Untitled - African American History

clxxii HISTOKICAL SKETCH OF SLAVERY.
eight, after which time they were free. The census of
1840 shows sixty-four still in slavery. 1
In New York a similar act was passed in 1799, eman-
cipating the future issue of slaves, males at the age of
twenty-eight, females twenty-five years. In 1817, another
act was passed, declaring all slaves free on the
4th July, 1827. In 1790, there were 21,324 slaves in
this State. In 1800 (before the emancipating act could
take effect), there were only 20,343. In 1840, four only
remained.
New Jersey, in 1790, held 11,423 slaves. In 1804,
the prospective extinction of slavery was provided for
by a similar statute to those of New York and Pennsylvania.
The process, however, must have been slower,
as the census of 1840 gives her 674 slaves, and that of
1850, 236.
Notwithstanding the ardent temperament of the
Southern people, and their early zealous advocacy of
universal liberty, practical emancipation with them was
a much more momentous question. Virginia alone in
1790 contained 293,427 slaves, more than seven times
as many as all the foregoing States combined. Her productions
were almost exclusively the result of slave
labor. Her white population exceeded her slaves only
about twenty-five per cent. Her soil and climate and (in
a much greater degree), those of the more Southern
States, were not only peculiarly fitted for negro labor,
but almost excluded white labor from agricultural pursuits.
The problem was one of no easy solution, how
this " great evil," as it was then called, was to be removed
with safety to the master and benefit to the
slave. It would have doubtless remained a problem
perplexing the thoughts and paining the hearts of the
1 A negro woman slave was sold by the sheriff, in Fayette County,
v. The Common-
Pennsylvania, to pay debts, in the year 1823. wealth,
Lynch 6 Watts, 495.