These arguments had been answered long before by a citizen of Charleston.  The clamor, said he, was intended not so much to guard the community against theft and insurrection as to diminish the competition of slaves with white mechanics.  The strict enforcement of the law would almost wholly deprive the public of the services of jobbing slaves, which were indispensable under existing circumstances.  Let the statute therefore be left in the obscurity of the lawyers’ bookshelves, he concluded, to be brought forth only in case of an emergency.[40] And so such laws were left to sleep, despite the plaints of self-styled reformers.

[Footnote 40:  Letter to the editor in the Charleston City Gazette, Nov. 1, 1825.  To similar effect was an editorial in the Augusta Chronicle, Oct. 16, 1851.]

That self-hire may often have led to self-purchase is suggested by an illuminating letter of Billy Procter, a slave at Americus, Georgia, in 1854 to Colonel John B. Lamar of whom something has been seen in a foregoing chapter.  The letter, presumably in the slave’s own hand, runs as follows:  “As my owner, Mr. Chapman, has determined to dispose of all his Painters, I would prefer to have you buy me to any other man.  And I am anxious to get you to do so if you will.  You know me very well yourself, but as I wish you to be fully satisfied I beg to refer you to Mr. Nathan C. Monroe, Dr. Strohecker and Mr. Bogg.  I am in distress at this time, and will be until I hear from you what you will do.  I can be bought for $1000—­and I think that you might get me for 50 Dolls less if you try, though that is Mr. Chapman’s price.  Now Mas John, I want to be plain and honest with you.  If you will buy me I will pay you $600 per year untill this money is paid, or at any rate will pay for myself in two years....  I am fearfull that if you do not buy me, there is no telling where I may have to go, and Mr. C. wants me to go where I would be satisfied,—­I promise to serve you faithfully, and I know that I am as sound and healthy as anyone you could find.  You will confer a great favour, sir, by Granting my request, and I would be very glad to hear from you in regard to the matter at your earliest convenience."[41]

[Footnote 41:  MS. in the possession of Mrs. A.S.  Erwin, Athens, Ga., printed in Plantation and Frontier, II, 41.  The writer must have been well advanced in years or else highly optimistic.  Otherwise he could not have expected to earn his purchase price within two years.]

The hiring of slaves by one citizen to another prevailed to some extent in country as well as town, and the hiring of them to themselves was particularly notable in the forest labors of gathering turpentine and splitting shingles[42]; but slave hire in both its forms was predominantly an urban resort.  On the whole, whereas the plantation system cherished slavery as a wellnigh fundamental condition, town industry could tolerate it only by modifying its features to make labor more flexibly responsive to the sharply distinctive urban needs.