380 ropuLATiox. 



These figures show no tendency of the colored population to sepai^te 

 from the aggregate population and to become localized. On the contrary, 

 the coast region, where they have preponderated for generations, where 

 they own more property than elsewhere, where they have retained 

 undisputed control in political affairs, and where, in fine, every condition 

 seems most favorable to promote, developc and maintain colored predom- 

 inance, exhibits a marked decrease in their percentage of the population. 

 At the same time in the Alpine and Piedmont regions, where their num- 

 bers have always been smaller, an increase appears whicli more than com- 

 pensates for the decrease on the coast. Such fluctuations seem rather to 

 indicate that the colored race has a tendency to mix with the white pop- 

 ulation in certain limited proportions. This opinion gathers force by 

 considering their ratio in the towns as compared with what it is in the 

 rural districts in the differe^t sections of the State. Thus, while the 

 negroes form 86 per cent, of the rural population of Charleston (old), 

 Beaufort and Georgetown counties, they only form 56 per cent, of the pop- 

 ulation of the towns themselves. And in the Piedmont region, while they 

 are only 35 per cent, of the rural population of Greenville and Spartan- 

 burg counties, they form 45 per cent of the population of the towns. 

 Of the 739 towns of the united counties having a population of 4,000 

 and upwards, only eight are without a colored population. Only three, 

 however, in all this number, viz : Newbern and AVilmington, N. C., and 

 Danville, Va , have a colored population that reaches sixty per cent., a 

 percentage quite common among the rural population. 



The rapidly augmenting and more mobile populations of the towns 

 may thus indicate what is to be the general tendency in the pro- 

 portions of the races that where negroes are in excess of 56 per cent, they 

 w^ill diminish, and where they are less than 45 per cent, they will increase 

 in presence of the white race. It is at least more probable that the final 

 result will be determined by some law like this, and not by any wholesale 

 movement on the part of either race. For the exodus of negroes to the 

 northwest api^ears, in the light of the late census, to have amounted to 

 nothing, just as their much talked of return to Africa from Charleston 

 a few years since did. Mississippi, Louisiana and North Carolina, whence 

 the emigrations took place, show large gains in their colored population ; 

 while Kansas and Iowa, whither these emigrants went, have actually lost 

 in the relative proportion of the black to the white population. But 

 while a movement in mass of the negro population has not and may 

 never take place, the indications that their general diffusion is progress- 

 ing rapidly are well marked. They are now present in greater or less 

 number in every State and Territory, and are increasing most rapidly 

 where formerly they were fewest. The northern and western non-slave- 



