for
the depressed condition of Virginia, you seem to allow too little
to the existence of slavery, ascribe too much to the tariff laws,
and not to have sufficiently taken into view the effect of the
rapid settlement of the Western and Southwestern country.

Previous to the Revolution, when, of these causes, slavery alone
was in operation, the face of Virginia was, in every feature of
improvement and prosperity, a contrast to the Colonies where
slavery did not exist, or in a degree only, not worthy of notice.
Again, during the period of the tariff laws prior to the latter
state of them, the pressure was little, if at all, regarded as a
source of the general suffering. And whatever may be the degree
in which the extravagant augmentation of the Tariff may have
contributed to the depression, the extent of this cannot be
explained by the extent of the cause. The great and adequate
cause of the evil is the cause last mentioned, if that be indeed
an evil which improves the condition of our migrating citizens,
and adds more to the growth and prosperity of the whole than it
subtracts from a part of the community.

Nothing is more certain than that the actual and prospective
depression of Virginia is to be referred to the fall in the value
of her landed property, and in that of the staple products of
the land. And it is not less certain that the fall in both cases
is the inevitable effect of the redundancy in the market of land
and of its products. The vast amount of fertile land offered at
125 cents per acre in the West and S. West could not fail to have
the effect already experienced, of reducing the land here to half
its value; and when the labour that will here produce one
hogshead of tobacco and ten barrels of flour will there produce
two hhd and twenty barrels, now so cheaply transportable to the
destined outlets, a like effect on these articles must
necessarily ensue. Already more tobacco is sent to New Orleans
than is exported from Virginia to foreign markets; whilst the
article of flour, exceeding for the most part the demand for it,
is in a course of rapid increase from new sources as boundless as
they are productive. The great staples of Virginia have but a
limited market, which is easily glutted. They have in fact sunk
more in price,