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an Ethnological Study. 
139 
it would all the same remain avast “ Anglo-Saxon ” com- 
munity. It was calculated — and doubtless correCtly — -that 
by the end of the next century the population of the United 
States would exceed 500 millions. It was shown what must 
be the influence and the power of such a nation, wealthy, 
intelligent, energetic, and inventive. Nor have writers for- 
gotten to lay due weight upon the assimilative power of this 
race. The Frenchman, the German, the Spaniard, even the 
Irishman, are all incorporated, and, losing their distinctive 
peculiarities, are fused up into the American. 
The future thus limned was one to which neither American 
nor Englishman could look forward without a thrill of pride. 
But one element in the calculation has been overlooked. 
There can be very little doubt but that the population of the 
United States will, by the year 2000 A.D., have reached, 
and even overstepped, the full tale of 500 millions. But of 
what will it consist ? Of those whom we call Americans, 
substantially our kinsmen, though more or less crossed with 
German, French, or Spanish blood ? We fear not. There 
is, indeed, no occasion to take into account the aborigines, 
or Red-skins, misnamed Indians. Their doom is evidently 
in part extinction and in part absorption, — the latter to a 
greater extent than is commonly supposed. 
Nor is the Chinese immigration, even if not forcibly sup- 
pressed, to be here taken into account. The Chinese, how- 
ever undesirable their appearance in America may be on 
other grounds, are not there in the character of true settlers. 
They come and obtain work ; they amass money with the 
hope of returning later in life to the Central Flowery Land. 
They do not bring up families upon American soil, or in any 
way seek to cast in their lot with their white neighbours. 
They follow the example of certain aliens in England, who, 
if temporarily among us and yielding a passive submission 
to our laws, are not of us. 
The faCtor hitherto disregarded in estimating the future 
of America is the negro race. It is well known that the 
first settlers in America, to whatsoever European nation 
belonging, committed the serious mistake of importing 
negroes from Africa as slaves. It is not yet known to what 
an extent they have, by so doing, compromised the future of 
their remote descendants. Nor must it be for a moment 
supposed that the emancipation of the negro from slavery 
and his admission to the rights of citizenship have at all 
removed the difficulty. Here was the mistake of the Aboli- 
tionists. So long, of course, as slavery was recognised in 
the United States, neither its defenders nor its denouncers, 
