At the North a farmer hires as many _men_ as his work requires; at the South the laborers cannot be separated from the _women_ and _children_. These are _property_, and must be owned by somebody. Now when we take this last circumstance into consideration, and at the same time recollect that the very value of the slaves debars the poor from owning them--and connect these two facts with the character of the cultivation in which slave labor is employed; we must be ready to admit that those who do employ this species of labor, cannot on an average hold less than _ten slaves_, including able-bodied men, their wives and children. It appears by the census, that of the slave population, the two sexes are almost exactly equal in number; and that there are two children under ten years of age, for every male slave over that age. Hence, if a planter employs only three men, we may take it for granted that his slave family consists of at least 12 souls, viz.: 3 men, 3 women, and 6 children. We of course estimate the number of children too low, since there will be some over ten years of age. It thus appears that the average number of slaves we assign to each slaveholder is probably far below the truth; but we purposely avoid even the approach to exaggeration. Now the number of slaves in the United States by the last census, was 2,487,113; of course according to our estimate of ten slaves to one master, there can be only 248,711 slaveholders.
The number of _white males over 20 years of age_ in the slave states and territories was 1,016,307 Deduct Slaveholders, viz. 248,711 --------- And we have the number we are now addressing 767,596
We are not forgetful that our enumeration must embrace some who are the _sons_ of slaveholders, and who are therefore interested in upholding the system,--but we are fully convinced that our estimate of the number of slaveholders is far beyond the truth, and that we may therefore safely throw out of account the very moderate number of slaveholders' sons above 20 years of age, and not themselves possessing slaves.
Here then, fellow-citizens, you see your strength. You have a majority of 518,885 over the slaveholders; and now we repeat, that with a numerical majority of more than half a million, slavery lives or dies at _your_ behest.