The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-28 00:00:00

TILE UNITED STATES.

If the threatened dissolution of the United States
should be actually consummated, its citizens will
enjoy a singular opportunity of contemplating, at
the very crisis of their destinies, the magnitude and
splendour of the political fabric which they have
just destroyed. The year of the Secession was also
the year of the Census. At the moment that the
Federal Government was receiving the envoys of
independent Carolina it was receiving also the re-
turns of population and progress from the several
States of the Union. For the eighth time only since
the
origin of the Confederacy, and yet for the last
time, perhaps, in its history, the great Republic has
taken stock o f its people. It has numbered and
classified its citizens, counted its gains, and put its
growth upon record, and now it seems as if it were
resolved on terminating its existence. If it does it
will die in a blaze. Its progress has outstripped
even the speculations of its own rulers. Ten years
ago, at the taking of the seventh Census, some
Americans sate down to calculate the probable
num-
bers of the population in 1860, just as a thrifty
trader on balancing his accounts will indulge him-
self in computing the prospective accumulations of
alsah a anyping cc hp hAs jES; titiaco-m-lcd. They
made out that the United States would contain at
the period which has now arrived an aggregate
population of 31,095,535. The reckoning has ac-
tually been verified, and with a little to spare. The
numbers are 31,374,856.
Nothing like suchgrowth has ever been witnessed
in the old States of Europe. The increase during
the decade has been upwards of 8,000,000; the per-
centage 35. Our own country has made great strides,
considering the numbers who emigrate, but we can
only show such a percentage of increase in very rare
instances, upon insignificant areas, and under spe-
cial conditions. Of all the counties of England and
Wales two only during the present century have
grown at this rate, and those are the contiguous
shires of Monmouth and Glamorgan. In the year
1801 they contained togethei about 115,000 people.
They now contain some 400,000, and Merthyr
Tydvil can account probably for a good deal of the
result. The gross increase, however, of the entire
population was never like 35 per cent. in a decade;
in fact, it was never half as much. At the last
Census it was between 12 and 13 per cent. for the
whole of Great Britain. In a few months' time
we shall again be able to survey our progress, but
it will certainly not approach the American rate,
however satisfactory it may prove.
The statistics of the provincial returns are in
some cases perfectly astounding. Not only single
cities, but whole States, have actually doubled their
numbers, and Chicago has all but quadrupled its
population. In 1850 it contained less than 30,000
inhabitants; it now contains nearly 110,000. The
State of New York has increased by about 800,000,
Pennsylvania by 600,000, Massachusetts by 400,000,
and Illinois by little short of a million. In the
North-West the progress has been extraordinary.
The three States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and lowa
hardly contained between them more inhabitants in
1850 than Wisconsin alone contains at the present
time. lowa, in particular, had a population of
192,214 in 1850, whereas it now numbers its
676,435 souls. The Americans carry into these
reckonings a spirit of rivalry which is quite amus-
ing. They poll their populations as they do their
electors, and look for the returns of the enumerators
as we do for the declaration of the Mayor on the
day after a tremendous contest between Whig and
Tory. The recent Census happened to place Cin-
cinnati 2,119 below St. Louis on the great national
poll. Its citizens protested against the return,
demanded a scrutiny, and instituted a private census
of their own to test the official figures. Their pro-
ceedings resulted in a decisive victory. They dis-
covered that they had been underrated by 11,233
inhabitants, and pulled down accordingly the
majority of St. Louis with a good 8,000 to spare.
it will not surprise any one to learn that the
Southern States are left in arrear by the Northern
in these statistics ; but the contrast is not quite so
strong as it appears to be at first sight. The South-
West makes progress, just as the North-West does,
and for the same reason—that the push of the
whole population is westward. Still, Pennsylvania
and New York have not fared like Virginia. Virgi-
nia began in 1790 by heading the whole list of the
