I have silently edited the Congressional debates transcribed below to omit irrelevant topics and repetitive arguments, marking ellipses ( . . . ) only when I have spliced sentences or paragraphs. All page references are to the Congressional Globe, 31st congress, 1st Session, available at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwcglink.html#anchor31

After a heated debate on 9 April 1850 between Senator Joseph R. Underwood of Kentucky and South Carolina’s Senator Arthur P. Butler, the Senate passed Butler’s amendment to the census bill, an amendment that replaced slaves’ names with numbers, thereby perpetuating a public anonymity for over three million persons held in bondage as chattels in the South.

Butler had argued that his constituents – plantation owners of the South, specifically those with a hundred or more slaves – knew very little about their own bondsmen and women. Butler had tacitly conceded that adult slaves had names which might be known to their owners, but after dismissing these adults’ names with mockery, he had narrowed the debate to a question of whether owners of large plantations knew the names of the slave children. According to Butler’s argument, the most information that a southern slave owner could be expected to know about his slaves was an estimate of their ages!
None of his colleagues challenged Senator Butler with the fact that, in the late antebellum period, less than three percent of slaveholders owned 50 or more slaves – in other words, Butler had rewritten format for the 1850 census of slaves to accommodate the alleged ignorance of a tiny minority of slaveholders.

In the next phase of the debates, Senator William R. King of Alabama continued to dismantle the draft Schedule 2 by urging the removal of information that gave any kind of history to the slaves. By the end of the debates, America’s slaves would be a people – not just without names – but without a past, having no origins and no families. King based his arguments on an alleged ignorance of slaves about their own past and even about their own bodies! Butler had established a fantasy world composed entirely of big plantations ruled by owners who knew almost nothing about their slaves, and King now populated the fields and quarters of those plantations with men and women who knew nothing of themselves – too ignorant to know where they were born or to remember how many children they had borne.

Senator William R. King of Alabama: “I see by the schedule, that that the census board is required to obtain information as to the places of birth of slaves. Now there is no southern gentleman here who does not know that it is wholly impracticable to obtain information of this description, that will be at all satisfactory or reliable. . . . The proposition which I now make is to amend schedule number two, by striking out the words ‘places of birth.’ It is well known that, owing to the natural course of things, a great number of slaves are taken from one State to another, and the purchasers of such slaves know nothing about their places of birth, and consequently it is utterly out of their power to give such information., and if it could be given it would be perfectly valueless. They are known to have been born within the slave States, but in which of them is not known. There may be a few [of the slaves] who can tell, but the large majority of them cannot by any possibility say where they were born, nor give such information as will lead to any beneficial result. I move therefore to strike it out, as I presume that no Senator has any idea that it is practicable to procure the information, or that, if procured, it would be of any earthly good.” (pages 673-4)

The motion to strike “places of birth” from Schedule 2 was put to a vote and passed.

Before we watch Senator King demolish more of Shedule 2, let us take a closer look at his argument about slave birthplaces. Neither the owners nor the slaves themselves (according to King) could be expected to know their birthplaces – and yet, he asserts, “They are known to have been born within the slave states.” Suppose, however, that some of those slaves had been born in northern states whose laws had required them to be emancipated at a certain age, but whose owners had illegally sold them South rather than lose the investment – states like New York, Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania? Thousands of slaves yet alive almost surely had been born in Africa, and how many of those had been imported illegally after the national ban effective in 1808? How many might have been born in Cuba or other Caribbean islands? Were young children routinely wrested from their parents and sold in the interstate slave trade? King’s amendment ensured that no-one would be able to answer these or any such questions from the census data. King had successfully argued a contradiction: slave masters and their slaves were totally ignorant in a matter as fundamental as birthplace; but, nevertheless, all slaves were “known” to have been born within the slave South!

Immediately after winning passage of his first amendment, King re-entered the debate to propose another: “I have another proposition to make, and Senators, I think, will all perceive the propriety of it. In schedule two are the following words: ‘if a female, the number of children she has had, known to be alive, known to be dead.’ Now, sir, it is impossible to ascertain the number of children upon a plantation that any woman has had. The woman herself, in nine out of ten cases, when she has had ten or fifteen children, does not know how many she has actually had.” This brought a laugh.

