Thus, the ratio of the increase of our wealth, as shown by the census, was as follows:
| From | 1820 to 1830, | 41 | per cent. |
| From | 1830 to 1840, | 42 | per cent. |
| From | 1840 to 1850, | 64 | per cent. |
| From | 1850 to 1860, | 126.45 | per cent. |
Thus, the increase of our wealth from 1840 to 1850, was more than 50 per cent. greater than from 1830 to 1840; and from 1850 to 1860, nearly double that from 1840 to 1850. At the same duplicate ratio, from 1850 to 1870, the result would be over 250 per cent. That such would have been a close approximation to the true result, is rendered still more probable by the fact, that the product of 1859, as shown by the census, was 250 per cent. greater than that of 1849.
If, then, instead of 126.45 per cent., we were to assume 250 per cent. as the ratio, the result would be in 1869, $5,297,708,612, as the increased product of the Slave States that year, if the ratio per capita were equal to that of the Free States. If we carry out these ratios from 1859 to 1869, either of 126.45, or of 250, into the aggregate of the decade, the results are startling. Assuming, however, that of the population only, we have seen that the aggregate result in the decade from 1859 to 1869 was over seventeen billions of dollars, or largely more than ten times our debt incurred by this rebellion.
When, then, I reassert the opinion, heretofore expressed by me, that as the result of the superiority of free over slave labor, our wealth in 1870, and especially in each succeeding decade, as a consequence of the entire abolition of Slavery in the United States, will be far greater, notwithstanding the debt, than if the rebellion had never occurred, there is here presented conclusive official proof of the truth of this statement. We have seen that our wealth increased from 1850 to 1860, 126.45 per cent., whilst that of England, from 1851 to 1861, augmented only at the rate of 37 per cent.
Applying these several ratios to the progress of the wealth of the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively, in 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900, the result is given below.
We have seen by the census, that our national wealth was, in
| 1850, | $7,135,780,228 |
| 1860, | 16,159,616,068 |
Increase from 1850 to 1860, 126.45 per cent.