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 reduced their value 25 per cent, in two hours after its passage was known.  IF IT SHOULD BE OUR LOT, AS I TRUST IT WILL BE, TO ACQUIRE THE COUNTRY OF TEXAS, THEIR PRICE WILL RISE AGAIN.”—­p. 77.

Mr. Goode, Of Virginia, in his speech before the Virginia Legislature, in Jan. 1832, [See Richmond Whig, of that date,] said:—­

“The superior usefulness of the slaves in the south, will constitute an effectual demand, which will remove them from our limits.  We shall send them from our state, because it will be our interest to do so.  Our planters are already becoming farmers.  Many who grew tobacco as their only staple, have already introduced, and commingled the wheat crop.  They are already semi-farmers; and in the natural course of events, they must become more and more so.—­As the greater quantity of rich western lands are appropriated to the production of the staple of our planters, that staple will become less profitable.—­We shall gradually divert our lands from its production, until we shall become actual farmers.—­Then will the necessity for slave labor diminish; then will the effectual demand diminish, and then will the quantity of slaves diminish, until they shall be adapted to the effectual demand.

“But gentlemen are alarmed lest the markets of other states be closed against the introduction of our slaves.  Sir, the demand for slave labor MUST INCREASE through the South and West.  It has been heretofore limited by the want of capital; but when emigrants shall be relieved from their embarrassments, contracted by the purchase of their lands, the annual profits of their estates, will constitute an accumulating capital, which they will seek to invest in labor.  That the demand for labor must increase in proportion to the increase of capital, is one of the demonstrations of political economists; and I confess, that for the removal of slavery from Virginia, I look to the efficacy of that principle; together with the circumstance that our southern brethren are constrained to continue planters, by their position, soil and climate.”