POPULATIOX, 



385 



Percentage, of Increase of the Population of South Carolina from 1790 to 1880. 



(a) Decrease. 



THE INCREASE OF THE POPULATION 



of South Carolina from 1790 to 1800 was greater that it has been at any 

 subsequent period prior to the census of 1880. The increase for that de- 

 cade was much greater than for the country at large, and there were only 

 five out of all the States, at that date, that were making a more rapid 

 growth than South Carolina. The second decade — the one during which 

 the slave trade was temporarily reopened at Charleston — showed a large 

 diminution in the rate of increase ; it went down sixteen per cent, below 

 that of the country at large, and from fifth, the State fell to eleventh in the 

 order of increase. The third decade showed a slight improvement, and 

 South Carolina stood thirteenth among the twenty-four States of that 

 date in order of increase. In the fourth decade the decrease continued ; 

 twenty States had a larger growth, and South Carolina was increasing at 

 a rate less than half of that at which the country at large was growing 

 in population. The fifth decade was marked in South Carolina by the 

 nullification agitation ; the rate of increase fell enormously. While the 

 country at large maintained nearly the same rate as at the outset, the 

 rate here was only one-seventeenth of what, it had been in 1800, and 

 South Carolina stood last of all the States, at this date, except one— Dela- 

 ware. There was a marked improvement between 1840-50, the rate of 

 increase being nearly six times as great as in the preceding decade. 



