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_.