The facts seem more significant, if we compare the slave increase in Kentucky with that of the Negroes in the country as a whole. Bearing in mind that Kentucky was a comparatively new region when it became a State and that at that time slavery was firmly established along the seaboard, we are not surprised to find that the slave increase in Kentucky was much more rapid for the first three or four decades than it was in the nation as a whole. After the year 1830 the increase in the United States, on a percentage basis, was much greater than in Kentucky. It seems that the institution started in with a boom and then eventually died down in Kentucky.
There were several reasons for this fact. A glance at the increase of whites in Kentucky for the last three decades will show that they were forging ahead while the slaves were relatively declining. This was due to a large amount of immigration of that class of white people who were not slaveholding. A second factor was the non-importation act of 1833. About the same time there came to be a conviction among a large portion of the population that slavery in Kentucky was economically unprofitable. There is abundant ground for the position that the law of 1833 was passed because of a firm conviction that there were enough slaves in the State. The only ones who could profit by any amount of importation were the slave dealers and beyond a certain point even their trade would prove unprofitable. If there was ever a single slaveholder who defended importation on the ground that more slaves were needed in Kentucky he never spoke out in public and gave his reasons for such a position.
Unfortunately there are few statistics concerning the number of slaveholders in Kentucky. Cassius M. Clay in his appeal to the people in 1845 stated that there were 31,495 owners of slaves in the State.[245] The same year the auditor's tax books showed that there were 176,107 slaves in Kentucky.[246] This would mean an average of 5.5 slaves for each owner. The accuracy of these figures is substantiated by those for the census of 1850 which gave 210,981 slaves held by 38,456 slaveholders or an average of 5.4 to each owner. These holders were classified according to the number of slaves held as follows:
| Holders of 1 slave | 9,244 |
| Holders of over 1 and less than 5 slaves | 13,284 |
| Holders of 5 and under 10 slaves | 9,579 |
| Holders of 10 and under 20 slaves | 5,022 |
| Holders of 20 and under 50 slaves | 1,198 |
| Holders of 50 and under 100 slaves | 53 |
| Holders of 100 and under 200 slaves | 5 |
| 38,385 [247] |
This distribution shows that, although the average number of slaves held may have been 5.4 for each slaveholder, 21,528 or 50 per cent of them held less than five slaves each, and that 34,129 or 88 per cent held less than 20 each. Of the 132,920 free families in the State only 28 per cent held any slaves at all. This was somewhat below the average for the whole South. The total number of families holding slaves in the United States, by the census of 1850, was 347,525. With an average of 5.7 persons to each family there were about 2,000,000 persons in the relation of slave owners, or about one third of the whole white population of the slave States. In South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana about one half of the white population was thus classified. As stated above, this percentage in Kentucky was only twenty-eight.
This comparison can be more clearly shown by a table of the slave States from the census of 1850 showing the number of white people, the slaveholders, slaves, and the average number of slaves for each slaveholder.
| Whites | Slave- holders | Per Cent of Whites | Slaves | Average per Holder | |
| Alabama | 426,514 | 29,295 | 6.8 | 342,844 | 11.6 |
| Arkansas | 162,189 | 5,999 | 3.7 | 47,100 | 7.8 |
| Florida | 47,203 | 3,520 | 7.4 | 39,310 | 11.1 |
| Georgia | 521,572 | 38,456 | 7.3 | 381,622 | 9.9 |
| Kentucky | 761,413 | 38,385 | 5.0 | 210,981 | 5.4 |
| Louisiana | 255,491 | 20,670 | 8.0 | 244,809 | 11.4 |
| Maryland | 417,943 | 16,040 | 3.8 | 90,368 | 5.6 |
| Mississippi | 295,718 | 23,116 | 7.8 | 309,878 | 13.4 |
| Missouri | 592,004 | 19,185 | 3.2 | 87,422 | 4.5 |
| North Carolina | 553,028 | 28,303 | 5.1 | 288,548 | 10.2 |
| South Carolina | 274,563 | 25,596 | 9.3 | 384,984 | 15.0 |
| Tennessee | 756,836 | 33,864 | 4.4 | 239,459 | 7.0 |
| Texas | 154,034 | 7,747 | 5.2 | 58,161 | 7.5 |
| Virginia | 894,800 | 55,063 | 6.1 | 472,528 | 8.5 |
Among the fourteen real slaveholding States of the Union Kentucky stood ninth in the number of slaves in 1850, but was third in the number of slave owners and with the exception of Missouri had less slaves for each owner than any other State. From the third column of this table, however, we are rather surprised to find that not only in Missouri but in Arkansas, Maryland and Tennessee the number of slaveholders was smaller in proportion to the total white population than in Kentucky.
Value of Slaves at Value of Real and Personal Property $400 per Head Less the Value of Slaves