During the ten years from 1850 to 1860, the total population of our country increased about 37 per cent.
In 1790, there were seventeen States in the Union, and of those seventeen, eight are now slave States, and the following table of those States will show how the increase of slavery retards the advance of the whites:
| Free Whites. | Ratio of Increase. | Slaves. | Ratio of Increase. | |||
| 1850. | 1860. | 1850. | 1860. | |||
| Delaware | 71,169 | 110,548 | 56 | 2,290 | 1,805 | * |
| Georgia | 521,572 | 615,336 | 18 | 381,682 | 467,461 | 23 |
| Kentucky | 761,417 | 933,707 | 22 | 210,981 | 225,902 | 7 |
| Maryland | 417,943 | 646,183 | 55 | 90,368 | 85,382 | * |
| N. Carolina | 552,028 | 679,965 | 23 | 288,548 | 328,377 | 14 |
| S. Carolina | 274,567 | 308,186 | 9 | 384,984 | 407,185 | 7 |
| Tennessee | 756,753 | 859,528 | 14 | 239,460 | 287,112 | 20 |
| Virginia | 894,800 | 1097,373 | 23 | 472,628 | 495,826 | 5 |
* Decrease.
From these facts, it would seem that, in the two States in which slavery has decreased, the increase of the whites has been 55 and 56 per cent, exceeding the average ratio of increase in the whole nation. While in all the other States, where slavery has increased, none of them have come up to the average national ratio of increase, and in one of them, (South-Carolina,) the increase is not one quarter the national average.
In respect to South-Carolina, it is a remarkable fact that while she has now nearly four tunes as many slaves as she had in 1790, her whole population (slaves and all) is not three times what it then was, and her free population is only a little more than twice its number in 1790. In other words, while in seventy years her slave population has increased four-fold, her free population has only a little more than doubled.[2]
These facts teach their own lesson; but they compel all who value the Union and the peace of the nation, to ask how far they have had to do with the troubles of nullification and secession, which for thirty years have been plaguing us, and have now culminated in a terrible rebellion!