MOVEMENT OF THE COLORED POPULATION. 787 



with others in determining the general result, a warm climate being 

 congenial to temperament and favorable to ease of living. In the 

 South, the drift is to the new lands and the rich planting-regions ; in 

 the North, it is mainly to the accessible States in which employment is 

 to be had. The tables of population by counties show that the colored 

 people are very thoroughly distributed over the country, thinning out 

 toward the North. In the same latitude the proportion of the colored 

 population bears a very uniform relation to the number of whites. In 

 tables giving the white and colored population of Northern States by 

 counties, the adjacent columns, representing the two classes, indicate 

 simply on their face this uniformity of relation. There are many 

 exceptions, of course, as where, for example, in parts of New York, 

 Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, there is a large proportion of Irish, 

 the two races not harmonizing well together, since they are competi- 

 tors for the same kinds of employment. There were 25 per cent, 

 more colored in New York County in 1840 than in 1870 ; while in 

 Hudson County, New Jersey, in which Jersey City is situated, there 

 is far less than the usual proportion of the colored element. But the 

 rule will hold in a general way, notwithstanding the exceptions by 

 whatsoever caused. 



It is not the habit of the colored j^eople to look up a vacancy in 

 some new State, and proceed to fill it with their own race. If they 

 did they would have to be their own employers, and the prosperity of 

 the community would be of their own making. On the contrary, they 

 seem to find a place more congenial to their tastes and better adapted 

 to their wants by the side of and among white people. Here they 

 may get employment without making it for themselves. Instead, 

 therefore, of dying out by the side of the white man under freedom, 

 as has been supposed, they are really stronger to live there than they 

 would be in a settlement of colored people alone. This is so neces- 

 sarily where, as in the older States, capital is indisj)ensable as the basis 

 of employment. It would seem that, in the industrial aspects of the 

 case, the white and colored man may be, under certain circumstances, 

 the complement of each other. 



What will be the direction of colored migration in the future? 

 This will depend in part on the policy of States and of the General 

 Government toward the colored people. Formerly it was a current 

 speculation that the blacks would drift toward certain States in the 

 South, which would pass under colored control in all respects, to the 

 exclusion of the whites. This, however, is not likely to take place, 

 except by interference of the General Government. If, under the pre- 

 text of a free ballot, the bayonet is resorted to by any party in power 

 at Washington, and certain States in the South are again brought 

 under the control of ignorant masses led by political adventurers, 

 Southern society may be forced into a different form from that which 

 now prevails. Under the continuance of such a policy, if it could be 



