“_There were, of white inhabitants, in the whole of the United States
in 1790, 3,093,111; in 1800, 4,309,656; in 1810, 5,862,093; and in 1820,
7,861,710. The increase, in the first term, being 39 per cent.; that in
the second, 36 per cent.; and that in the third and last, 33 per cent.
It is superfluous to say, that it is utterly impossible to deduce
the geometric theory of human increase, whatever be the period of
duplication, from such terms as these._”
Mr. Sadler is a bad arithmetician. The increase in the last term is
not, as he states it, 33 per cent., but more than 34 per cent. Now, an
increase of 32 per cent, in ten years, is more than sufficient to double
the population in twenty-five years. And there is, we think, very strong
reason to believe that the white population of the United States does
increase by 32 per cent, every ten years. {246}Our reason is this.
There is in the United States a class of persons whose numbers are not
increased by emigration,--the negro slaves. During the interval which
elapsed between the census of 1810 and the census of 1820, the change in
their numbers must have been produced by procreation, and by procreation
alone. Their situation, though much happier than that of the wretched
beings who cultivate the sugar plantations of Trinidad and Demerara,
cannot be supposed to be more favourable to health and fecundity than
that of free labourers. In 1810, the slave trade had been but recently
abolished; and there were in consequence many more male than female
slaves,--a circumstance, of course, very unfavourable to procreation.
Slaves are perpetually passing into the class of freemen; but no freeman
ever descends into servitude; so that the census will not exhibit the
whole effect of the procreation which really takes place.
We find, by the census of 1810, that the number of slaves in the Union
was then 1,191,000. In 1820, they had increased to 1,538,000. That is
to say, in ten years, they had increased 29 per cent.--within three
per cent of that rate of increase which would double their numbers
in twenty-five years. We may, we think, fairly calculate that, if the
female slaves had been as numerous as the males, and if no manumissions
had taken place, the census of the slave population would have exhibited
an increase of 32 per cent, in ten years.
If we are right in fixing on 32 per cent, as the rate at which the white
population of America increases by procreation in ten years, it will
follow that, during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, nearly
one-sixth of the increase was the effect of emigration; from {247}1800
to 1810, about one-ninth; and from 1810 to 1820, about one-seventeenth.
This is what we should have expected; for it is clear that, unless the
number of emigrants be constantly increasing, it must, as compared with
the resident population, be relatively decreasing. The number of persons
added to the population of the United States by emigration, between 1810
and 1820, would be nearly 120,000. From the data furnished by Mr.
Sadler himself, we should be inclined to think that this would be a fair
estimate.
“_Dr. Seybert says, that the passengers to ten of the principal ports of
the United States, in the year 1817, amounted to 22,235; of whom 11,977
were from Great Britain and Ireland; 4,164 from Germany and Holland:
1,245 from France; 58 from Italy; 2,901 from the British possessions in
North America; 1,569 from the West Indies; and from all other countries,
321. These, however, we may conclude, with the editor of Styles’s
Register, were far short of the number that arrived_.”
We have not the honour of knowing either Dr. Seybert or the editor of
Styles’s Register. We cannot, therefore, decide on their respective
claims to our confidence so peremptorily as Mr. Sadler thinks fit to do.
Nor can we agree to what Mr. Sadler very gravely assigns as a reason for
disbelieving Dr. Seybert’s testimony. “Such accounts,” he says, “if not
wilfully exaggerated, must always fall short of the truth.” It would be
a curious question of casuistry to determine what a man ought to do in a
case in which he cannot tell the truth except by being guilty of wilful
exaggeration. We will, however, suppose, with Mr. Sadler, that Dr.
Seybert, finding himself compelled to choose between two sins, preferred
telling a falsehood to exaggerating; and that he has consequently
underrated the number of emigrants. We will take it at double of the
{248}Doctor’s estimate, and suppose that, in 1817, 45,000 Europeans
crossed to the United States. Now, it must be remembered that the year
1817 was a year of the severest and most general distress over all
Europe,--a year of scarcity everywhere, and of cruel famine in some
places. There can, therefore, be no doubt that the emigration of 1817
was very far above the average, probably more than three times that
of an ordinary year. Till the year 1815, the war rendered it almost
impossible to emigrate to the United States either from England or from
the Continent. If we suppose the average emigration of the remaining
years to have been 16,000, we shall probably not be much mistaken. In
1818 and 1819, the number was certainly much beyond that average; in
1815 and 1816, probably much below it. But, even if we were to suppose
that, in every year from the peace to 1820, the number of emigrants
had been as high as we have supposed it to be in 1817, the increase by
procreation among the white inhabitants of the United States would still
appear to be about 30 per cent, in ten years.
Mr. Sadler acknowledges that Cobbett exaggerates the number of emigrants
when he states it at 150,000 a year. Yet even this estimate, absurdly
great as it is, would not be sufficient to explain the increase of the
population of the United States on Mr. Sadler’s principles. He is,
he tells us, “convinced that doubling in 35 years is a far more rapid
duplication than ever has taken place in that country from procreation
only.” An increase of 20 per cent, in ten years, by procreation, would
therefore be the very utmost that he would allow to be possible. We have
already shown, by reference to the census of the slave population, that
this doctrine is quite absurd. And, if we suppose it to {249}be sound,
we shall be driven to the conclusion that above eight hundred thousand
people emigrated from Europe to the United States in a space of little
more than five years. The whole increase of the white population from
1810 to 1820 was within a few hundreds of 2,000,000. If we are to
attribute to procreation only 20 per cent, on the number returned by the
census of 1810, we shall have about 830,000 persons to account for in
some other way;--and to suppose that the emigrants who went to America
between the peace of 1815 and the census of 1820, with the children who
were born to them there, would make up that number, would be the height
of absurdity.
We could say much more; but we think it quite unnecessary at present. We
have shown that Mr. Sadler is careless in the collection of facts,--that
he is incapable of reasoning on facts when he has collected them,--that
he does not understand the simplest terms of science,--that he has
enounced a proposition of which he does not know the meaning,--that
the proposition which he means to enounce, and which he tries to prove,
leads directly to all those consequences which he represents as impious
and immoral,--and that, from the very documents to which he has himself
appealed, it may be demonstrated that his theory is false. We may,
perhaps, resume the subject when his next volume appears. Meanwhile, we
hope that he will delay its publication until he has learned a little
arithmetic, and unlearned a great deal of eloquence.