I have taken this quotation from another work by the same author as it represents more clearly than any other condensed statement the substance of the present chapter. This proposition is a most important one, and therefore its establishment needs to be inquired into with the greatest particularity. If a race does not possess the requisite physical stamina, it is impossible for it to maintain a high degree of moral and intellectual culture or compete with its more vigorous rivals in the race of civilization.

“All the elements of society are conserved in its physical basis, the social population.”[9]

Since the author relies mainly upon the eleventh census for facts to establish his conclusion, and since the accuracy of this census is widely controverted, we may fairly call upon him to prove his document before it can be admitted in evidence.

The following quotation from Senator Mills reflects the opinion of many eminent students of public problems as to the accuracy of this enumeration: “The announcement that our population is only 62,662,250 was a genuine surprise, not only to those who looked for the dark side of the picture, but also to those whose faith in the administration and its census bureau had never for a moment wavered. The census of 1880 gave 50,155,783. The present returns give an increase of 12,466,476, which is at the rate of 24.86 per cent. That this number is not even approximately correct may be seen by comparing the increase in this decade with the gain in others which have preceded it. Any alleged fact that is without the pale of probability stands impeached at the very threshold of the inquiry, and must be verified by competent evidence.” Basing his estimates upon the school census, the Senator continues: “The state of Texas is deprived, by the incorrect returns, of at least three representatives in Congress. Alabama loses 240,000, Tennessee and North Carolina 170,000 each, and Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana 100,000 each.”[10] Whatever force there may be in the protest of the eloquent Texas Senator, applies with special emphasis to the colored element; for it goes without saying that errors in enumeration in the South would be confined mainly to the Negro race, and since the bulk of the race is confined to this section such errors would have a most disastrous effect upon its rate of increase as shown by the census reports.

The following table exhibits the development of the colored population for the last one hundred years, as well as its decennial rates of increase and percentage of the total population.

Colored Population of the United States.

Year. Colored
Population.		 Decennial
Increase.		 Increase per cent
in 10 years.		 Per cent
of total
population.
1790 757,208 ........ ..... 19.27
1800 1,002,037 244,829 32.33 18.88
1810 1,377,808 375,771 37.50 19.03
1820 1,771,656 393,848 28.50 18.39
1830 2,328,642 556,986 31.44 18.10
1840 2,873,648 545,006 23.44 16.84
1850 3,638,808 765,169 26.63 15.69
1860 4,441,830 803,022 22.07 14.13
1870[11] 5,391,000 949,170 21.37 13.84
1880 6,580,793 1,189,793 22.07 13.12
1890 7,470,040 889,247 13.51 11.93

If we begin with 1810, the first census year after the constitutional suppression of the slave trade, we see from this table that the growth of the Negro element followed the ordinary law of population, viz: a gradual decline in the rate of increase. In 70 years the decennial rate of increase declined from about 30 per cent to 22 per cent. But from 1880 to 1890 there was a per saltum decrease from 22 to 13 per cent—that is, the decline in ten years was equal to that of the previous seventy. And all this has happened during an era of profound peace and prosperity, when the Negro population was subject to no great perturbing influences. When a number of observations follow with reasonable uniformity a fixed law, but a single result deviates widely from this law it is usual to suspect the accuracy of the discrepant observation. The author nowhere assigns any adequate cause for this sudden “slump” in the increase of the colored population. Instead of attributing it, in part at least, to the probable imperfection of the eleventh census, he relies wholly upon a blind force recently discovered and named by him “race traits and tendencies.” The capriciousness of this new factor, in that it may suspend operation indefinitely or break loose in a day, does not seem to have occurred to the author, at least it does not seem to affect the confident assurance with which he relies upon it. As has been shrewdly remarked by an able reviewer, “It would seem incumbent on him (Mr. Hoffman) further to prove that these race traits, after being held in abeyance for at least a century, first took decisive action in the decade 1880 to 1890.”[12]

In 1810 there were 1,377,808 Negroes in the United States. In 80 years this number had swollen to at least 7,470,040, and that, too, without reinforcement from outside immigration. It more than quintupled itself in eight decades. Does it not require much fuller demonstration than the author anywhere presents to convince the ordinary mind that a people that has shown such physical vitality for so long a period, has all at once, in a single decade, become comparatively infecund and threatened with extinction?