260 WILLIAMS' CASE.—3 BLAND.

9; 9 Westm. Rev. 419. And the general ultimate term of human
existence, although extended here as far as any where, not having
been materially enlarged, the rapid increase of our population can
only, therefore, be accounted for by admitting it to be a fact, that
of those born here a greater proportion approximate to the ulti-
mate term of life than in any other country; or, in other words,
that the rapid * duplication of our population is more owing
248 to a diminished mortality than to an increassd number of
births, or to any accessions from emigration. 2 Price Obser. 51; 1
Malthus Popu. 386. This, however, is only a general conclusion
deducible from the several enumerations of the inhabitants of the
whole Union, which might not be aiike applicable to every State,
or even to any larger division of the Confederacy. But it is a
general conclusion which will be found to be mainly corroborated
by a comparison of some of the principal causes affecting human
life here, with those of a similar nature in other countries. Among
citizens our government admits of no political distinctions; there
are no aristocratic or religious classes hanging as a dead weight
opoji the rest of the community. There being fewer drones, and
a larger proportion of active producers, the necessaries and com-
forts of life are more abundant, and more generally and equally
diffused here than in any of the European nations. In addition
to which the soil of our country being more fertile, and a greater
proportion of it fit for cultivation, than that of Europe, the means
of subsistence may be obtained here in larger measures with less
labor than there; insomuch so, that no one has yet ventured to
predict when our population will be so numerous as to have its
further increase checked by the want of food. Darby's Vieiv U.
States, 434; Seybert Stat. Ann. 51, 52; 2 Sparks' Franklin's Works,
311; 2 Malthus Popu. 53.

In the year 1751, it was estimated, that there were upwards of
one million of English souls within the territory of the then colo-
nies, afterwards thirteen United States, although it was thought,
that scarce eighty thousand had been brought over sea. parks'
Franklin's Works, 319. In the year 1775, the population of all the
United States was estimated to be about two millions and an half;
Seybert Mat. Ann. 17; 1 Tuck, Life of Jefferson, 207; 1 Madison
Papers, 431; and by the first census, taken in the year 1790, the
Union was found to contain a population of three millions nine
hundred and twenty-one thousand three hundred and twenty-six.
Compared with the second and third enumerations it was calcu-
lated, that the population doabled in a term of less than twenty-
three years, while it appeared from the most authentic informa-
tion, that a duplication of the population of Great Britain would
not take place in less than eighty years. Seybert Stat. Ann. 25,
27; 2 Malthus Pop. 525; Darby's View U. S. 434.