States in the numbers of its population ; in 1850 it
had dropped to the fourth place, and another place
has been lost by the returns just made. North
Carolina was originally fourth in the list, and South
Caroline seventh ; they were tenth and fourteenth
respectively in 1850, and are now perhaps lower
still. On the other hand, Georgia had risen from
twelfth to ninth, and Missouri from twenty-second
to thirteenth. There can be no doubt, however,
about the general superiority of vigour attaching to
the Free States of the Union. A catalogue has been
formed of 21 great towns qualified by their numbers
and importance to form a species of first class, and
of these 15 exclude Slavery, and 6 only admit it.
Of the whole list, too, one town'sonlyihas shown an
actual decline since 1350, and that one is Charleston,
the seat of the present revolt. The increase in the
number of slaves is not quite so great as it was
between 1840 and 1850, though greater than it had
been between 1830 and 1840. It amounts to about
600,000.
A single entry of apparently slight importance in
the statistics before us explains the whole of that
struggle between North and South which now
threatens such formidable consequences. The
" population of the Territories" is set down alto-
gether at 384,856—n0t much above that of the
single city of Brooklyn, and less than that of Phila-
delphia, but the area of the country thus thinly
occupied is little, if at all, less than the aggregate
area of all the organised States of the Union. By
whom, then, are these magnificent opportunities of
expansion to be enjoyed ? What people are to pos-
sess these boundless chances of growth ? " We,"
say the citizens of the North—" We will not allow
that any new State of this glorious Union
shall be infected with the taint of Slavery.
W
New soil' shall be free soil. e will not
interfere with the institutions which time has
sanctioned in the States where they still
exist, but we will never permit the evil to spread."
What, however, does such a declaration mean ? It
is sincerely uttered, we verily believe, and Eng-
lishmen will never gainsay its justice or propriety ;
but in its political import it cuts off the South from
all prospect, not only of popular growth, but of
poiltical preponderance. It would isolate the
Southern States, and leave them, unless they chose
gradully to abolish slavery, to die out, as it were,
in comparison with the expansive communities
around them. They could only avail themselves of
the new territories by foregoing their " peculiar
institution" and discarding their ":property." To
tell them that they may share the common privi-
lege of Ameriean citizens of migrating to new
homes, but that they must leave their slaves be-
hind, is something like telling a -Western settler
that he may go into the backwoods, but that he
mnst not take his axe with him. They protest
accordingly, and are ready to secede and even to
fight, not for their possessions, for those are not
likely to be molested, but for the freedom of pro-
gress and colonisation ~which their adversaries
would deny them.
The answer, however, to this specious plea is
obvious. Slavery is, in very truth, a thing hateful
and abominable. It is a disgrace to any country,
and the Northern people are perfectly justifi.d. ;r;
their requisition that if it cannot be
within the limits of the American Union it t
least not be extended. If, therefore, the S
States persist in maintaining such
uaonn They
they are answerable for the consa?firs;.
All the
might have taken better gr
= °u:States once ; almost
States of the Union were e Sou hern
al as 60 [years
all were Slave States
1800 three States only
were returned
nctilisning no slaves within
d what has been done by
their precincts,
rat
Jersey m"
ight have been
New York and A
In
.the Census
containing
attem t 1
e( by North and
South Carolina. But the people of the South
at. any ra_te, p
done, or,
chosen another course. They have
have
not only preserved Slavery, but have encouraged
it, denying its evils and asserting for it a positive.
merit and value. They have at length preferred
even to National Union and are endeavouring
in-
stitution establish a Confederacy which must rest on this
as a basis. Whether they will succeed or
fail we cannot venture to predict; we can only,
hope that better counsels may prevail, and that the
idea of disunion may be relinquished.—Tines,

A meeting was held yesterday, at Worcester, to
increase the fund now raising for the distressed weavers of
Coventry. Lord Lyttleton presided. A liberal rubserip-
Um Wm, etiluounced,