The census of 1840, therefore, exhibits an annual unnatural decrease of over forty thousand of the slave-population in the exporting States. But this census, at least so far as statistics touching slaves and free colored persons are concerned, is notoriously and grossly incorrect. Either it or the tables prepared from it in the State Department have been dishonestly prepared, or very much garbled, apparently with the intent to prove that slavery was better calculated to secure the health of the negro race than a state of freedom. What figures will tell in favor of slavery? — not, what figures will tell the truth? - seems to have been the principle on which the last census was taken. Such being the case, we feel confident that the census makes the slaves in the exporting States decrease as little as possible. In 1830, Virginia had 469,757 slaves. In 1840 she ought to have had this number, and their natural increase for ten years, 135,532. Instead of this, all the natural increase is gone, and 20,770 besides! All will see that such a statement would tell too strongly against slavery to be admitted into a census got up under such slave-supporting auspices, unless the statement was really within the truth.

We believe, therefore, that the census of 1850, if truly taken, will exhibit a much larger annual unnatural decrease of the slave-population in the exporting States. This decrease, whatever it may really be, has not been owing to manumissions. It has not been caused by slaves running away. For the effects of both these causes, the surplus over 40,000 would be a liberal allowance. This unnatural decrease must, then, be caused by the slave-trade, and the migration of planters with their slaves. The fact is beyond all question, that every year forty thousand men, women, and children are torn from their homes and friends, and driven to the South and West. So truly did the Rev. Theodore Clapp speak (Sermon, p. 46), when he declared, "Slaves possess the inappreciable benefits which grow out of the endearing ties of friendship, kindred, sympathy, and the whole class of domestic affections. Parents and children, husbands and wives (it is true), are sometimes separated by being involved

in those calamities which sweep away the possessions and prosperity of the master. But, take it all in all, they are as free and undisturbed in the enjoyment of their domestic relations, as the white inhabitants of the Northern States"! Forty thousand fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children are every year carried from the places of their birth, like so many cattle, although the terrible fact is well known that at least one fourth of them must die in the process of acclimation!* So very tender is man of man, when he holds his brother in slavery, and makes merchandise of his sister! So eager is the soul-driver to coin his brother's blood into dollars! So ready are those whom "God has appointed masters to sacrifice the lives of one fourth of those committed to their charge, in order greatly to advance the market value of the survivors!

We have no data from which to infer the number of planters who go South with their slaves. But, allowing that five hundred thus remove, and that on an average they have ten slaves each (proper estimates we believe), we have left thirty-five thousand as the number of human beings who are every year sold to the speculators in human flesh!

Now, Mr. Barnes's "lot" of his fellow-creatures averaged in value over five hundred dollars apiece; and those were times when, from his account, the market was glutted, and the prices accordingly low. "Young and likely" negroes are more easily acclimated, and are better able to work, than others. Consequently, they are the ones most sought after by judicious traders. We should consider five hundred dollars for a young, healthy negro, warranted sound, as really a low price. But, if we suppose the slaves annually exported to be worth less than any of Mr. Barnes's lot, considering them as worth only $450 apiece, we have, as

* A writer in the "New Orleans Argus," Sept. 1830, in an article on the culture of the sugar-cane, says, - "The loss by death in bringing slaves from a northern climate, which our planters are under the necessity of doing, is not less than twenty-five per cent"! Our tables prove the same thing. Of the 40,000 slaves annually carried south, only 29,101 are found to survive; a greater sacrifice of life than that caused by the middle pas

sage!

the sum of money every year invested in the trade in slaves, the very moderate sum of fifteen millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! This is exclusive of the cost of all the private jails, of transportation by sea and land, food, wages of drivers, &c.; which cannot but very largely increase this sum. This sum, $15,750,000, would, in less than three years, double the number of miles of railroad which were in operation in all the Southern States in 1846 (Parker's "Letter on Slavery," p. 52). It would, in only two years, more than double in length all the railroads which were then in operation in all the Slave States, except Maryland. It costs every year five millions more to carry on the domestic slavetrade than it does to fit out and victual all the whale-ships of the United States! ("American Almanac, 1843," p. 178.) Over one fifth of the entire value of the cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco raised in the fifteen Slave States in 1839, and over one third of the value of articles manufactured in the South, was invested in slaves! Nearly twice as many slaves are carried South and West every year as there are men in all the Slave States engaged in the learned professions! - so terribly prominent is this trade in men and women! Who will venture to conceive, much less express, the deep degradation which must be caused by a trade of such fearful character and magnitude; - degradation not only to the immediate sufferers, but to all those who may be subjected to it?

"It is contrary also to the will of God for servants either to run away, or harbor a runaway." Rev. C. C. Jones's Teaching to Slaves.

THE treatment which runaway slaves receive cannot but greatly degrade them. Pious as well as worldly masters consider that their slaves have no more right to run away than their horses or mules. The Christian slaveholder orally teaches his slaves, that, by taking this step, they sin in the sight of God; for has not Paul most emphatically condemned the practice? So careful is he of the souls of those whom God has committed to his charge!

We frequently find advertisements similar to this, cut from the "American Beacon" (Norfolk, Va.), Jan. 24, 1848:

"$50 REWARD. Stop Ruffin and Wyatt.

These men left

my house on Saturday night, January 15, 1848, without any provocation. They have uniformly maintained a good character for honesty, industry, and sobriety, were obedient and trustworthy servants, and no severity nor threats had been offered towards them; and I very much fear they have left for some Northern State.

"These slaves were originally owned in Surry, and possibly may be in the vicinity of their relatives.

GEORGE N. HATCH.

'Gaysville, P.O. Prince George County, Va."

Good Mr. Bryant Johnson is very much more indignant. In the "Macon (Georgia) Telegraph," May 28, is the following:

"About the first of March last, the negro-man, Ransom, left me without the least provocation whatever. I will give a reward of $20 for said negro if taken, dead or alive; and, if killed in any attempt, an advance of $5 will be paid. BRYANT JOHNSON.

"Crawford County, Georgia."

In the extremity of his wrath, he cannot think of the least provocation whatever which he has given his slave. But we confess we are much more touched by friend Hatch's advertisement: Simple-minded creature! He evidently speaks more in sorrow and astonishment than in anger. Doubtless he had uniformly fed, clothed, and housed his servants well, and had never been severe with or threatened them. How could they desire to leave him? They have run away without any provocation! So unnatural, almost impossible, in the eyes of masters, is any spark of manliness in a slave! They cannot conceive it possible for a manly love of liberty to provoke a favored negro to run away. Still, however, even favored servants are continually escaping from their happy state; and, by the methods adopted to retake them, they are most efficiently taught that they have no more rights than has a favored hound or a valued horse. Their manliness is crushed, until at last they really feel themselves to be little else than items of profit or loss to their owners. The old slave who, at the point of death, was asked whether he was not sorry to die, and who replied, "Oh! no: the loss is massa's," had very faithfully improved the instruction imparted to his class.

If our horse is stolen from his stable, or our cow strays from her pasture, we advertise them as "strayed or stolen." If a slave runs away, his master advertises him, and offers a reward for his capture. If he is found, the lucky finder deposits him in jail for safe keeping, to await a favorable opportunity of sending him back to his master, of course, like Onesimus, as a brother beloved. The jailer gets his legal fees, the finder gets his reward, the master gets his slave, and the slave most generally receives some "moderate correction" from the cowskin or the paddle. If he will not listen to the teaching of God's messengers to his soul, who