Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-10-02
TO TIE EDITORS.
WASHINGTON, SEprEMBER "a, 1852.

WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER "a, 1867.
Messrs. GALES 4 SEAToN The laws of Nature
and obedience to their principles are of too much
consequence to be treated lightly. They are stern
in their mandates and infexible in punishment as
they are faithful in reward 1t is not, therefore,
without very deep conviction of the Importance of
my subject that pursue Investigations on the pro-
gress of population in the United States Of North
America. Had the places of my birth and past
life been in any other part of the earth than where
they were, however distant in space, or different In
other respects, and had obtained by any means the
limited knowledge possess on the history OF past
progress in the United States of North America,
and with the views which these circumstances have
opened to my mind of the sure guarantee they af-
ford of durable advance then would be the same
expressions given of the mighty future d
Our individual predictions, whatever they may
be, have their share, but they cannot haye, h
! the Inodihcaton OF tile wesl1a great drsxna This
can be said in defiance Of successful fcontradiction
One name, NAPOLEON will suffice as illustrative of
the principle This man, as many. others before
him have done, and as many more will do after him,
in the ntoxicaton of momentary triumph, conceited
that they were the moving power, whilst, in fact,
they were drifting to inevitable ruin. Such persons
are landmarks, and such ought they to be regarded
and adjudged on their individual intellectual and
moral merits But there are revolutions in human
affairs which, if individuals cannot control they
can guide, and, if they cannot foresee particular
events, they can, with much of certainty, foresee
general results.
In the case of AngloSaxon colonization Of North
America and its consequences as far as they have
been developed, there has been chain of causes
and effects so regular in their sequence that the
mind is almost forced to launch into the recesses OF
futurity. Such is my case; and with the means of
SO respectable channel the National Intelhgen-
Ger to present my views to public attention, so they
are presented leaving to time to test their validity
Time is an able guide and wise counsellor. If am
wrong or if | am right time will decide.
We have before us, on the land and its inland
seas, lakes, and rivers, and the great bordering
oceans most sublime theatre in North America.
The thought is most overwhelming when in our
mental vision we sweep this the finest continu
Gus space of the habitable world, and reflect that
not four centuries of all past time have elapsed since
its existence has been revealed to the civilized
tions eastward of the Atlantic ocean. Again we
ask, Than this what more overwhelming thought can
paralyze the human mind A new creation could
do no more for the European nations than was done
when America was revealed to them. One great
event has followed another on North America.
Physical and intellectual with religious means have
combined to produce an irreversble change, which,
though mighty in its effects, they as yet only
the premonitory rumblings and sparks Of coming
explosions. They already tell us in whispers that
renovation not destruction, is to form the eyentu-
lalities on North America
The great, and In power and effect increasing,
change in number as In expansion, with a common
language, decreed TO spread from the Atlantic to
the Pacific ocean, and from the Gulf of Mexico to
the Arctic sea, all combining to produce and present
objects of study which might the intense
gard of the most exalted minds, and which no one
will treat with levity who respects the most sacred
interests of mankind. The time is already come
when the statesmen of the world, those of the Uni
ted States of North America in particular, must
awaken and give their attention to one of the most
important effects of the discovery of the immense
theatre they occupy.
might find it their interest to give serious attention
TO the influence their own country of the exist
ence of dense population from the Atlantic to the
Pacific ocean, amounting to accumulated millions.
For the first time in the progress of nations the
census system of the United States has provided
means to determine national force for at least half
century to come, and with all requisite precision.
Ip, the six tabular returns of the people of the
United States taken in 1870, 1900, 1910, 1920,
1880, 1910, and 1850, we have six decennial emu
merations of the amount, afording means to test
their accuracy and relative accordance by analysis
| We have data which have never before in any
other country or age, been possessed to determine
national advance The six decennal returns of the
census-not, let it be premised of mean of the
whole but of each separately-comes out SO near
one and one-third, or very small fraction still
nearer .333, that the latter gives the following
results: