THE SMALL NUMBER OF SLAVEHOLDERS IN VIRGINIA
AS COMPARED WITH HER WHOLE WHITE POPULATION
Among the many widespread misconceptions which existed with respect to
slavery in Virginia, was the impression that the great majority of her
citizens were slaveholders; that the slaves were scattered throughout
the state, enriching by their labors every community, and that thus
their emancipation was opposed from purely pecuniary motives. A
presentation of the actual conditions will suffice to demonstrate that
this impression was erroneous. The facts show that the slaveholders
constituted a small minority of the population, and that, with
comparatively few exceptions, the great body of the slaves were to be
found within certain well defined sections of the state.
The United States census for 1860 fixes the white population of
Virginia at 1,047,299 and the number of slaveholders at 52,128.[181]
Admiral Chadwick, in his work, _Causes of the Civil War_, says: "Of
the 52,128 slaveholders in Virginia, one-third held but one or two
slaves; half held one to four; there were but one hundred and fourteen
persons in the whole state who owned as many as a hundred each, and
this out of a population of over a million whites."[182]
Thus, out of a population of over one million, only some fifty odd
thousand men, women and children, were slaveholders, one-third of whom
held only one or two slaves. If to the slaveholders be added such a
number as would fairly represent those who were indirectly interested
in a pecuniary way in slavery, the fact remains, that the overwhelming
majority possessed no such incentive to support the institution.