"We have heard intelligent men estimate" is a somewhat different
statement from that of the author's text in which the _Virginia Times_
is made to fix the exportation for the year 1836 at 120,000, 40,000 of
whom were sold to dealers. How little value, however, can be attached
to "the estimate" will be appreciated when we recall that an
exportation of 120,000 slaves per annum would in four years have
depopulated the state of every single slave. The census showed that
there were 469,758 slaves in Virginia in 1830 and 490,865 in 1860. By
no possible process of computation can the Virginians of the period
from 1830 to 1840 be charged with "the enormous profitableness of
slave-breeding," arising from annual sales of 40,000 slaves, and a
quarter of a century later their descendants be convicted of the crime
of fighting to perpetuate the traffic. There would have been no slaves
from which the commerce could have derived a supply.
In his second note, Mr. Smith makes a quotation from the speech of Mr.
Randolph in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 wherein the latter is
made to declare "that Virginia had been converted into one grand
menagerie where men are reared for the market like oxen for the
shambles."
By reference to the whole sentence and its exact quotation it will
appear that Mr. Randolph's statement was not intended to warrant the
conclusion here sought to be conveyed. Mr. Randolph said:
"How can an honourable mind, a patriot and a lover of his country,
bear to see this ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble
devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty,
converted into one grand menagerie where men are to be reared for
market like oxen for the shambles?"[213]
In the third note Mr. Smith cites an extract from the report of the
"American Colonization Society, 1833."