arms, exiles into a foreign country, among a strange people, subject to
cruel task-masters. In my opinion, it is much worse.'--Mr. Gholson, of
Virginia, in his speech in the legislature of that State, January 18,
1831, says: 'The master forgoes the service of the female slave, has her
nursed and attended during the period of her gestation, and raises the
helpless and infant offspring. The value of the property justifies the
expense; and I do not hesitate to say, that in its increase consists
much of our wealth.'--Professor Dew, now President of the College of
William and Mary, Virginia, in his review of the debate in the Virginia
legislature, 1831-3, speaking of the revenue arising from the trade,
says: 'A full equivalent being thus left in the place of the slave, this
emigration becomes an advantage to the State, and does not check the
black population as much as at first view we might imagine; because it
furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the negroes, to
_encourage breeding_, and to cause the greatest number possible to be
raised. Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising State, for other
States.'--Mr. C.F. Mercer asserted, in the Virginia Convention of 1829,
'The tables of the natural growth of the slave population demonstrate;
when compared with the increase of its numbers in the commonwealth for
twenty years past, that an annual revenue of not less than a million and
a half of dollars is derived from the exportation of a part of this
population.'"--_Judge Jay's View_, _pages_ 88, 89.]

Very soon after our arrival, we proceeded to the House of
Representatives, then sitting, and were favored, by introductions from a
member, with seats behind the Speaker's chair. The subject before the
House was, of course, peculiarly interesting to me, being the proposed
re-enactment of the "gag;" a rule of the House, by which petitions for
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, are laid upon the
table, without being read or referred, and thus are virtually rejected.