King continued, “No, sir, she cannot tell. The owner certainly does not know; the manager of the estate does not know, because managers are frequently changed. One or two children may be born while an individual is manager of an estate, and others may be born after his place is supplied by another. There is no mode by which you can ascertain except through the medium of the woman, and she cannot tell. Where is the advantage, then, of filling up considerable space with this item, and swelling the document without getting any information at last?”

Davis of Massachusetts offered a half-hearted response: “I hope that the column will be allowed to remain, although I do not know that it is very material.”

King: “Not at all. . . . I want the census to be taken with as much care as possible. I want all the people of the United States, white and black, to be enumerated. I want to throw no obstacle in the way, but I want to save unnecessary expense.”

Underwood: “These tables, in reference to the slave population, which were adopted by the committee, were adopted in compliance with the wishes of southern gentlemen. . . . There are a number of philosophical inquiries which they were in pursuit of, as well as the mere basis of representation. . . . Hence it is, the action of the committee on this subject was not confined simply to an enumeration of the inhabitants, but to the effect of various localities on health and longevity; to the effect of climate, the condition of the colored race, and all matters of importance in reference to the contemplated object. You will find in these tables that we require, not only the age and sex, but the color of the person; and we find in another column the degree of removal from pure blood is required to be stated; and this inquiry, in reference to the number of children which each woman may have had, I can inform my honorable friend, was inserted, as far as I know, at the instance of a southern gentleman” (page 674). Later in the same debate (page 676), Underwood revealed that this gentleman “believed that a certain class of colored people had fewer children than a certain other class; and he believed that the average duration of the lives of the children of the darker class was longer than the that of the children of the lighter colored class, or the mixed.”

Exasperated at the erosion of columns from the table he had labored so long to construct in committee, Underwood exclaimed, “If you do not intend to get the information in its ramifications, as I had suggested, you may as well strike out the whole table, and send your deputy marshal into a plantation merely to ascertain the number of slaves, so far as the basis of representation is concerned, and you will then get clear, as has been suggested by the Senator from North Carolina, of all this increase at the start; and I suppose that the Senator from Alabama voted with him” (page 674).

King: “Certainly.”

Underwood: “Well, I am vastly surprised at the course he is taking now. If he succeeds in all the amendments that he is proposing, it will come down to the basis of his argument. . . . I think you that you ought to retain the name, age, number of children, and everything, if you wish to get at anything that will be practically useful hereafter, in reference to this class of population. There is one practical use to which this information may be applied, as everybody knows, and it is insurance on lives. The whole table, in regards to longevity, and everything connected with the number and age of children, will furnish information on which valuable tables may be constructed, if you continue them for a series of years. . . . This would be the commencement. If it is not proper to begin at all, strike out the whole table, and bring it to what my honorable friend from Alabama wants it to be.”

Underwood, clearly losing his argument, was desperately grasping at straws – did he really expect Senators to design a national census to explore the vigor of mulattoes, or to provide actuarial data for the insurance industry?

Senator Solon Borland of Arkansas: “I think that all the remarks of the Senator from Kentucky go to show the propriety of the proposition . . . to strike out everything but the mere enumeration of the inhabitants. . . . Are we to erect ourselves into a great college of natural science? Are the funds of this Government to be appropriated to the investigation of great natural truths? I think we have gone far enough . . .”

Underwood continued to argue unconvincingly for the value of exploring “whether an individual is a quadroon, a mulatto, or any other proportion of blood” (Page 675).

Just as it seemed the fires of debate on this issue would soon to be extinguished along with Underwood’s hopes for his version of the slave schedule, Senator William H. Seward of New York threw a bucket of oil on the embers: “I hope the motion to strike out will not prevail. It appears to me that the information . . . is essential. . . . There is no woman, with great deference to the Senator from Alabama, who can have forgotten the number of children that she had borne. If it be true, as it is said, that there are women who do not know whether their children be living or dead, and even how many they have borne, I should like to ascertain the number of such that there are of all races. And I desire this information because we have all cherished a hope that the condition of African servitude in this country was a stage of transition from a state of barbarism to a state of improvement hereafter. I wish to know how rapid that progress is. I believe it cannot be possible that there are any women, even in Africa, who have forgotten the number of children they have borne. If there be any in America who have forgotten that fact, so important and interesting to themselves, I wish to know it, for the purpose of ascertaining the operation of our social system, and the success of that system as leading to the improvement of the African race. I wish to know also what is the extent of the education and instruction that prevails, so as to ascertain whether they are advancing toward that better condition which constitutes the only excuse, as I understand, that we have for holding them in servitude.”

