The Beneficence of Freedom. 35 



lation are colored. The highest proportion is found in the first 

 of these states, namely, South Carolina, where three-fifths of the 

 people are colored and but two-fifths white. 



The question has been asked, " Has the condition of slavery 

 or of freedom proved the more favorable to the numerical in- 

 crease of the colored people ? " The figures of the census give 

 us a ready answer. The increase has been more rapid under 

 conditions of freedom. In the thirty years preceding 1860 the 

 colored increased 48 per cent, Avhile in the following thirty years, 

 during only twenty-seven of which they were free, and which 

 included the disturbed period of the civil war and of recon- 

 struction, they increased not less than 68 per cent. 



Nativity and Immigration. 



It has often been stated that the strongest and most virile 

 nations are the composite ones, those made up from a mixture 

 of blood. If this be true, we are in a fair way to distance in this 

 regard all other nations which ever existed. The blood of immi- 

 grants from all the nations of Europe, from the Mediterranean 

 to the Arctic, to say nothing of the negroes, Chinese and Indians 

 within our borders, threatens to make of us the most thoroughly 

 composite nation the world has ever known. 



During the first half of the century just passed we received 

 practically no immigration ; our numerical gain was produced 

 almost entirely by natural increase. Indeed, immigration was 

 not of importance until 1847 or 1848, when the famines in Ireland 

 and the political troubles in Germany, occurring almost simul- 

 taneously, started immigration in this direction ; but since that 

 time there has been a migration of peoples across the Atlantic 

 to these shores the equal of which the world has never seen. 

 Within a generation and a half, 15,427,657 people have crossed 

 the Atlantic and found homes in this country. The table shows 

 the number of immigrants in each ten-year period since 1820 : 



Immigrants by Decades. 



1821-'30 143,439 



1831-'40 599,125 



1841-'50 1,713,251 



1851-'60 2,598,214 



1861-70 2,314,824 



1871-'80 2,812,191 



1881-90 5,246,613 



