Slavery and the Constitution Part 11

The following advertis.e.m.e.nt is before us ("Spirit of Liberty"):--

"VALUABLE SLAVES AT AUCTION.--I will sell on Sat.u.r.day, the 14th inst. in front of the Market-house, one woman and her child. The woman is about 24 years old; and the child, a girl, about 5 years of age. The woman accustomed to house-business, also to the farm. The negroes are very likely, and warranted sound. They will be sold on a credit of sixty days for negotiable paper satisfactorily endorsed.

"Nov. 5. CHARLES PHELPS, Auctioneer."

The following is taken from a paper published at Opelousas (La.):--

"AUCTION SALE.--The undersigned will offer for sale, through the ministry of a public auctioneer, on her plantation, near Carancro, in the parish of St. Landry, on Monday the 5th day of February next, and the following days, one hundred choice slaves, of both s.e.xes and different ages, among which is a good blacksmith and several other mechanics. These slaves will be sold separately, and under full and satisfactory guarantee of t.i.tles.--8 ox-carts, 69 work-oxen, 20 mules, 20 work-horses, 1,500 barrels of corn, 12,500 cypress pickets.

Conditions of Sale.--The slaves will be sold on a credit of one and two years from the day of sale; purchasers giving sufficient security to the satisfaction of the vendor, and the slaves remaining specially mortgaged until final payment of princ.i.p.al and the interest which may accrue thereon, at the rate of eight per cent per annum from time due until final payment. The conditions of the sale of the movable property will be made known on the day of sale.

WIDOW HYPOLITE CRETIEN.

"Opelousas, January 3d, 1849."

Literally speaking, tens of thousands of such advertis.e.m.e.nts as these might be adduced. You can hardly open a Southern paper without finding several.

Part of the trade is carried on by water. This part of the trade is regulated by Act of Congress (Act March 2, 1807, sect. 8-10), and slavers sail apparently with commendable regularity. The following notice is taken from the "National Intelligencer" a few years since:--

"ALEXANDRIA AND NEW ORLEANS PACKETS.--Brig Tribune, Samuel C. Bush, master, will sail as above on the 1st January; brig Isaac Franklin, William Smith, master, on the 15th January; brig Uncas, Nathaniel Boush, master, on the 1st February. They will continue to leave this port on the 1st and 15th of each month, throughout the s.h.i.+pping season. _Servants that are intended to be s.h.i.+pped will at any time be received for safe keeping at twenty-five cents a day._ JOHN AMFIELD, Alexandria."

The two following advertis.e.m.e.nts are taken from the "American Beacon" of January 24, 1848, published at Norfolk, Virginia. They are advertis.e.m.e.nts of the same person, who, as we have just seen, offers to "attend to s.h.i.+pping of negroes to any of the Southern ports:"--

"FOR NEW ORLEANS.--Virginia and Louisiana Line Packets. The fast-sailing packet barque Bachelor, Page, master, will sail for the above port from the 20th to the 27th inst. For freight, cabin or steerage pa.s.sage, for which she has good accommodations, apply to G. W. APPERSON."

"FOR NEW ORLEANS.--Virginia and Louisiana Line Packets will commence their regular trips to the above port the 20th September, and continue monthly throughout the season. They consist of the following vessels, to wit, barque Parthian, Capt. G. W. Allen; barque Bachelor, Capt. Hiram Horton; barque Phoenix, Capt.

Nathaniel Boush.

"The above vessels are all of the first cla.s.s, and commanded by long and experienced commanders.--For further information, apply to G. W. APPERSON."

This Capt. Nath. Boush is probably the same man who figures in Mr.

Amfield's advertis.e.m.e.nt. But _Southern_ traders by no means have a monopoly of this coastwise slave-trade. The barque Parthenon, Mellish, master, cleared from the port of New York, October 10, 1846, for Richmond, Virginia, _avowedly_ "_to load with slaves for the port of New Orleans_."

How business-like is the following letter from a North Carolina slave-trader to his consignee in New Orleans! ("A Reproof of the American Church," p. 22):--

"HALIFAX, N.C. November 16, 1839.

"Dear Sir,--I have s.h.i.+pped in the brig Addison, prices as below:--No. 1, Caroline Ennis, $650; 2, Silvy Holland, $625; 3, Silvy Booth, $487.50; 4, Maria Pollock, $475; 5, Emeline Pollock, $475; 6, Delia Averit, $475.

"The two girls that cost $650 and $625 were bought before I s.h.i.+pped my first. I have a great many negroes offered to me; but I will not pay the prices they ask, for I know they will come down. I have no opposition in market. I will wait until I hear from you before I buy, and then I can judge what I must pay. Goodwin will send you the bill of lading for my negroes, as he s.h.i.+pped them with his own.

_Write often, as the times are critical, and it depends on the prices you get to govern me in buying._ "Yours, &c.

G. W. BARNES.

"Mr. Theophilus Freeman, New Orleans."

The number of slaves thus bought and sold can never be known with perfect accuracy. Hon. John G. Palfrey, in his excellent Papers on the Slave Power (p. 83), estimates the number annually sold from the more northerly Slave States at not less than _forty thousand_! We think his estimate within the truth.

