in the touted States in Fifty Years. 93 



teen and forty-five, at 19 per cent. When reduced to the same 

 standard, the foregoing comparative estimates exhibit the following 

 rates of diminution of increase in the whole population from 1800 

 to 1840 : 



Decrease of ratio Decrease of ratio 

 in 40 years. in 10 years. 



1. Where the whole population at each census is 



compared, after deducting for immigration, 4.3 per cent=l per cent. 



2. Where the children under 10 are compared 



with the females of the same census, 6.13 = 3. " =0.75 " 



3. Where the children under 10 are compared 



with the females of the preceding census, 11.02=3.5 " =0.89 " 



Decrease in 20 years. 



4. Where the children under 10 are compared 



with the females between 16 and 45, 9.9=1.88 " =0.94 " 



The average of these rates of diminution is very nearly nine- 

 tenths of 1 per cent for ten years, and this is probably somewhat 

 beyond the truth ; first, because in the second comparison, which 

 makes the lowest estimate, there seems to be fewer sources of error 

 than in the rest; and secondly, because a moderate addition to the 

 supposed number of emigrants in the first decennial term would 

 approximate the first comparison, which makes the highest estimate, 

 to the other three ; and there is more than one reason for believing 

 that Dr. Seybert's estimate of the immigration, which has been here 

 adopted, is too low. We may, then, on the whole, conclude that 

 the rate of increase of the white population has diminished, on an 

 average, between 1, and i of 1 per cent, in ten years, and that tlr* 

 diminution has been in a slightly increasing ratio. 



II. The natural increase of the coloured population. 



In the preceding chapter it was assumed that the natural increase 

 of the coloured race in the United States was uniform, and that it 

 was 32.2 per cent in ten years, which was their rate of increase 

 between 1790 and 1800, when it was supposed the number brought 

 into the country equalled those who went out of it. But we have 

 no proof that the slaves imported into South Carolina and Georgia, 

 (the only States which then received them from abroad,) were 

 equal to those who escaped to other countries, together with the 

 free coloured persons who emigrated ; and if they were inferior in 

 number, the supposed rate of increase would be too low. It 

 certainly seems improbable, at the first view, that the natural 

 increase of the whites should have exceeded that of the coloured 

 race 1.7 per cent in ten years, as has been supposed in the preceding 

 estimates ; and it is very possible that the one is somewhat too 

 high, and the other too low. 



