e
in fact glad enough to leave the slaves to their own inclinations in all
regards so long as the day's work was not obstructed and good order was
undisturbed. They had of course everywhere and at all times an interest
in the multiplication of their slaves as well as the increase of their
industrial aptitudes. Thus William Lee wrote in 1778 concerning his
plantation in Virginia: "I wish particular attention may be paid to rearing
young negroes, and taking care of those grown up, that the number may be
increased as much as possible; also putting several of the most promising
and ingenious lads apprentices to different trades, such as carpenters,
coopers, wheelwrights, sawyers, shipwrights, bricklayers, plasterers,
shoemakers and blacksmiths; some women should also be taught to weave."[6]

[Footnote 4: _Review of the Slave Question_ (Richmond, 1833), p. 17.]

[Footnote 5: See above, p. 272.]

[Footnote 6: W.C. Ford, ed., _Letters of William Lee_ (Brooklyn, 1891), II,
363, 364.]

But even if masters had stimulated breeding on occasion, that would have
created but a partial and one-sided relationship between cost of production
and market price. To make the connection complete it would have been
requisite for them to check slave breeding when prices were low; and even
the abolitionists, it seems, made no assertion to that effect. No, the
market might decline indefinitely without putting an appreciable check upon
the birth rate; and the master had virtually no choice but to rear every
child in his possession. The cost of production, therefore, could not serve
as a nether limit for slave prices at any time.

An upper limit to the price range was normally fixed by the reckoning of a
slave's prospective earnings above the cost of his maintenance. The slave
may here be likened to a mine operated by a corporation leasing the
property. The slave's claim to his maintenance represents the prior claim
of the land-owner to his rent; the master's claim to the annual surplus
represents the equity of the stockholders in the corporation. But the ore
will some day be exhausted and the dividends cease. Purchasers of the stock
should accordingly consider amortization and pay only such price as will
be covered by the discounted value of the prospective dividends during the
life of the mine. The price of the output fluctuates, however, and the
rate of any year's earnings can only be conjectured. Precise reckoning is
therefore impracticable,