In the course of a single year, 1835-6, no less than forty thousand slaves are said to have been sold out of Virginia alone! ("Niles's Reg." Oct. 8, 1836.) The "New York Journal of Commerce" of Oct. 12, 1835, contained a letter from a Virginian, whom the editor calls "a very good and sensible man," asserting that twenty thousand slaves had been driven to the South from Virginia during that year, of which nearly one fourth was then remaining. But 1835 and 1836 were years of great speculation. In 1837 the consequent severe pressure in the money market was attributed by a committee of the citizens of Mobile (Ala.) in part to over-trading in slaves. Their report states, that purchases by Alabama of that species of property from other States since 1833 have amounted to about ten million dollars annually.

The slaves increase in about the same ratio in all of the Slave States. If the warmer latitudes of the extreme South are more congenial to them, and favor their increase more than the climate of Virginia, this effect is, at least, fully balanced by the great amount and unhealthy character of much of the labor on the sugar, rice, and cotton plantations, and by the great extent to which slave-breeding is carried in the more northern States. The following table exhibits the rates of increase of the slaves, every ten years, from 1790 to 1840:—

1790-18001800-18101810-18201820-18301830-1840
2733293028

Accordingly, for the fifty years ending in 1840, the slaves increased on an average a little over twenty-eight per cent every ten years. We adopt this as a fair statement of what should be their decennial natural increase in all the States; and, by natural increase, we mean increase from births. The following tables explain themselves:—

SLAVE-EXPORTING STATES.

Number
SlavesSlaveswhich oughtDecreaseAnnual
Name of State.in 1830.in 1840.to have beenevery tendecrease.
in each Stateyears.
in 1840.
Delaware3,2922,6054,2141,619162
Maryland102,29489,737130,93641,1994,120
Dis. of Columbia6,1194,6947,8333,139313
Virginia469,757448,987601,289152,30215,230
North Carolina235,601245,817301,56955,7525,575
South Carolina315,401327,038403,71376,6757,668
Kentucky165,213182,258211,47329,2152,922
Tennessee681,904829,210872,83743,6274,363
Total 2130,346 403,52840,353

SLAVE-IMPORTING STATES.

Number
SlavesSlaveswhich oughtExtraExtra
Name of State.in 1830.in 1840.to have beendecennialannual
in each Stateincrease.increase.
in 1840.
Georgia217,531280,944278,4402,504250
Florida15,50125,71719,8415,876587
Alabama117,549253,532150,462103,07010,307
Mississippi 65,659195,21184,043111,16811,117
Louisiana109,588168,452140,27328,1792,818
Arkansas4,57619,9355,85714,0781,408
Missouri25,08158,24032,10426,1362,614
Total 291,01129,101

The census of 1840, therefore, exhibits an annual unnatural decrease of over forty thousand of the slave-population in the exporting States. But this census, at least so far as statistics touching slaves and free colored persons are concerned, is notoriously and grossly incorrect. Either it or the tables prepared from it in the State Department have been dishonestly prepared, or very much garbled, apparently with the intent to prove that slavery was better calculated to secure the health of the negro race than a state of freedom. What figures will tell in favor of slavery?—not, what figures will tell the truth?—seems to have been the principle on which the last census was taken. Such being the case, we feel confident that the census makes the slaves in the exporting States decrease as little as possible. In 1830, Virginia had 469,757 slaves. In 1840 she ought to have had this number, and their natural increase for ten years, 135,532. Instead of this, all the natural increase is gone, and 20,770 besides! All will see that such a statement would tell too strongly against slavery to be admitted into a census got up under such slave-supporting auspices, unless the statement was really within the truth.

We believe, therefore, that the census of 1850, if truly taken, will exhibit a much larger annual unnatural decrease of the slave-population in the exporting States. This decrease, whatever it may really be, has not been owing to manumissions. It has not been caused by slaves running away. For the effects of both these causes, the surplus over 40,000 would be a liberal allowance. This unnatural decrease must, then, be caused by the slave-trade, and the migration of planters with their slaves. The fact is beyond all question, that every year forty thousand men, women, and children are torn from their homes and friends, and driven to the South and West. So truly did the Rev. Theodore Clapp speak (Sermon, p. 46), when he declared, "Slaves possess the inappreciable benefits which grow out of the endearing ties of friendship, kindred, sympathy, and the whole class of domestic affections. Parents and children, husbands and wives (it is true), are sometimes separated by being involved in those calamities which sweep away the possessions and prosperity of the master. But, take it all in all, they are as free and undisturbed in the enjoyment of their domestic relations, as the white inhabitants of the Northern States"! Forty thousand fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children are every year carried from the places of their birth, like so many cattle, although the terrible fact is well known that at least one fourth of them must die in the process of acclimation![S] So very tender is man of man, when he holds his brother in slavery, and makes merchandise of his sister! So eager is the soul-driver to coin his brother's blood into dollars! So ready are those whom "God has appointed masters" to sacrifice the lives of one fourth of those committed to their charge, in order greatly to advance the market value of the survivors!