fiske, Vol. II, p. 191.

Footnote 198:

_Abraham Lincoln, A History_, N. & H., Vol. III, p. 413.

Footnote 199:

_Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers_, Adams, p. 425.

Footnote 200:

_Thomas H. Benton_, Roosevelt, p. 34.

Footnote 201:

_Robert E. Lee_, Wolseley, p. 12.

Footnote 202:

_History of the United States_, Rhodes, 1904, Vol. III, p. 413.

Footnote 203:

_South Side View of Slavery_, Adams, p. 78.

Footnote 204:

_Abraham Lincoln, Letters, Speeches and State Papers_, N. & H., Vol. I, p. 194.

Footnote 205:

_Virginia Slavery Debate_, 1832, White.

Footnote 206:

_Life of James Buchanan_, Curtis, 1883, Vol. II, p. 277.

Footnote 207:

_Virginian History of African Colonization_, Slaughter, p. 55.

Footnote 208:

_Slavery Debate_, 1832, White, T. J. Randolph's Speech, p. 13.

Footnote 209:

_Code of Virginia_, 1849, pp. 35 to 45.

Footnote 210:

Article III, Section 1, and Article IV, Section 5, Constitution of Virginia, 1851.

Footnote 211:

_Representation in Virginia_, Chandler, 1896, p. 7.

XXI

THE CUSTOM OF BUYING AND SELLING SLAVES— VIRGINIA'S ATTITUDE (Concluded)

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.

DEPORTATION OF SLAVES FROM VIRGINIA

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 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 will assist in determining the measure of truth contained in the original charge.

ESTIMATE OF WILLIAM HENRY SMITH

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."[212]

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 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.)

SPEECH OF MR. MERCER

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, appear. Mr. Mercer was not discussing the slave trade—he 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.

ESTIMATE OF VIRGINIA TIMES

The author next refers to an "estimate of the money arising from the sale of slaves during the year 1836—making 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 one-third 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."

THE SALE OF SLAVES EXAGGERATED

"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 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 conveyed. 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?"[213]

In the third note Mr. Smith cites an extract from the report of the "American Colonization Society, 1833."

MR. SMITH'S ERRONEOUS CITATIONS

A careful examination of the report of the American Colonization Society, submitted at its meeting 1833, fails 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."[214]

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.[215]

Footnote 212:

_A Political History of Slavery_, William Henry Smith, 1903, Vol. I, p. 3.

Footnote 213:

_Slavery Debate_, Virginia Legislature, 1833, Speech of T. J. Randolph, p. 13.

Footnote 214:

_Report of American Colonization Society_ presented January 20, 1833, pp. 16 and 17.

Footnote 215:

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).

XXII

SMALL PROPORTION OF SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG VIRGINIA SOLDIERS

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 thirty-three—was a slaveholder."[216]

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.[217]

The author is, of course, in error in assuming that every slaveholder was the head of a family. Doubtless in a 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.

SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE RANKS

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."[218]

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.

Dr. Hunter McGuire, the medical director of the Stonewall Brigade, has left on record his estimate of the number of slaveholders in the ranks of that command—which, being drawn from all portions of the state, was more representative of the citizenship of Virginia, East and West:

"The Stonewall Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia," writes Dr. McGuire, "was a fighting organization. I knew every man in it, for I belonged to it for a long time; and I know that I am in proper bounds when I assert, that there was not one soldier in thirty who owned or ever expected to own a slave."[219]

But it is also urged that, while men without slaves filled the ranks of the Virginia regiments, yet slaveholders led these soldiers into battle as they had led the people into revolution.

SLAVEHOLDERS AMONG THE LEADERS

It is obviously impracticable to present the facts with reference to each one of the prominent leaders which Virginia gave to the armies of the Confederacy. By universal accord her five most notable generals were, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, A. P. Hill and J. E. B. Stuart—to whom may be added Fitzhugh Lee and Matthew F. Maury, as only less prominent but no less representative of her leading soldiers.