The system of cultivation would improve under this arrangement, and the product would be increased. I presume it would be no exaggerated calculation to estimate that the tobacco crop of Prince George’s county, under a system of small farms and free labor, would be of twice its present annual value ten years hence. The enhanced value of the land would be in about the same proportion. If the foregoing considerations afford any illustration of the reasons why Slavery did not continue to exist in the States north of Maryland, a brief examination of statistics, to say nothing of other things, will show that the system can not continue much longer to exist in Maryland. I ask attention to the remarkable facts exhibited by the census records of our State since 1790.[2] In nine counties in Maryland the white population has diminished since 1790. These are the counties: Montgomery, Prince George, St. Mary’s, Calvert, Charles, Kent, Caroline, Talbot and Queen Anne’s. The aggregate white population of those counties in 1790 was 73,352; in 1840 it was 54,408. Here is a falling off of nearly 20,000; if the account were carried to the present year the falling off would be more than 20,000. These nine counties include the chief slaveholding sections of the State. In five of them taken together, viz., Montgomery, Prince George, St. Mary’s, Calvert, and Charles, the number of slaves exceeds that of the white population. These are chiefly the tobacco growing counties, together with the county of Frederick. The counties of Allegany, Washington, Frederick and Baltimore and Baltimore City are the portions of the State in which Slavery has existed but partially. That is to say, Allegany, with an aggregate population of 15,704, has but 811 slaves; Washington, in a population of 28,862, has 2,505 slaves; Frederick has 6,370 slaves to a population of 36,703; Baltimore county, 6,533 slaves in an aggregate population of 80,256; and Baltimore city includes but 3,212 slaves in its population of 102,513. Now taking these four counties and Baltimore city out of the account, it will be found that the aggregate white population of the rest of the State has diminished since 1790. In other words the increase of our population, which is about one hundred and fifty thousand since the first census, has been mainly in those counties where Slavery has been least prominent. In those portions of the State where Slavery prevails most prominently the white population, during the last fifty years, has diminished.