In the same debate, Charles J. Faulkner, of Berkeley County, said:
"Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gentleman, (Mr. Gholson,
of Brunswick) in the harmless character of that institution, let me
request him to compare conditions of the slaveholding portion of
this commonwealth, barren, desolate and seared, as it were, by the
avenging hand of Heaven, with the descriptions which we have of this
same country from those who first broke its virgin soil. To what is
this change ascribable? Alone to the withering, blasting effects of
slavery."[188]
Philip A. Bolling, of Buckingham County, said:
"If we turn our eyes to that part of the country which lies below
the mountains, and particularly below the falls of the rivers, it
seems as if some judgment from Heaven had poured over it and scarred
it; fields once cultivated are now waste and desolate; the eye is no
longer cheered by the rich verdure that decked it in other days; no,
sir, but fatigued by an interminable wilderness of worn out,
gullied, piney old fields."[189]