The aggregate territorial extent of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, is 48,336 square miles; the number of their inhabitants 1,269,450, or 26.26 to the square mile. The stated point of density was passed by the three States named in the table more than fifty years ago, and yet they go on increasing in population with a rapidity as great as at any former period of their history.

South Carolina has gained during the decade 35,201 inhabitants of all conditions, equal to 5.27 per cent. Of this increase 16,825 are whites, and the remainder free colored and slaves. It is perhaps a little remarkable that the relative increase of the free colored class in this State was more considerable than that of any other. As their number, 9914, is so small as to excite neither apprehension or jealousy among the white race, the increase is probably due both to manumission and natural causes. This State has made slower progress during the last term than any other in the south, having advanced only from 27.28 to 28.72 inhabitants to the square mile.

Tennessee, it will be observed, has made but the moderate gain of 10.68 per cent. for all classes. Of this aggregate increase the whites have gained at the rate of 9.24 per cent. upon 1850, the free colored 13.67, and slaves 15.14.

The next lowest in the rate of increase in the list of southern States is Virginia, whose gain upon her aggregate population, in 1850, was 174,657, equal to 12.29 per cent. The white class gained 152,611, or 17.06 per cent., the slaves 18,337, or 3.88 per cent.

These are examples of the States wherein the population has advanced with slowest progress the past ten years. Turning now to the States which have made the most rapid advance, we find that New York has increased from 3,097,394 to 3,880,735, exhibiting an

augmentation of 783,341 inhabitants, being at the rate of 25.29 per cent. The free colored population has fallen off 64 since 1850, a diminution to be accounted for probably by the operation of the fugitive slave law, which induced many colored persons to migrate further north.

The gain of Pennsylvania has been in round numbers 595,000. In that State the free colored have increased about 3,000. The greater mildness of the climate and a milder type of the prejudices connected with this class of population, the result of benevolent influences and its proximity to the slaveholding States, may account for the fact that this race holds its own in Pennsylvania, while undergoing a diminution in the State next adjoining on the north.

Minnesota was chiefly unsettled territory at the date of the Seventh Census; its large present population, as shown by the returns, is therefore nearly clear gain.

The vast region of Texas ten years since was comparatively a wilderness. It has now a population of over 600,000, and the rate of its increase is given as 184 per cent.

Illinois presents the most wonderful example of great, continuous, and healthful increase. In 1830 Illinois contained 157,445 inhabitants; in 1840, 476,183; in 1850, 851,470; in 1860, 1,711,951. The gain during the last decade was, therefore, 860,481, or 101.06 per cent. So large a population, more than doubling itself in ten years, by the regular course of settlement and natural increase, is without a parallel. The condition to which Illinois has attained under the progress of the last thirty years is a monument of the blessings of industry, enterprise, peace, and free institutions.

The growth of Indiana in population, though less extraordinary than that of her neighboring State, has been most satisfactory, her gain during the decade having been 362,000, or more than thirtysix per cent. upon her number in 1850.

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa have participated to the full extent in the surprising development of the northwest. The remarkable healthfulness of the climate of that region seems to more than compensate for its rigors, and the fertility of the new soil leads men eagerly to contend with and overcome the harshness of the elements. The energies thus called into action have, in a few years, made the States of the northwest the granary of Europe, and that section of our Union which, within the recollection of living men, was a wilderness is now the chief source of supply in seasons of scarcity for the suffering millions of another continent.

Looking cursorily over the returns, it appears that the fifteen slaveholding States contain 12,240,000 inhabitants, of whom 8,039,000 are whites, 251,000 free colored persons, and 3,950,000 are slaves. The actual gain of the whole population in those States from 1850 to 1860, was 2,627,000, equal to 27.33 per cent. The slaves advanced in numbers 749,931, or 23.44 per cent. This does not include the slaves of the District of Columbia, who decreased 502 in the course of the ten years. The nineteen free States and seven Territories, together with the federal District, contained, according to the Eighth Census, 19,201,546 persons, including 27,749 Indians; of whom 18,936,579 were white, and 237,218 free colored. The increase of both classes was 5,598,603, or 41.24 per cent. No more satisfactory indication of the advancing prosperity of the country could be desired than this general and remarkable progress in population. North and south we find instances of unprecedented gains, as in the case of Illinois, just adverted to. In the southwest the great State of Missouri has increased by the number of 500,000 inhabitants, which is within a fraction of 74 per cent. It is due to candor to state that the marked disproportion between the rate of gain in the north and south respectively, is manifestly to some extent caused by the larger number of immigrants who settle in the former section, on account of congeniality of climate, the variety of occupation, the dignity wherewith respectable employment is invested, and the freedom of labor.

