A Defence of Virginia / And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional Party

by Robert Lewis Dabney

But we shall be asked: can it be possible that the representations so uniformly made by travellers, of the ragged, impoverished, and forlorn appearance of many districts of Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas, and of their poor and slovenly agriculture, are all mistaken? That there is much exhausted, and still more poor land, in these sections; that through extensive districts the soil and crops are now very thin, and the tillage rude, we explicitly admit. But this is by no means the same as admitting that it is slavery which has impoverished those regions. In the first place, of the larger part it is utterly false to say that they have ever been impoverished, by any cause; for they never had any fertility to lose. The statement usually made, as to the most of these old lands, is monstrously false. It has been usually represented that the Atlantic slope of Virginia was originally excessively rich, and has been brought to its present condition by slavery and tobacco. But in truth, this region, with the exception of limited spots, was naturally poor and thin; as every sensible person who has examined it knows. A vast proportion of it would scarcely have been judged susceptible of settlement at all, but for the attraction of its healthy climate, and the one or two crops of tobacco which its thin mould would produce. And it is only the thrifty industry of its inhabitants, together with the value of their staple, tobacco, which enabled them to live as plentifully as they did on so poor a soil.

In the next place, the exhaustion is really far less than it appears to the Englishman or New Englander, and the tillage far more judicious and thorough. The agriculture of planting regions is, necessarily, very different from that of farming regions; and especially is the culture of the grasses to a very large extent precluded by the nature of the crops, the soil, and the climate. Hence, excellent lands in the South, especially during fall and winter, often lack that appearance of verdancy, which to the English eye is the chief measure of fertility. But to suppose those lands as exhausted as fields equally bare or brown would be correctly judged in grass regions, would be an amazing mistake. Nor is the management always indolent where it seems slovenly. The Southern planter is proverbially disinclined to consult mere appearances at the cost of substantial advantage. Though the fencing seem rough, and the farm ill kept in many respects, the accurate observer will find his cultivation of the valuable staples, cotton and tobacco, thorough and skillful. There is no neater culture than that of the tobacco fields of Virginia.

Again: wherever the soil was originally fertile, in the Atlantic slope, as in the red lands of the Piedmont region, and the alluvial valleys of the great rivers, there the supposed decline of agriculture is unknown. All those lands which by nature were really fine, are now finer. The tillage was better, the yield per acre larger, the culture more remunerative, at the opening of the war, than at any date since the virgin forests were cleared away.

But so far as there has been an actual exhaustion of Southern soil, [and that there has been is admitted,] it can be proved to be due to other causes than slavery. For an exhaustion precisely similar can be pointed out in many of the free States. In both regions, it has arisen from two causes: the proximity of new and cheap lands, to which the exhausting farmer could easily resort, and the possession of a valuable staple crop, whose profits powerfully stimulated large operations. Those free States which lay under the same circumstances, have undergone the same exhaustion, except in so far as a natural depth of soil has made the process slower. If any parts of our country have escaped the "skinning process" after their first settlement, it has been simply because they were not so fortunate as to possess any valuable staple, or else were too remote from a market. Western Vermont, sixty years ago, was resorted to as a fertile wheat growing district. Long ago it was so exhausted that the culture of wheat was nearly relinquished, and its inhabitants emigrated to the new lands of Western New York to raise wheat; while the wheat fields of Vermont are now sheep-walks, and her farmers buy their flour. But Western New York, in its turn, has declined, till its average crop per acre is only one-half the original; and its farmers have sought the fertile plains of Illinois and Michigan, to subject them in turn to the same exhaustion. Even Ohio, fertile Ohio, the boast of abolitionists, whose black loam seemed able to defy human mismanagement, is proved by the stubborn census tables to have declined one-half, already, in its yield per acre. And her own children acknowledge, that if the appearance of the older parts be compared with that of twenty years ago, the signs of exhaustion are manifest. This vicious system, then, is not traceable to slave labour, seeing it prevails just as often where no slave labour exists; but to the cheapness of new lands, and facility of emigration.

Virginia presents other facts demonstrating the economy and efficiency of slave labour. The great Valley of Virginia (between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain Ranges,) is a farming and grazing region, of fertile soil and prosperous agriculture. In its great extent, some counties are occupied almost exclusively by free labour, and some have a large slave population. Now it is perfectly well known to all intelligent persons here, that precisely in those counties of this beautiful valley where there are most slaves, is the land highest in price, the agriculture most profitable and skillful, the farm buildings most elegant, and the community most prosperous and wealthy. Virginia east of the Blue Ridge is partly a farming and partly a planting region, having a mixed agriculture. Its soil is exceedingly different from that of the great valley, even where as fertile; and consequently the tillage is unlike. But there too, the neatest, most thorough and most profitable agriculture, and the highest priced lands, the finest farm stock, and the most prosperous landholders, are to be found precisely where the slave labour is most prevalent. And there is no agriculture in America superior to that of these favoured regions.

