ears of age 690
Adam 41 years of age 700
Bettie 3 years of age 260
Aaron 28 years of age 1,191
Sam 25 years of age 1,350

The auction of the slaves of the estate of Spencer C. Graves at
Lexington in April, 1859, brought these prices:[280]

John 18 years of age $1,500
Dick 21 years of age 1,400
Jerry 38 years of age 700
Major 50 years of age 480
Charles 31 years of age 1,155
John Jr 18 years of age 1,140
Billy 31 years of age 1,100
Isabella 40 years, with 3 children, ages
11, 5 and 2 1,610
Rebecca 30 years, with 3 children, ages
11, 6 and 4 2,410
Lucy 18 years of age, with infant 1,280
Davidella 31 years of age 1,220
Mary Ann 31 years of age 835
Patience 18 years of age 1,350
Catharine 15 years of age 1,130

Such a series of prices would show beyond a reasonable doubt that the
value of slaves was determined entirely by the increasing demand for
slaves in the lower South and was in no way an indication of the value
of slave labor within Kentucky. As was pointed out earlier in this
chapter, the labor value of an agricultural slave in the State
steadily decreased after about the year 1830.

Was slavery profitable to the Kentucky planters? In the many debates
on the slavery question which took place after 1830 no one ever stood
out in the affirmative. The only ones to discuss the economic side of
the issue were those in opposition to slavery. As has often been said
of the Kentucky situation, "the program was to use negroes to raise
corn to feed hogs to feed negroes, who raised more corn to feed more
hogs." Tobacco was the largest crop raised in the State and corn came
next. Neither proved to be peculiarly adapted to slave labor. There
were few large plantations in the State where it could be made
advantageous. What Negro work there was to be done was never confined
to any particular kind of cultivation but was used in the manner of
farm labor today in the State. Squire Turner, of Madison County, in
the Constitutional Convention of 1849 made a careful sum