STATISTICS OF SLAVERY.

No. III.

Continued from page 117.

In the second number of the Quarterly Review, recently published in this city, I find an able review of Dr. Cooper's lectures onp olitical economy, published at Columbia in 1826. The reviewer, though apparently opposed to the practice of slave holding, has ventured some remarks, which seem to soften or deny a part of the evils resulting from that impolitic system. He observes, "In his chapter on labour and wages, Dr. Cooper compares the cost of rearing a slave, with his ordinary earnings in making cotton; for the purpose of showing that slave labour is dearer than that of a freeman. That this is the case, when both descriptions earn a bare subsistence, we have no doubt.* But in this country, where the white labourer is, in general, so much more expensively fed and clothed than the slave, we rather question the fact. It certainly seems the interest of the slave to consume as much, and to work as little, as he can; yet, with all his temptations to do so, he in fact performs nearly as much work, and consumes far less than the free labourer." The reviewer must here

*This is easily conceived. If the slave earns a bare subsistence, since he must have a subsistence at all events, it does not appear that the owner can derive any emolument from his labour. But the free man may earn, or more properly, receive a bare subsistence, and yet leave to his employer a considerable profit; and we may rest assured, the free labourer will not find employment in the service of others, if his services do not remunerate his employer with a profit for the wages allowed.

ness.

It

permit me to adopt his own expression; I rather question the fact. Judging a priori, from the nature of the case, we can hardly suppose that the slave, with every temptation to idleness, and one motive only to labour, will perform nearly as much as the man who has every inducement to exertion, and but one temptation to idleDr. Cooper estimates the labour of a slave at two thirds of what a white labourer, at usual wages, would perform. This may probably be a tolerable approximation, if we make the comparison between slave labour, and the labour of a free man in a slave-holding state. Where labour is generally performed by slaves, they give the tone, and furnish the standard, both as to quantity and kind. The free man copies from the slave, not the slave from the free man. has been said, as a reproach to our people of the north, that such of them as emigrate to the south, and become owners of slaves, are generally more severe in their exactions, than those who have always lived in the slaveholding districts. This circumstance is explained by, and at the same time illustrates the proposition above stated. The man whose notions of industry have been drawn from the exertions of free men in a non-slaveholding district, soon loses his pa tience, when condemned to wait the tardy, reluctant movements of slaves; while the native of a slave state has learned to measure by those movements, the exertions which ought to be made. Edwards in his description of a West Indian sugar plantation, after leading his first gang through the languid morning, and assigned them the meridianal period for refreshment and repose, subjoins, "At two o'clock

hey are again mummoned to he ield, when, laving seen refreshed 10th y rest and bout, her now namitest some agne #gorous and ummated ani cation: although I can, with great truth, assert, hat mr English abouren us wwa imate, would reform at least hres imes the work of my me negro in the same period. ** Dr. Pinitant estimates the work, Terformet with ease, y wa Earneans, as equivalent to what twelve slaves are accustomed to effect.?

The expertence of Joshua Hresie, formerty Barbardoes, furnishes a aring exemplification the ference between slave labour and fee. He Tied the effect of abstituting he hope of reward for the fear if sh ment, and the resuit exceeded us expectations. He obtained from s slaves in a given time, by the pay ment of a mail premium, free times as much work, as vitiant te la his case, however, the premium vis a le paid, anig in condition that a certain task was performed; and therefore the effect of servile habits vas prana bly completely counteracted by the stimulus of an expected premin n. As far as my own observations have extended, I shonid not hesitate pronounce the quantity of work per formed by a slave in a slave-noiding district, compared with that of a free man in a free state, far below the es timate of Dr. Cooper. It may be abserved that in non-slave-holding districts, a large part of the labour is performed by those immediately interested in the remit, and that even when labour is performed by hirelings, the employer generally takes

*Hist. W. Indies, vol i. p. 123.
↑ Notes on W. Indies, vol i. p. 257.
* Dickson's Mitigation of Slavery.

us art, uni hus as presence und xanne difuses no he cominon exertions, m mergy which he nere reting nut seldom bits. In wavetoking fistricts, he istinction JE» ween master ant save, 's general▼ Da strongly market o aimit of hat exitimi imuns. That he save a generaly worse tea and more scantly othed han he fee nan, s extily ximittert: ut at le com

smes ir ess, & aut nute sa dear. if

comfortably clothed and penuntuly et, is many of them unquestionably are, he will toubtless consume more than the fee nan who iepenus fr his inport on the abour is hands. The superior care n he preser's ian both of bad and riothing, wineir he fee man's sense of interest exates, sin ul pribability, more than a counterpoise to the expense of a somewhat iner varirne, and more felicate fre. How uten do we re persons spend in the mist of sqmažd Joverty, a su more than equal her comfortable support! fe provisions of the save are too sparngly furnished, his conscience will be readly movided to the cireumstances of his life. Few slaves possess a morality suficiently reined, to deny to the cravings of hunger, a clandestine supply from the stores of a master. And of all modes by which the poor are maintained, surely the most expensive is that of permitting or compelling them to live by theft. The articles purloined are selected with as little attention to the interest as to the choice of the owner, and the necessity of concealment must often occasion the destruction of what cannot be immedately used. Besides, the very means of securing their property from the

pillage of slaves, constitute an article of expense in the system of slavery, which does not enter into the establishment of a non-slave-holding community.

