G, and to cause the
_greatest number possible to be raised._ &c."

_"Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising state for other states."_

Extract from the speech of MR. FAULKNER, in the Va. House of
Delegates, 1832. [See Richmond Whig.]

"But he [Mr. Gholson,] has labored to show that the Abolition of
Slavery, were it practicable, would be _impolitic_, because as the
drift of this portion of his argument runs, your slaves constitute the
entire wealth of the state, all the _productive capacity_ Virginia
possesses. And, sir, as things are, _I believe he is correct_. He
says, and in this he is sustained by the gentleman from Halifax, Mr.
Bruce, that the slaves constitute the entire available wealth at
present, of Eastern Virginia. Is it true that for 200 years the only
increase in the wealth and resources of Virginia, has been a remnant
of the natural _increase_ of this miserable race?--Can it be, that on
this _increase_, she places her solo dependence? I had always
understood that indolence and extravagance were the necessary
concomitants of slavery; but, until I heard these declarations, I had
not fully conceived the horrible extent of this evil. These gentlemen
state the fact, which the history and _present aspect of the
Commowealth but too well sustain_. The gentlemen's facts and argument
in support of his plea of impolicy, to me, seem rather unhappy. To me,
such a state of things would itself be conclusive at least, that
something, even as a measure of policy, should be done. What, sir,
have you lived for two hundred years, without personal effort or
productive industry, in extravagance and indolence, sustained alone
_by the return from sales of the increase of slaves_, and retaining
merely such a number as your now impoverished lands can sustain, AS
STOCK, _depending, too, upon a most uncertain market_? When that
market is closed, as in the nature of things it must be, what then
will become of this gentleman's hundred millions worth of slaves, AND
THE ANNUAL PRODUCT?"

In the debates in the Virginia Convention, in 1829, Judge Upsher
said--"The value of slaves as an article of property [and it is in
that view only that they are legitimate subjects of taxation] _depends
much on the state of the market abroad_. In this view, it is the value
of land _abroad_, and not of land here, which furnishes the ratio. It
is well known to us all, that nothing is more fluctuating than the
value of slaves. A late law of Louisiana red