In the
Virginia convention of 1829, Mr. Mercer estimated that in 1817 land
values in Virginia aggregated two hundred and six million dollars,
and Negroes averaged three hundred dollars, while in 1829 the land
values did not surpass ninety millions, and slaves had fallen in
value to one hundred and fifty dollars. [Footnote: Va. Const. Conv.,
Debates (1829-1830), 178; Collins, Domestic Slave Trade, 26.]
In a speech in the Virginia House of Delegates, in 1832, Thomas
Marshall [Footnote: Collins, Domestic Slave Trade, 24, cited from
Richmond Enquirer, February, 2, 1832.] asserted that the whole
agricultural product of Virginia did not exceed in value the exports
of eighty or ninety years before, when it contained not one-sixth of
the population. In his judgment, the greater proportion of the
larger plantations, with from fifty to one hundred slaves, brought
the proprietors into debt, and rarely did a plantation yield one and
a half per cent. profit on the capital. So great had become the
depression that Randolph prophesied that the time was coming when
the masters would run away from the slaves and be advertised by them
in the public papers.
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