The Domestic Slave Trade

The Ricmond Enquirer, of Nov. 13, 1846, has a very mournful nrtlcle from a correspondent on the Slave Trade. It laments, hovvever, not the factofiis e.istenrêj nor the shame and ídísgrocé t brings upon the state throughout the world, but the bad currency received in return for ncgroes I As the ariicle shows the extent and systematic manner in which the business is conducted, we will quote a paragraph or two from t. " It is a melancholy fact, that negroes have become the only reliablo staple of the tobacco-growing sections of Virginia ; the only reliablc means of liquidating debls. forfign and doineslic. Tbey are sold here by hundreds, under the hamrr.er of the auctioneer. The domestic cannot compete with the Southwestern dmand forthem; for the plain reason tliat the tobacco-growcr cannot make one half of one per cent per annum upon slave labor - whilst the cotton and sugar planters, make perhaps, from 15 to 20 per cent. There is in this undeniable statement of faet?, much matter for serious, i f not melanchol-, reflection. But it is not my purpose to enlarge upon this subject. - .My principal object is, to cali the a'tenlion of the people of Virginia to the foul game which someofthe Southern Banks are playing upen us. Our ncgroes are going by hundreds, yca, thousands to the Sonthwest - and vhat are we getiing in return for them % Look around you and sec, fellow citizens ! We are trading off ourslaves, whom we hr.ve nurtured thro' infancy - we are pnrting with them, at a time of life when they have become able to help us " work for a living," and receiving as compensation for them a prer.nrious paper currency, issued by the North Carolina and South Curolina banks !" Tho Enquirer is the leading Democratie poper of Virginia : and :he number bcfore us contains numerous advertisements of "Negroes for Sale" - men. women and children, all of them "very likely."