But, in conclusion, even if the industrial pursuits of the South were in the unfavourable condition which the Yankees love to assert, the sufficient cause would be found, not in slavery, but in the exactions and swindlings of their own section, through sectional federal legislation. Let a sober statement of these exactions be weighed, and the wonder will be, not that the South should be depleted, but that she is not bled to death. In the first place, the Federal Government, at its foundation, adopted the policy of giving a fishing bounty, (to encourage, as it said, a school of sailors for the national marine,) which went wholly into the pockets of New Englanders. It is said that the bounties paid are yearly about one and a half millions. Supposing that half only of the sum thus taken from the Federal Treasury was paid in by the South, (which we shall see is less than the truth,) this bounty, with that part of its increase which has accrued by simple interest alone, amounts now to one hundred and seventy-one millions, transferred by this unfair legislation from the South to the North. Next are to be mentioned the tonnage duties on foreign ships carrying between American ports, which, as the South had few ships, constituted a perpetual tax on us for the benefit of the North. Its amount cannot possibly be estimated with exactness, but it must have amounted to millions annually. Next came the oppression of a protective tariff, raising upon imports as high a revenue as sixty or seventy millions annually, in the last years of the government. As the South had few manufactures, and the North many, and as these duties, even where laid for revenue, were discriminating against the cheaper and better foreign manufactures which the South desired, in every case where discrimination was possible; it is manifest that the system constituted a simple robbery of the South of annual millions, for the benefit of the North. But we lost far more than the actual tariff on that portion of the national imports which were consumed at the South; because the restrictive policy, by throwing the balance of trade against the nations which took our grand staples of tobacco and cotton, deprived them of the ability to buy so freely, and at so large prices, as they would have done under a policy of free trade. Thus, the Southern planter not only paid the Northern manufacturer a profit on his goods equal to the protective tariff, but in the process of that robbery, lost several times as much more, in the prices which he should have received for his cotton or tobacco, had he been permitted to go with it to a free European market. This method of legislative plunder was so wasteful, that the Yankee, in stealing one dollar from us, annihilated several other dollars of our values. Next may be mentioned the advantage which the North gained in the funding of the Federal debt incurred at the Revolutionary war. This was so juggled by the Hamilton party, as to give the avails of it chiefly to the North. The enjoyment of that fund, with its increase since, has made a difference of untold millions in favour of the North. Last: the North twice enjoyed the advantage of having the National Bank situated in its midst, and wielding for purposes of traffic a large part of the funds of the Government. This superior command of ready money, acquired in these various ways, enabled the North to develope commercial centres, and to fix the great markets in her territory, thus ensuring to her the countless profits of commissions, freights, etc., on Southern trade.

Is it wonderful that the industry of a people thus swindled and plundered should languish? Who does not know the power of abundant capital, and especially of ready money, in stimulating enterprise and facilitating industry? Yet, under all this incubus the South has more than kept pace with its rapacious partner. When, therefore, the Yankee abolitionist points to any unfavourable contrasts in our condition, as evidence of the evil of slavery, he adds insult to falsehood: his own injustice has created the misfortune with which he taunts us, so far as that misfortune exists at all.

§ 5. Effects of Slavery on Population, Disease, and Crime.

But our enemies argue that slavery must be an obstacle to national growth and strength; for this is evinced by the very fact that they are nearly nineteen millions, and we only twelve and a quarter; when, at the beginning, the two sections were nearly equal in strength. Let us, therefore, look into this question. The increase of population is usually a sure test of the physical well-being of a people. Hardship and destitution repress population, by obstructing marriages, by breeding diseases, and by increasing the mortality of infants. If the population of the South be found to have a rapid natural increase, it will prove, therefore, the general prosperity of the people; and if the black race be found to multiply rapidly, it will be an evidence that their physical condition is happy, or in other words, that the institution of slavery is a humane one for them. Sufficient access being denied us to the statistics collected in 1860, our remarks must be based in part on the returns of 1850, and previous periods. These returns show that between 1840 and 1850, the whites of the free States increased thirty-nine and a half per cent., (39.42,) and the whites of the slave States increased thirty-four and a fourth per cent., (34.26.) The climate, the occupations, and the African labour of the South, repel almost the whole of that teeming immigration from Europe which has been rushing to our shores; so that making allowance for this source of population, it will be seen that the natural increase of Southern whites is as rapid as that of Northern.

In 1860, the whites in the free States had increased to about eighteen and a half millions; and in the slave States, to about eight and a quarter millions. The increase for the free States was, therefore, forty-two (42) per cent., and for the slave States thirty-three per cent., (33.) The census showed that in the decade between 1840 and 1850, four-fifths of the foreign immigration, for the reasons mentioned, went into the free States. If we suppose the same ratio to have prevailed in the last decade, then the fact that the North has received four-fifths of the immense rush of Europeans who resorted to our shores in the last ten years, will abundantly account for this difference of increase. The South has grown as fast in white population, as the North would have done, left to itself.