On the other hand, the citizens of the exporting states were disposed to rejoice doubly at being saved from loss by the depreciation of property on their hands [43] and at seeing the negro element in their population begin to dwindle;[44] but even these considerations were in some degree offset, in Virginia at least, by thoughts that the shrinkage of the blacks was not enough to lessen materially the problem of racial adjustments, that it was prime young workmen and women rather than culls who were being sold South, that white immigration was not filling their gaps, and that accordingly land prices were falling as slave prices rose.[45] [Footnote 42: Central of Georgia Railroad Company _Report_ for 1859.] [Footnote 43: _National Intelligencer_ (Washington, D.C.), Jan.

19, 1833.] [Footnote 44: R.R.Howison, _History of Virginia_ (Richmond, Va., 1846-1848), II.

519, 520.] [Footnote 45: Edmund Ruffin, "The Effects of High Prices of Slaves," in _DeBow's Review_, XXVI, 647-657 (June, 1859).] Delaware alone among the states below Mason and Dixon's line appears to have made serious effort to restrict the outgoing trade in slaves; but all the states from Maryland and Kentucky to Louisiana legislated from time to time for the prohibition of the inward trade.[46] The enforcement of these laws was called for by citizen after citizen in the public press, as demanded by "every principle of justice, humanity, policy and interest," and particularly on the ground that if the border states were drained of slaves they would be transferred from the pro-slavery to the anti-slavery group in politics.[47] The state laws could not constitutionally debar traders from the right of transit, and as a rule they did not prohibit citizens from bringing in slaves for their own use.

These two apertures, together with the passiveness of the public, made the legislative obstacles of no effect whatever.

As to the neighborhood trade within each community, no prohibition was attempted anywhere in the South.
[Footnote 46: These acts are summarized in W.H.Collins, _Domestic Slave Trade_, chap.