"For this sluggishness and imbecility many causes might be assigned, ... but there are three sources in which, as we believe, the evil dispositions of our state so naturally flow that they ought to receive special notice."
VIRGINIA'S INDUSTRIAL STATUS, 1852
These were, want of popular educational facilities, lack of internal improvements, and the existence of slavery.[[192]] The author says:
"The last and most important cause unfavorably affecting Virginia which we shall mention is the existence of slavery within her bounds. We have already seen the origin and progress of this institution. As to its evils, we have nothing new to offer; they have long been felt and acknowledged by the most sagacious minds in our state."[[193]]
Bishop Meade, in a note to his history, Old Churches, Ministers and Families in Virginia, published in 1857, referring to the injurious effects of slavery upon Virginia's agricultural development, says: "That the agriculture of Virginia has suffered in times past from the use of slaves, we think most evident from the deserted fields, impoverished estates and emigrating population."[[194]]
In 1852, the Virginia Agricultural Society was organized, having among its membership and founders, the foremost planters and citizens of the state. From an address issued at the time, we make the following compilations and extracts:
After reciting that Virginia was a community of farmers—eight-tenths of her industry being expended upon the soil, the address proceeds to point out that out of thirty-nine millions of acres she tills only a little over ten millions; that New York, on the other hand, with twenty-nine and a half millions, has subdued to the plough twelve and a quarter; while Massachusetts has reclaimed from the forests, quarry and marsh, two and one-tenth out of her little territory of five millions of acres; that the live stock of Virginia was worth only $3.31 for every arable acre; the live stock of New York, $6.07; and the live stock of Massachusetts, $4.52; that the proportion of hay for the same quantity of land was eighty-one pounds for Virginia, six hundred and seventy-nine pounds for New York, and six hundred and eighty-four pounds for Massachusetts; that whilst the population of Virginia had increased during the previous ten years in a ratio of eleven to sixty-six, New York had increased twenty-seven to fifty-two, and Massachusetts thirty-four to eighty-one. The address then proceeds:
"In the above figures, carefully selected from the data of authentic documents, we find no cause for self-gratulation, but some food for meditation. They are not without use to those who would improve the future by the past. They show that we have not done our part in the bringing of land into cultivation; that notwithstanding natural advantages which greatly exceed those of the two states drawn into parallel with Virginia, we are yet behind them both....
"When we contemplate our field of labor and the work we have done in it, we cannot but observe the sad contrast between capacity and achievement. With a widespread domain, with a kindly soil, with a climate whose sun radiates fertility and whose very dews distill abundance, we find our inheritance so wasted that the eye aches to behold the prospect."[[195]]
Henry A. Wise, in the canvass of 1856, preliminary to his election to the office of Governor, depicted the financial and industrial conditions then existing in Virginia.