"It has always (perhaps erroneously) been considered by steady and old-fashioned people, that the owner of land had a reasonable right to its annual profits; the owner of orchards, to their annual fruits; the owner of brood mares, to their product; and the owner of female slaves, to their increase. We have not the fine-spun intelligence, nor legal acumen, to discover the technical distinctions drawn by gentlemen. The legal maxim of 'Partus sequitur ventrem' is coeval with the existence of the rights of property itself, and is founded in wisdom and justice. It is on the justice and inviolability of this maxim that the master foregoes the service of the female slave; has her nursed and attended during the period of her gestation, and raises the helpless and infant offspring. The value of the property justifies the expense; and I do not hesitate to say, that in its increase consists much of our wealth."
Hon. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH, of Virginia. formerly Governor of that state, in his speech before the legislature in 1832, while speaking of the number of slaves annually sold from Virginia to the more southern slave states, said:—
"The exportation has averaged EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED for the last twenty years. Forty years ago, the whites exceeded the colored 25,000, the colored now exceed the whites 81,000; and these results too during an exportation of near 260,000 slaves since the year 1790, now perhaps the fruitful progenitors of half a million in other states. It is a practice and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a patriot and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion converted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for market, like oxen for the shambles."
Professor DEW, now President of the University of William and Mary, Virginia, in his Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature, 1831-2, says, p 49.
"From all the information we can obtain, we have no hesitation in saying that upwards of six thousand [slaves] are yearly exported [from Virginia] to other states.' Again, p. 61: 'The 6000 slaves which Virginia annually sends off to the south, are a source of wealth to Virginia'—Again, p. 120: 'A full equivalent being thus left in the place of the slave, this emigration becomes an advantage to the state, and does not check the black population as much as, at first view, we might imagine—because it furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the negroes, to ENCOURAGE BREEDING, and to cause the greatest number possible to be raised. &c."
"Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising state for other states."
Extract from the speech of MR. FAULKNER, in the Va. House of Delegates, 1832. [See Richmond Whig.]
"But he [Mr. Gholson,] has labored to show that the Abolition of Slavery, were it practicable, would be impolitic, because as the drift of this portion of his argument runs, your slaves constitute the entire wealth of the state, all the productive capacity Virginia possesses. And, sir, as things are, I believe he is correct. He says, and in this he is sustained by the gentleman from Halifax, Mr. Bruce, that the slaves constitute the entire available wealth at present, of Eastern Virginia. Is it true that for 200 years the only increase in the wealth and resources of Virginia, has been a remnant of the natural increase of this miserable race?—Can it be, that on this increase, she places her solo dependence? I had always understood that indolence and extravagance were the necessary concomitants of slavery; but, until I heard these declarations, I had not fully conceived the horrible extent of this evil. These gentlemen state the fact, which the history and present aspect of the Commowealth but too well sustain. The gentlemen's facts and argument in support of his plea of impolicy, to me, seem rather unhappy. To me, such a state of things would itself be conclusive at least, that something, even as a measure of policy, should be done. What, sir, have you lived for two hundred years, without personal effort or productive industry, in extravagance and indolence, sustained alone by the return from sales of the increase of slaves, and retaining merely such a number as your now impoverished lands can sustain, AS STOCK, depending, too, upon a most uncertain market? When that market is closed, as in the nature of things it must be, what then will become of this gentleman's hundred millions worth of slaves, AND THE ANNUAL PRODUCT?"
In the debates in the Virginia Convention, in 1829, Judge Upsher said—"The value of slaves as an article of property [and it is in that view only that they are legitimate subjects of taxation] depends much on the state of the market abroad. In this view, it is the value of land abroad, and not of land here, which furnishes the ratio. It is well known to us all, that nothing is more fluctuating than the value of slaves. A late law of Louisiana reduced their value 25 per cent, in two hours after its passage was known. IF IT SHOULD BE OUR LOT, AS I TRUST IT WILL BE, TO ACQUIRE THE COUNTRY OF TEXAS, THEIR PRICE WILL RISE AGAIN."—p. 77.
Mr. Goode, Of Virginia, in his speech before the Virginia Legislature, in Jan. 1832, [See Richmond Whig, of that date,] said:—