Having thus briefly and imperfectly noticed the manner in which the general gain of population during the last ten years has been distributed among the States, we may with advantage examine the progress of the country as a whole, in this respect, from 1790 to 1860.... [There has been] considerable uniformity in the rate of progression of the whole population. It has varied in the different decades from 321 per cent. increase to 36. The whites, constituting the great bulk of the inhabitants, have governed the ratio of augmentation for the mass. The lowest rate of increase shown for that class was by the census of 1830, namely, a fraction less than 34 per cent. In 1850 it has risen above 38 per cent., and continued to be about the same from 1850 to 1860. The number of free colored persons was small in 1790, and as a condition or class in society it holds about the same position as then. We possess very insufficient means for estimating the natural increase of this division of our population. Their aggregate number has been so continually affected by manumissions, by legislation changing their condition, and to a small extent by emigration, that from these causes, rather than by the ordinary progress

of increase, they have reached a total of nearly half a million, and the rate per cent. of their advancement in seventy years, has been equal to that of the whole population, and not very far below that of the whites; and that at the same time they have gained in a ratio nearly one-half greater than the slaves.

[Aggregate Population and Number of Inhabitants to the Square Mile]

The immigration question was of considerable importance even before the Civil War. There can be no doubt that the immigrants affected American life, and they in turn were affected by American ideals and ideas. The extent and character of the immigration up to the year 1860 are given by the census authorities as follows:

One of the commissioners sent by the Continental Congress to Europe, Silas Deane, expressed the expectation that if the colonies established their independence, the immigration from the Old World

1 Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census, 1860 (Washington, 1862), 12-19.

would be prodigiously increased; and as a consequence, the cultivated lands would rise in value, and new lands would be brought into market. This anticipation has been strikingly and abundantly realized. And in connexion with the census of nativities, the records of immigration have a special importance as indicating the progressive augmentation of the immigrants who have sought to improve their fortunes in the New World.

From a survey of the irregular data previous to 1819, by Dr. Seybert, Prof. Tucker, and other statists, it appears that from 1790 to 1800, about 50,000 Europeans, or "aliens," arrived in this country; in the next ten years the foreign arrivals were about 70,000, and in the ten years following, 114,000, ending with 1820. To determine the actual settlers, a deduction of 14.5 per cent. from these numbers should probably be made for transient passengers, as hereafter described.

Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803. The portion of this territory south of the thirty-third parallel, according to the historian Hildreth, comprised a population of about 50,000, more than half of whom were slaves. With these should be counted about 10,000 in the settlements north of that parallel, augmented by a recent immigration, with a predominance of whites. The foreign population acquired with the whole Louisiana territory may thus be reckoned at 60,000; about one-half or 30,000 being whites of French, Spanish, and British extraction; and the other 30,000 being slaves and free colored. This number of whites should evidently be added to the current immigration by sea already mentioned, in order to obtain the foreign accession to the white population of the United States during that period.

Instead of scattered notices from shipping lists, the arrival of passengers has been officially recorded at the custom-houses, since 1819, by act of Congress. There are some deficiencies perhaps in the returns of the first ten or twelve years, but the subsequent reports are considered reliable. While the classified lists exhibit the whole number of foreign passengers, the great majority of whom are emigrants, they also furnish valuable information not otherwise obtainable respecting the statistical history of immigration.

The following numbers, registered under the act of 1819, are copied from the authentic summary of Bromwell, to which the numbers for the last five years have been added from the annual reports of the State Department, thus bringing the continuation down to the year of the present census.