Nevertheless, at first it met with much sympathy in
Virginia, where in 1820 the governor proposed to the legislature the
use of one-third of the state revenue as a fund to promote the
emancipation and deportation of the Negroes. [Footnote: Jefferson,
Writings (Ford's ed.), X., 173, 178; Niles' Register, XVII., 363;
King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 342; Adams, Memoirs, IV.,
293.]
The unprofitableness of slavery in the border states, where outworn
fields, the decline of tobacco culture, and the competition of
western lands bore hard on the planter, [Footnote: See chap. iv.
above; Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, XVI.), chap. iv.]
now became an argument in favor of, permitting slavery to pass
freely into the new country of the west. Any limitation of the area
of slavery would diminish the value of the slaves and would leave
the old south to support, under increasingly hard conditions, the
redundant and unwelcome slave population in its midst. The hard
times from 1817 to 1820 rendered slave property a still greater
burden to Virginia.
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