140 Progress of Population and Wealth 



In all the departments of industry, persons 4,798,870 



Deduct, for two-fifths of the coloured population, 1,149,598 



" the white females employed in manufactures, 54,806 



" white males under 20 years of age, 575,519 



" professional men, 65,255 



1,845,178 



The whole number of white males above 20 years of age employed in trade 



and manual labour, 2,953,692 



Now, the whole number of free white males over twenty years of 

 age was, by the census of 1840, 3,318,837 ; from which, if the 

 above number of 2,953,692 be deducted, the difference, which is 

 365,145, and which comprehends the professional, the superannua- 

 ted, and the idle classes, is equivalent to 110 adult males out of 

 1,000, or 11 per cent. If, however, two-fifths be too large a pro- 

 portion for the working slaves reckoned in the census, as many will 

 think, a reduction of their number will, to the same extent, increase 

 the number of white male labourers, and diminish the number of the 

 professional and unproductive class. But the proportion of this 

 class is not likely to differ much in the two countries ; for, in truth, 

 nineteen-twentieths of the men in every country are compelled to 

 work by their hands or their wits for the means of subsistence, 

 suited to their habits and tastes, and the difference between different 

 countries is not so much in the quantity of the labour performed, as 

 in its quality and efficiency. 



Whilst all civilized countries are so much alike as to the amount 

 of labour put in requisition to satisfy human wants, they differ very 

 greatly as to the distribution of that labour among the three principal 

 branches of industry ; and the difference is very great in this respect, 

 not only between the several States, but in the whole United States, 

 in 1820 and 1840. It is seen by Table III. that the proportion of labour 

 employed in agriculture and commerce had diminished ; while that 

 employed in manufactures had, in twenty years, increased from 13.7 

 per cent to 17.1 per cent of the whole. The positive increase in 

 that time was from 349,506 persons employed in 1820, to 791,749 

 employed in 1840. 



This increase was greatest in the New England States, whose 

 manufacturing population had enlarged from 21 per cent, in 1820, 

 to 30.2 per cent in 1840 ; in which time the same class of popula- 

 tion had nearly trebled in Massachusetts, and more than trebled in 

 Rhode Island. In the Southwestern States, alone, the proportion of 

 the agricultural class had increased ; in all the others it had dimin- 

 ished. In the Middle and Northwestern States, the proportion em- 

 ployed in commerce experienced a small increase. In several of 



