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248 WILLIAMS' CASE.
plication of our population is more owing to a diminished mor-
tality than to an increased number of births, or to amy
from emigration. (0) This, however, is only a general conclusion
deducible from the several enumerations of the inhabitants of the
whole Union, which might act be alike 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; them
are no aristocratic or religious classes hanging as a dead weight
upon 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
labour 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, (p)
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. (q) In the
year 1775, the population of all the United States was estimated to
be about two millions and an half; (r) and by the first census,
taken in the year 1790, the Union was found to contain a popula-
tion of three millions nine hundred and twenty-one thousand three
hundred and twenty-six. Compared with the second and third
enumerations it was calculated, that the population doubled in a
term of less than twenty-three years, while it appeared from the
most authentic information, that a duplication of the population of
Great Britain would not take place in less than eighty years. (s)
But however desirable it may be to obtain correctly formed
tables of the expectation of life, as a means of estimating the value
(o) 2 Price Obser. 61; l Malthus Popu. 386.—{p) Darby's View U. States 434;
Seybert Stat, Ann. 51,52; 2 Sparks' Franklin's Works, 311; 2 Malthus Popu. 53.—
(q) Spark's Franklin's Works, 319.—(r) Seybert Stat Ann. 17; 1 Tuck. Life of
Jefferson, 207; l Madison Papers, 431.—(s) Seybert Stat. Ann, 25, 27; 2 Malthus
Pop, 525; Darby's View U, S. 434,
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