tor

The reviewer proceeds: "the docmay rest assured, that whenever the day arrives, as come it must, when the cost of rearing a slave will exceed the value of his labour, the slave owner will not be slow to discover it, and will be as eager for emancipation then, as he now is opposed to it. But this day is distant in South Carolina, and it will not arrive until the wages of free labour are nearly reduced to a bare subsistence." If, as the reviewer had just remarked, improvidence, extravagance, and bad management, are the natural consequences of domestic slavery, it appears possible that a part of this improvidence and bad management, may consist of negligence with regard to his accounts, and ignorance of the value of the labour performed by the slaves, as well as of the actual expense of rearing them. When the cost of rearing a slave exceeds the value of his labour, or the price for which he can be sold, it must be ultimately perceived, but the master's estate may have been long mouldering away before the cause is fully understood. The labour of slaves certainly is, and long has been, unprofitable in Maryland and Virginia, but the evidence of exhausted farms, and deciduous mansions has not yet excited the general eagerness for emancipation which the reviewer anticipates in South Carolina. Slave labour may be deemed more profitable than it really is, when employed upon a rich or virgin soil, which it is gradually reducing to sterility. And while VOL. I.-20

such soils remain, to be cultivated by the labour of slaves, an immediate profit may continue to be drawn from this species of cultivation, at the expense of a succeeding generation.

But the part which has been chiefly instrumental in eliciting these remarks, is the following:

"There is no way in which misrepresentation has been greater or more frequent, than in stating the comparative increase of the white and black population in the slave-holding states. And these statements have been the more imposing, as they profess to be founded on the direct authority of the census, and on arithmetical certainty. Thus it has been gravely asserted as the result of actual calculation, that the gross population, black and white, increases much slower in the slave than in the free states; that the white population increases about twice as fast in the free states, or those in which there are few or no slaves, as in the slave states; and that the slaves increase much faster than the white population in the slave-holding states.* But it is well known, that in making these comparisons, there are several circumstances to be taken into account; and that as we have no accurate

* These propositions, the reviewer tells us, are erroneously deduced from the three first censuses, in Raymond's Political Economy. That they are stated in the work referred to, and in the pamphlet on the Missouri question by the same writer, is certain; whether erroneously or not, is another question. They are given very much in detail in the pamphlet. I have examined nearly all his calculations, and find them, with a few exceptions, very nearly correct. It is still a question, whether these particular facts authorise his general conclusions.

Thus the white population in all the slave-holding states, has, during that period, increased 33 per cent., while the whole black population has increased not quite 30 per cent."

Here it is assumed that the emigrants from Europe swell the amount of the white population in the free states; that very few emigrants, either from Europe or the free states, settle in the slave-holding states; and, therefore, the enumerations at the different periods, do not exhibit the true relative increase. Supposing, for the present, the facts to be as assumed, it may be observed, that the population of an old settled country is but slightly affected by emigration, unless it is of such a character or extent as sensibly to change the state of the arts. An emigrant who removes, leaves a place and an employment to be filled by a successor; the profits of employment furnish the means of support, and increase the facilities for raising a family. Population follows the means of subsistence; hence removals accelerate the march of population. On the other hand, the influx of emigrants, by filling up the places of employment, and increasing the difficulty of rearing a family, retards the growth of the native class. The situation of the greater part of the ten states first brought into view, is, and long has been such, that, probably, very little addition has been made to their population by the emigrants from Europe, notwithstanding their numbers. But the truth is, that great numbers have emigrated from the free to the slave-holding states. Some considerable districts are nearly peopled by them.*

* In Virginia, west of the Alleghany mountain, the slaves are to the

It is true, that great numbers have removed from the slave states, to the new ones north of the Ohio, but it is also true, that a full tide of emigration has been flowing into them from the middle and eastern states, ever since they were opened for settlement; and that a species of population, which always moves in the van of civilized communities, like the foam on the tide, has rolled through them to the country further west.

In the comparison above exhibited of the increase in the free and slave states, it is remarkable that we have mostly old settled states on the one side, and several newly settled on the other; hence they are compared under very discordant circumstances. The accession to one member of the equation is chiefly of native growth, but to the other, a large part is owing to emigration. The reviewer has included Delaware among the free states; why this was done, unless in compliance with the example of Raymond, is not obvious. In 1790, the slaves in Delaware composed between a sixth and a seventh part of the whole population, which differed but little from the proportion in Kentucky at the same period, the slaves there being between a fifth and a sixth of the whole.

The reviewer appears not to have been aware that the importation of slaves from Africa, into South Caroli na and Georgia, was prohibited prior to the year 1808.

whites nearly as one to ten; and to the east of that mountain, nearly as seven to eight. I know that a part of this district, and from this circumstance I conclude, a large part, has been settled with emigrants from the north.