worked to advantage with slaves, and it is inconvenient to look after them, if you work them separately." And then, when I push the inquiries by asking, why not send North and get some of our labourers? "Well—the truth is, I have been used to driving niggers, and I don't think I could drive white men. I should not know how to manage them." So far as I understand the matter, then, Virginia is in this position: there are slaves enough in most of the country to mainly exclude white labourers from labouring men's occupations and to make the white people dependent on slave-labour for certain things; but the slaves being drawn off almost as fast as they grow up to grow cotton in the more Southern States, and those which remain being managed with almost as much regard for this demand as for the local demand for labour, this local demand is not systematically provided for; and even if there were the intention to provide for it, there are no sufficient means to do so, as the white population increases in number much more rapidly than the slave.[1] I do not mean that no whites are employed in the ordinary occupations of slaves in Virginia. In some parts there are few or no slaves, and the white people who live in these parts, of course do not live without having work done; but even in these districts it is hardly possible to find men or women, who are willing and able to serve others well and faithfully, on wages. In some parts white working men also drift in slowly from the Free States, but they are too few and scattered to perceptibly affect the habits of the people and customs of the country,
- ↑ From 1850 to 1860, the rate of increase of the free population has been 16·44 per cent; of the slave, 3·88. (From a recent official statement of the Census Office.) A somewhat parallel case to that of the Virginia slaveholder is that of a breeder of blooded stock. A Flying Dutchman is used upon occasion as a charger, but under no pressure of the harvest will you find him put before the cart. I have more than once heard the phrase used, "Niggers are worth too much" to be used in such and such work. Instances of this are given hereafter.