Of course, Seward was sarcastically taunting King with one of the favorite arguments of pious pro-slavery writers, that Africans were better off as slaves in America than as savages in Africa. But, if African women could count their children, and American slaves could not, then was southern slavery actually a step below barbarism? As for measuring advances in education, Seward knew full well that state laws in the South forbade teaching slaves to read and write. That was his point.

King swallowed the bait, hook, lie and sinker: “I am not at all surprised to hear the senator from New York attempt to throw an imputation upon the South to answer his own purposes. Sir, what I stated was, that in many instances you could not even get from the mother any correct knowledge of the number of children she had. Go into the white settlements in many portions of the country, and you will find women in the same situation. Does the honorable Senator mean to say, that all the women of his own State are so highly intellectual, so bright in their perceptions, so acute in their understanding, that they could give similar information if it were required of them?

King continued, “Sir, I have listened to the Senator’s remarks. I will not characterize them: respect for myself and this body will prevent me. He comes forward here on all occasions, when the slightest opportunity is afforded him, to endeavor to produce a feeling of prejudice against that section of the country in which I live, in order to minister to that miserable fanatical spirit——”

The Vice President: “The honorable Senator is out of order.”

King: “Well, sir, let the Senator keep himself within the bounds usually prescribed to members of this body, and not attempt, by a sneering manner and insidious language, to produce an effect which he dare not do directly.”

Senator Thomas J. Rusk of Texas chimed in against Seward: “It is to be regretted, sir, that we cannot do anything here without having this interminable question brought up. it must, it seems, be brought forward when we have only the census bill up for discussion. Whenever the most irrelevant subject – no matter what it may be – is before the Senate, remarks of a taunting nature towards one section of the Union are sure to be made, calculated to produce irritation, and provoke reply which must have the effect to throw us wider apart. Sir, the information sought to be obtained is of no earthly use.”

Actually, in his next breath, Rusk described the use he actually feared would come from the census data. It was fears like these that motivated Butler, King, Rusk, and many of those who voted with them, to eliminate as much data as possible from the Schedule 2, Census of Slave Inhabitants: “It may be used for the purposes of agitation; it may be used in stump oratory to awaken prejudices in one section of the country against the other. . . . It is of apiece with the proceeding which took place yesterday, when a petition numerously signed was presented to this body, asking Congress to enroll the slaves in the militia of this country. Now is this not irritating?”

Butler: “I do think that the remarks of the Senator from New York, though delivered in a sort of under-tone, calls for special notice. Now sir, he proposes to acquire this information with a view to use it in Congress, of course in reference to the condition of this species of population. Does the gentleman assume that he has a right to legislate upon the social condition of slavery in the southern States?”

After further debate of the utility or futility of the data, the columns asking about each slave woman’s children, and the column asking for “the degree of removal from pure blood” were stricken from the form (page 677). Next, Florida’s Senator Yulee tried to eliminate the column asking for each slave’s age, using the argument that any owner of a plantation with 100 slaves “cannot undertake to give the particular age of each of the hundred. . . . The senate determined to strike out the column which contained the names of the slaves, but the column requiring the specification of the age of the slaves had reference to a column in which the names of the slaves would be recorded. The practical difficulty of the table as it now stands is, that you would be obliged to go over particulars in respect to each individual slave on the plantation when there is no necessity for it.” Senator Yulee’s argument seemed to support Senator Underwood’s plea to keep the names, but Yulee had a different idea. He wanted to revert to the practice in previous censuses of making categories of ages, a separate category for every five years of age, and merely entering the total number of people in each category. Yulee's proposal was soundly rejected (pages 677-8).

In the Senate version of the 1850 Census, Schedule 2, slave owners and slaves were presumed jointly ignorant; therefore, the slaves would have no names, no birthplace, and no maternal connection to their own children. Next, the House of Representatives would take its turn at refining the Census Bill.

Part 5 will examine the debates over Schedule 2 in the House of Representatives and the final passage of the Census Bill; Part 6 will present the Instructions issued to enumerators; Part 7 will discuss the differences between the 1850 and 1860 Schedule 2 and enumerators' instructions; Part 8 will present my findings in one county's 1860 slave census, and will invite anyone else to share his or her findings from other locales; Part 9 will synthesize the input of all participants in this discussion to frame a methodology for using the 1850 and 1860 Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants.