Year - Population
1870 - 42,323,341
1880 - 56,967,216
1890 - 76,677,872
1900 - 103,208,415
1910 - 138,918,526
1920 - 186,984,335
1930 - 251,680,914
These figures show that our country may be as populous as Europe now is at some point between 1920 and 1930--say about 1925--our territory, at 73 1/3 persons to the square mile, being of capacity to contain 217,186,000.
And we will reach this, too, if we do not ourselves relinquish the chance by the folly and evils of disunion or by long and exhausting war springing from the only great element of national discord among us. While it can not be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population, civilization, and prosperity, no one can doubt that the extent of it would be very great and injurious.