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," a.s.serting 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 lat.i.tudes 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:--

+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ 1790-1800 1800-1810 1810-1820 1820-1830 1830-1840 +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ 27 33 29 30 28 +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

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 which ought Decrease Annual Name of State. Slaves Slaves to have been every ten decrease. in 1830. in 1840. in each State years. in 1840. +----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+ Delaware 3,292 2,605 4,214 1,619 162 Maryland 102,294 89,737 130,936 41,199 4,120 Dis. of Columbia 6,119 4,694 7,833 3,139 313 Virginia 469,757 448,987 601,289 152,302 15,230 North Carolina 235,601 245,817 301,569 55,752 5,575 South Carolina 315,401 327,038 403,713 76,675 7,668 Kentucky 165,213 182,258 211,473 29,215 2,922 Tennessee 681,904 829,210 872,837 43,627 4,363 +----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+ Total 2130,346 403,528 40,353 +----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+

SLAVE-IMPORTING STATES.

+----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+ Number which ought Extra Extra Name of State. Slaves Slaves to have been decennial annual in 1830. in 1840. in each State increase. increase. in 1840. +----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+ Georgia 217,531 280,944 278,440 2,504 250 Florida 15,501 25,717 19,841 5,876 587 Alabama 117,549 253,532 150,462 103,070 10,307 Mississippi 65,659 195,211 84,043 111,168 11,117 Louisiana 109,588 168,452 140,273 28,179 2,818 Arkansas 4,576 19,935 5,857 14,078 1,408 Missouri 25,081 58,240 32,104 26,136 2,614 +----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+ Total 291,011 29,101 +----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+

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 friends.h.i.+p, kindred, sympathy, and the whole cla.s.s 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 "G.o.d 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!

We have no data from which to infer the number of planters who go South with their slaves. But, allowing that five hundred thus remove, and that on an average they have ten slaves each (proper estimates we believe), we have left thirty-five thousand as the number of human beings who are every year sold to the speculators in human fles.h.!.+

Now, Mr. Barnes's "lot" of his fellow-creatures averaged in value over five hundred dollars apiece; and those were times when, from his account, the market was glutted, and the prices accordingly low. "Young and likely" negroes are more easily acclimated, and are better able to work, than others. Consequently, they are the ones most sought after by judicious traders. We should consider five hundred dollars for a young, healthy negro, warranted sound, as really a low price. But, if we suppose the slaves annually exported to be worth less than any of Mr.

Barnes's lot,--considering them as worth only $450 apiece,--we have, as _the sums of money every year invested in the trade in slaves, the very moderate sum of fifteen millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars_! This is _exclusive_ of the cost of all the private jails, of transportation by sea and land, food, wages of drivers, &c.; which cannot but very largely increase this sum. This sum, $15,750,000, would, in less than three years, double the number of miles of railroad which were in operation in all the Southern States in 1846 (Parker's "Letter on Slavery," p. 52). It would, in only two years, more than double in length all the railroads which were then in operation in all the Slave States, except Maryland. It costs every year five millions more to carry on the domestic slave-trade than it does to fit out and victual all the whale-s.h.i.+ps of the United States! ("American Almanac, 1843," p. 178.) Over one fifth of the entire value of the cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco raised in the fifteen Slave States in 1839, and over one third of the value of articles manufactured in the South, was invested in slaves! Nearly twice as many slaves are carried South and West every year as there are men in all the Slave States engaged in the learned professions!--so terribly prominent is this trade in men and women! Who will venture to conceive, much less express, the deep degradation which must be caused by a trade of such fearful character and magnitude;--degradation not only to the immediate sufferers, but to all those who may be subjected to it?

CHAPTER IX.

RUNAWAY SLAVES.

"It is contrary also to the will of G.o.d for servants either to run away, or harbor a runaway"--_Rev. C. C. Jones's Teaching to Slaves._

The treatment which runaway slaves receive cannot but greatly degrade them. Pious as well as worldly masters consider that their slaves have no more right to run away than their horses or mules. The Christian slaveholder orally teaches his slaves, that, by taking this step, they sin in the sight of G.o.d; for has not Paul most emphatically condemned the practice? So careful is he of the souls of those whom G.o.d has committed to his charge!

We frequently find advertis.e.m.e.nts similar to this, cut from the "American Beacon" (Norfolk, Va.), Jan. 24, 1848:--

"$50 REWARD.--Stop Ruffin and Wyatt.--These men left my house on Sat.u.r.day night, January 15, 1848, _without any provocation_. They have uniformly maintained a good character for honesty, industry, and sobriety,--were obedient and trustworthy servants, and _no severity nor threats had been offered towards them_; and I very much fear they have left for some Northern State.

"These slaves were originally owned in Surry, and _possibly_ may be in the vicinity of their relatives. GEORGE N. HATCH.

"Gaysville, P.O. Prince George County, Va."

Good Mr. Bryant Johnson is very much more indignant. In the "Macon (Georgia) Telegraph," May 28, is the following:--

"About the first of March last, the negro-man, Ransom, left me _without the least provocation whatever_. I will give a reward of $20 for said negro if taken, dead or alive; and, if killed in any attempt, an advance of $5 will be paid. BRYANT JOHNSON.

"Crawford County, Georgia."