This was the result of my reflections on the subject five
and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able to conceive any
other practicable plan. It was sketched in the Notes on Virginia, under
the fourteenth query. The estimated value of the new-born infant is
so low (say twelve dollars and fifty cents), that it would probably
be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce the six hundred
millions of dollars, the first head of expense, to thirty-seven millions
and a half: leaving only the expenses of nourishment while with the
mother, and of transportation. And from what fund are these expenses to
be furnished? Why not from that of the lands which have been ceded by
the very States now needing this relief? And ceded on no consideration,
for the most part, but that of the general good of the whole. These
cessions already constitute one fourth of the States of the Union. It
may be said that these lands have been sold; are now the property of
the citizens composing those States; and the money long ago received and
expended. But an equivalent of lands in the territories since acquired
may be appropriated to that object, or so much at least, as may be
sufficient; and the object, although more important to the slave States,
is highly so to the others also, if they were serious in their arguments
on the Missouri question. The slave States, too, if more interested,
would also contribute more by their gratuitous liberation, thus taking
on themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expense.
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