half. We have now thirty-one States, with a free population of more than twenty millions. Population and territory are prominent elements in national strength, prosperity, and greatness. Our revenues have increased from a few millions to more than fifty annually. Immense empires of new territory have been acquired and paid for, and now furnish homes and happiness to millions of enterprising and productive citizens. Our progress, in all that gives power and greatness to a nation, has filled the world with wonder and admiration, whilst it has filled our own people with a spirit of national pride which they have abundant cause to indulge. All this, and many fold more, will be readily conceded even by our know-nothing patriots; but, in their simplicity, they will ask, what has our amazing progress, in all the elements of national prosperity and grandeur, to do with the policy of immigration and naturalization? We will endeavor to enlighten them by the irresistible logic of facts and figures.

If the know-nothings had controlled the government in 1789, when the constitution went into operation, instead of encouraging immigration and enacting liberal naturalization laws, their policy would have been a total exclusion of all foreigners. They would have acted upon the doctrine which they now advocate, "Americans must rule America; and to that end no foreigner would have been allowed a resting place within the limits of the Old Thirteen. Let us see how that policy would have worked.

The

In 1790 the population of the United States, including whites and free colored persons, was 3,231,930. If all increase from immigration had been cut off, in pursuance of the know-nothing doctrine, the surplus of births over deaths would have constituted the only growth in our population. A very interesting problem then presents itself. Upon the know-nothing policy, if adopted in 1790, what would be the present population of the United States? Fortunately, the census table furnishes us with the data for solving this proposition, and of illustrating the wonderful wisdom of the know-nothing policy. If we take the census returns for 1850, we find the number of births to be 548,835, and the number of deaths 271,890-confining ourselves to the white and free colored population. The difference, being 276,945, was the increase of population for 1850 from excess of births over deaths. whole population in 1850, of whites and free-colored persons, was, 19,987,573. The increase, therefore, from the excess of births over deaths, was one and thirty-eight hundredths per cent. We take 1850 as an example to ascertain the per-centage of increase from the only source of growth in our population which the know-nothing policy recognises wise and patriotic. As the know-nothings. are using the United States Census Report as far as it favors their purpose, but repudiate it as false as soon as, in accordance with veracity, it speaks in favor of the immigrants; and to show that the per-centage furnished by the returns of 1850 is reliable, I furnish a table carefully made out, showing the per-centage in a number of countries from which I have official statistical returns. The table is as follows:

TABLE No. 1.—Showing the increase of population by the surplus of births

oner

deaths.

*The United States Census of 1850 gives the births and deaths of the white and free colored population in one column, without any separation; therefore, it has become necessary to include the free colored population in all other tables hereafter given. As to the slave population the writer sees, for his purpose, no necessity to mention any thing of it at all, as it has no connexion whatever with the immigration.

As would be expected, it is seen that the excess of births over deaths in the United States is larger than in any other country; and hence I have no hesitation in adopting the per-centage of annual increase of one and thirty-eight hundredths as reliable. This furnishes us a rule to solve the problem before stated. The population in 1790 was 3,231,930. Excluding all immigration, the increase of population each year would be at the rate of 1.38 per cent. This increase added each year to the aggregate of the preceding year, down to 1850, will give us the population of the United States in 1850 as it would have been upon the know-nothing policy of excluding all immigration. In the following table will be also shown what our population in 1850 would have amounted to if immigration had been stopped in 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, or 1840, taking the actual population of those years as starting point. The calculation is a long and tedious one, but the result is mathematically certain. It is this: The population in 1790 being 3,231,930, and being increased alone by the surplus of births over deaths, would in 1850 amount to 7,555,423 whites and free colored persons, including 200,000 for Louisiana, Florida, California and those territories which were acquired since 1790. But upon turning to the actual returns of the census of 1850, we find the number of whites and free colored persons to be 19,987,573. It appears, then, that if the know-nothing policy had been adopted in 1790, our present population would be 7,555,423, instead of its actual number of 19,987,573-a difference in population between the know-nothing and the democratic policy of 12,432,150. TABLE No. 2.-Showing the increase of the white and free colored population of the United States, if without immigration since the respective years 1790 to 1840, after the ratio of increase in 1850:

Florida,

To these are to be added the results for Louisiana, (1803); (1821); California, New Mexico, Texas, and Oregon. Louisiana had in 1803, 77,000 inhabitants, of which 53,000 were slaves. Florida, in 1821, had about 10,000. California and New Mexico, at the time of their acquisition, had about 60,000. Texas and Oregon only brought back into the Union citizens who had emigrated thither but a short time before. If we put them down in 1850, after the above scale, with 200,000 white and free colored persons, the writer thinks he has done them more than ample justice.

This will be to many an astonishing result; but I am well assured of the correctness of this statement.*

As I have shown above that the mean (1.38 per cent.) by which I have made up these tables corresponds well with that of other countries, I will also compare the result. It will be found that no European country has actually increased in the same period so much as the United States would have, if, instead of a population of 19,987,573, they had in 1850 only 7,555,423. The figures in the following table are taken from official returns.

TABLE No. 4.—Increase of various European nations since the last decen

nium of the 18th century.

Without immigration since 1790..........in 1850........

*White and free colored.

This table clearly proves the above estimate of the population of the United States, without immigration since 1790, to be not only a correct one, but even exhibiting a higher increase than any other country. England, the highest among them, is still, with one year more increase, twenty-seven on the hundred behind the United States. Some persons may think doubtful that the actual increase of England and Wales is so close to that of the United States, as there has been every year a

*An abstract of these statistics I published in a small pamphlet last June. The principal papers of the United States took notice of it, and commented, with one insignificant exception, as far as I know, very highly on it. Of statistical authorities, De Bow's Review published it in September, Hunt's Merchants' Magazine in December; in which later month it was also read before the American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York. I have constantly been on the alert to hear that its correctness and reliability its attacked, the more, as I took the liberty to beg the statisticians of this country to honor it with a thorough examination; but till now, at least to my knowledge, there has been no such attack.