Staunton Spectator

The immense exodus of slaves from Virginia and North Carolina is beginning to attract the attention of the press, and serious apprehensions are expressed as to the effect upon the agricultural interests of these States. The "Petersburg Express" states that in Eastern Virginia the places of the thousands of slaves who are annually sold for the cotton fields of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas, are not filled by other laborers, which so disables that section of the State from working its lands profitably, as of necessity to retard seriously its progress and prosperity. In view of the extensive and costly system of internal improvements now in operation and under construction in this State, a new impetus has been given to development and production, an adequate supply of labor is demanded, and yet we are continually subjected to a drainage of our slave labor to supply the wants of the extreme Southern States.

The subject is certainly one of the very highest importance to the people, especially the slave owners of Virginia, and should receive earnest attention and calm deliberation. It opens up a wide field of enquiry as to the probable consequences of this drainage upon the border slave States, not only as it may effect their material progress, but especially as to their political bearings. The effect upon the agricultural interests of the State, though of course important, is not the matter of highest public concern. Where labor is in great demand, it will gradually find its way, and the experience of other States establishes the fact that agricultural interests may prosper, and every other branch of industry and enterprise flourish when there is no slave labor. Eastern Virginia may suffer temporary inconvenience by a diminution of slaves, because her wants are not widely known; but when her necessities become so pressing that she is forced to seek labor, laborers will be found in abundance flocking to her uncultivated fields. But it will be white labor--white labor of the North, and of foreign countries. It seems to us that this is the striking aspect of the question. As slave laborers are diminished white laborers, anti-slavery by education and from interest, will supply their place, and it becomes a question of prominent interest what is to be the effect of the exchange upon the cherished and peculiar institution of slavery.--Negroes will continue to be sold at enormous prices as long as they are needed in the Cotton States, where white labor will not answer the purpose. Slave dealers will buy and transport them from the border States to the extreme States just as long as they commend [sic] high prices, and we agree with the "Express" that there seems to be no prospect of their receding. The consequence will be a steady and constant drain of slaves, and for every one that goes out a white man from the North will in all probability come into Virginia and the neighboring States. It requires no prophetic vision to foresee the result of this kind of operation, in the course of time.

Taking this view of the matter under consideration, it becomes a question for the reflection of the people, and the grave deliberation of political assemblies, what can be done to remedy the evil? The owners of the cotton and sugar plantations of the extreme South would prefer to obtain their labor upon cheaper terms by reopening the African slave trade, and there are doubtless those in our own State who would resort to this inhuman traffic for the purpose of "providing for the great and growing deficiency" of negroes to work the tobacco and grain-fields in Eastern Virginia. However effectual this remedy might be, we are loth to believe that any considerable portion of the people would sanction such a movement, even under cover of the Jesuitical plea that "the end justifies the means."

There is still another question brought into view by the consideration of this subject which may assume a different phase from that which it presents in the abstract, when contemplated in connection with the exodus of slaves from Virginia. We allude to the acquisition of territory. When the demand for slaves is already so great, as to effect the constant and perceptible diminution of slaves in the border States, how many would be left in a few years if that demand were quadrupled by the acquisition of Cuba, or other extensive territory requiring slave labor? Is it not the true interest of Virginia and the South generally to oppose the acquisition of territory, that her slaves may remain in her own limits, instead of being exported by thousands to supply the wants of new slave territory?

These are questions of practical importance and should be decided according to the dictates of common sense. There are many in the State of Virginia and throughout the Southern States-- men whose devotion to the interests of the South are above suspicion--who conceive that the permanency of the institution of slavery can only be secured by confining slave labor to its present limits. Not preventing it by prohibiting laws, Wilmot provisos, or even Squatter-sovereignty, from going wherever the Constitution and the laws entitle it to go; but voluntarily declining, as a matter of policy and interest, to take it outside of the area upon which the negro now toils.