In the course of seventy years, that is, from the census of 1790 to that of 1860, the slave population has increased from 697,897 to 4,002,996. So that our colored population is now six times as great as when our Government was formed. During the same period the free population has increased from 3,231,975 to 27,280,070, or nearly nine times as great as in 1790. Of this increase about 3,000,000 is the result of emigration; so that the native-born population has increased to about 24,000,000, or about eight times as many as in the beginning of our Government. If due allowance be made for those born of emigrant parents,[A] it would seem that the two races have about kept pace with each other in their natural increase. A more minute examination, however, will show that the natural increase of the colored race has been in a greater ratio than that of the whites, native-born to the soil. The following tables will show how this is, both as to the colored and the white races. INCREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION. Years. No. of Slaves. Increase. Per ct. of Increase. 1790, 697,897 1800, 893,041 195,144 28 1810, 1,191,364 298,323 32 1820, 1,538,064 346,700 29 1830, 2,009,031 470,967 29 1840, 2,487,855 478,324 24 1850, 3,204,313 716,958 29 1860, 4,002,996 798,683 25 The average increase in every ten years during the seventy years has been about 28 per cent. INCREASE OF WHOLE POPULATION, INCLUDING SLAVES AND EMIGRANTS Years. Population. Increase. Per ct. of Increase. 1790, 3,929,872 1,376,080 1800, 5,305,952 1,376,080 37 1810, 7,239,814 1,933,862 36 1820, 9,688,131 2,398,817 33 1830, 12,866,920 3,228,789 34 1840, 17,063,353 4,196,433 33 1850, 23,191,876 6,128,523 36 1860, 31,676,217 8,484,341 36 The average increase in every ten years would be about 35 per cent. Deducting from this latter table the slaves, the emigrants, and children born of emigrants, now included in it, and the ratio of increase is below 27 per cent every ten years. So that if anything should occur to check the tide of emigration, the blacks in this country would increase in a faster ratio than the whites. We can form some idea as to the danger of such a check, when we advert to the fact that the emigration which in 1854 was 427,833, fell off in 1858 to 144,652. To finish the picture which these figures present to us, let us carry the mind forward a decade or two. At the average rate of increase of the blacks, namely, 28 per cent, we shall have, of the slave population alone, and excluding the free blacks, 5,060,585 in 1870, and 6,577,584 in 1880. And by that time they will be increasing at the rate of 150,000 to 200,000 a year.