an icepick through the keyhole

You're right. I have no frickin' idea where I got that figure from now - my only defence is that it's late. A quick web search shows that best estimates show that about 38 percent of the total population of the South (not including the border states) were slaves in 1860, that's three and a half million out of about nine million total population.

I even got the slave owning percentages wrong. For a much better statistical overview, look at http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/stat.html