INCREASE OF THE COLORED POPULATION. 673 



In a comparison of the wliite and colored increase, the side of color 

 has no offset equivalent to the advantage of immigration for the other 

 side. The only thing in the form of such offset is marrying across the 

 color-line, already referred to. When a white woman marries a col- 

 ored man, she virtually migrates as a wife and mother, and her chil- 

 dren and descendants for ever after count on the colored side. This is 

 taking place to a certain extent to a very limited extent, it is true ; 

 but, as small a matter statistically as it appears to be, the census should 

 put it on record for comparison hereafter. Native children of foreign 

 parentage are designated, and colored children of white mothers should 

 also be designated. The prejudice is at present very strong against 

 such unions ; but that prejudice may gradually weaken, and cases of 

 the kind may multiply. This tendency is worthy of note for its sig- 

 nificance on the future psychology of the American people. If to the 

 rapid multiplication of the colored population is to be added an acces- 

 sion through white motherhood, the increase of the colored over the 

 white must be accelerated, unless prevented by counteracting influ- 

 ences not at present in existence. And, when in this connection we 

 contemplate the increasingly slow multiplication of the people of high- 

 est civilization in our country, the prospect for the future is not an 

 optimistic one. 



Very great subjects can only be touched upon, not treated, here. 

 Why is it that the native whites of the North are multiplying so much 

 more slowly, not only than the colored, but even than the Southern 

 whites ? Simply because of the possession of greater wealth and cult- 

 ure. It was different early in the century, when the descendants of 

 the Puritans and Dutch stood on a " lower " grade in the struggle of 

 life. Families were larger then. The possession of wealth and educa- 

 tion is a surer check on population than the famous " positive checks " 

 of Malthus " wars, plagues, and famine." They are surer and great- 

 er, because they act without intermission. I do not shrink from stat- 

 ing the fact, unpleasant as it may be. I am aware that Knox, Clib- 

 borne, Schade, Kapp, and others, refer the slow increase of American 

 natives they do not discriminate between Northern and Southern to 

 the effects on the European stock of an uncongenial climate. This is 

 an a priori iancj which is entitled to no particular consideration, since 

 it is as wholly without support as that other a priori fancy, that the 

 descendants of Europeans in this country are gradually turning into a 

 sort of red Indians. 



There is, perhaps, no law of human history better assured than 

 this : that, with high civilization and the long enjoyment of wealth, 

 culture, and the luxury and dissipation which are sure to accompany 

 them, population increases more slowly, in time to become stationary, 

 and at last decline and succumb to younger and more vigorous peo- 

 ples, who have been hardened in the conflicts of poverty and rough 

 fare. Roscher, the German economist, states this profound truth : 

 VOL. XIX. 43 



