It is an established maxim of trade, that the supply eventually equals the demand. If the trade happens to be in men and women; in one way or another, men and women will be supplied to meet the demand. There is a great demand for slaves in the Southern and South-western States, because slave-labor is very profitable there. "The domestic cannot compete with the South-western demand for slaves," says a writer in the leading Democratic paper of Virginia ("Richmond Enquirer," Nov. 13, 1846). The slaves in the South and West do not increase fast enough to supply the demand. The foreign slave-trade is piracy. The only resource, therefore, which is left to those States is a domestic slave-trade with the Northern Slave States; where, to meet the demand, they resort to breeding slaves! Woman is degraded into a breeder!
Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, in his speech in the legislature of that State, Jan. 18, 1832 (see "Richmond Whig"), says:—
"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 M. Randolph, of Virginia, formerly governor of that State, in his speech before the legislature in 1832, said:—
"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!"
President Dew, of William and Mary's College, speaking of the annual exportation of slaves from Virginia, says:—
"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."
Henry Clay, in his speech before the Colonization Society in 1829, says:—
"It 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 slaves by the high price of the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own."