14.8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Between 1790 and 1860 the proportion of colored to total popula- 

 tion is seen to fall from over 19 per cent to but little in excess of 14 

 per cent a decrease of fully one fourth. In the half-century which 

 elapsed between the date of the first census and 1840, during which 

 time immigration was very slight, it decreased not less than 2 T \ 4 o per 

 cent, although for one third of this period the slave-trade was being 

 carried on. 



Such being the history of the negroes in ante-helium days, when 

 they were property, and when every consideration of self-interest 

 prompted their owners to watch over their health, to encourage child- 

 bearing, and to protect and preserve the children, is it to be supposed 

 for a moment that this careless, improvident, ignorant race, thrown 

 suddenly upon its own resources, should at once, or within a genera- 

 tion, take on a rate of increase more rapid than before emancipation ? 

 The wonder is, that in the past twenty years they have not fallen fur- 

 ther behind. 



Considering the colored race in this country as a whole, it is seen 

 that it has not held its own, either in a state of slavery or thus far in 

 freedom. It is but another illustration of the fact, that an inferior 

 race can not thrive side by side with a superior one. It would seem, 

 therefore, under the circumstances, more profitable to study ways and 

 means for preserving and strengthening the manual labor element of 

 the South, rather than to debate the methods of getting rid of it. 



In " An Appeal to Caesar," by Judge Tourgee, the question of the 

 future of the colored element is discussed from a somewhat different 

 point of view. Without committing himself as to the increase or de- 

 crease of the colored element in the country at large, in proportion to 

 the whites, the author finds, upon a somewhat superficial study of the 

 statistics bearing upon the question, that in the South Atlantic and 

 Gulf States the negroes have increased decidedly in proportion to the 

 whites, while in those States which he classes as border States they 

 have relatively decreased. This massing of the negroes in what may, 

 for convenience, be denominated the cotton States, coupled with the 

 steady sharpening of the line of separation between the two races a 

 line which, as the author claims, becomes more and more accentuated 



