The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1850-08-22
NO. 100.

hack the black population as much as at first
not o;gbt imagine, because II furnishes every in
we .,psnt TO the master to attend to the negroes
.o,,oos breeding and TO cause the greatest num-
70 e~ ~o,s;5Ie 10 be raised Virginia Is in fact
." ,sYgyo-raisiag State for other SatesD
ct us now learn, still from Southern witnesses,
.ometbinp of the amount Of the revenue which
TINS encourage breeding and cause the greatest
lumber possible TO be raised"
Mr. CHARLES FENroN MERCER asserted in the
Virginia Convention, rs29): "The tables of the
natural growth Of the slave population demon
strate, when compared with the increase of its
numbers in the Commonwealth for twenty years
past that an annual reUene of not less than MIL
LION AND A HALF OF DOLLARS Is derived from the
expectation of part Of this population Debates,
Poge 90.
Owing to various circumstances, breeding be-
came vastly more profitable after 1929. We find
in the Virginia Times, 1886, an article copied into
the Baltimore Register, on the importance Of in
creasng the banking capital Of the Common.
wealth. The writer estimates the number OF
slaves exported from the State the "last twelve
months" at FORTY THOUSAND, each slave aver
aging six hundred dollars, thus yielding capital
of TWENTY -FOUR MILLIONS, OF which he contends
thirteen millions might be contributed for bank
ing purposes.
MIR. GHoLsoS had none of Mr. Clay's present
squeamishness about breeding for sale, when in
the Virginia Legislature, 18th January, 1881, he
clsimed the right Of " the owner Of brood mares to
their product, and Of the owner Of female slaves
.Le;- ;s~-eese - and added " the LEGAL maxim
of partus sequitur ventrem' is coevaf with the
nj the ri0bt of proDerty itself and is
tpunAen IN ~SsNs0As NM 5@sssSs. J>To~
tioe and inyiolabiity of this maxim that the mas
ter foreqoes the service of a female slave-hss her
nursed and attended during the period Of her
CESSATION, and raises the helpless infant offspring
The value of the property Jnstyfes me erpensej
and do not hesitate to say that in its increase
consists much of our neaithD Ii is no wonder this
same eentlemsn was anxious for the annexation
of Texas, declaring that che believed the acqui-
sition of Texas would raise the price of slaves
0ts per cent at least"
We might 70 into the details of the Virginia
trade, and show the barbarities and loss Of life
which attend il, but we forbesr, and content our
selves with notices of two dealers in single town
in South Carolina John Wood of Hamburger ad-
vertised that " he has on hand likely parcel of
Vfrginia negroes, and receives new supplies srery
fifteen days" John Davis of the same place ad-
vertised for sale, from Virginia, "one hundred
and twenty likely young negroes of both sexes"
and among them "smsll girls suitable for nurses,
and several SMALL BOYS WITHOUT THEIR MOTHERS"
We have now offered, we think, sufficient tes-
timony to prove that the purpose of breeding
slaves for sale does enter into the minds of some
shareholders, and that Mr.. peSis's iutimation to
that effect was not utterly false and groundless"
But we must still call one more witness, and
one Every way competent, except that his memory
is occasionally treacherous The witness we call
is none other than the Hon. HENRY CLAY of Ken
lucky. This gentleman in 1929 delivered sn ad-
dress before the Kentucky Colonization Society.
After showing that when the option existed OF
employing free or slave labor, the first was the
most profitable, he remarked-"lt is believed that
nowhere in the farming portion Of the United
States would slave labor be generally employed,
if the proprietor were not tempted to raise by
the high price Of the Southern market, which keeps
it up in his own"
And now we ask, in all soberness, II slave labor
is improbable in the farming slaves States--that
is, in those States which do not produce rice su-
gar, and cotton-and yet the breeding, or il Mr..
Clay prefers the term, the raising Of slaves, Is
there stimulated and encouraged by the high
price of the Southern market, why was Mr.. Clay
SO shocked and surprised because it was supposed
that the same cause might lead to the breeding
Of slaves in New Mexico? Mr.. Webster, 1t is
true. contends that the law of the Earth's forma-
ton and Asiatic scenery renders it physically
impossible for slaves to labor in New Mexico but
he has never insisted that IL was physically i'm
possible for them to bear children there. Now,
II there be no such impossblity, why, we ask, may
not slave children be exported to "the Southern
MARKET from New Mexico as well as from Vir-
ginia and the other farming slave States
dugust, 1850. A. b.