ensus shows that our
wealth increases each ten years at the rate of 126.45 per cent. Now,
then, take our increase of wealth in consequence of immigration as
before stated, and compound it at the rate of 126.45 per cent, every ten
years, and the result is largely over three billions of dollars in 1870,
and over seven billions of dollars in 1880, independent of the effect of
any immigration succeeding 1860. If these results are astonishing, we
must remember that immigration here is augmented population, and that it
is population and labor that create wealth. Capital, indeed, is the
accumulation of labor. Immigration, then, from 1850 to 1860, added to
our national wealth a sum more than one third greater than our whole
debt on the 1st of July last, and augmenting in a ratio much more rapid
than its increase, and thus enabling us to bear the war expenses.

As the homestead privilege must largely increase immigration, and add
especially to the cultivation of our soil, it will contribute more than
any other measure to increase our population, wealth, and power, and
augment out revenue from duties and taxes.

We have seen that, by the Census (p. 195), the total value of the real
and personal estate in the United States was, in--

1860, $16,159,616,068
1850, 7,135,780,228

Increase from 1850 to 1860, 126.45 per cent.

At the same rate of increase, for the four succeeding decades, the
result would be, in--

1870, $36,593,450,585
1880, 82,865,868,849
1890, 187,314,353,225
1900, 423,330,438,288

If we subtract one fourth from the aggregate, we will find that our
public debt constitutes less than _one half of one per cent._ of the
_increase_ of our national wealth. This debt, then, does not exhaust our
capital, but effects only a small diminution of the rate of
augmentation.

If we look at the causes of this vast increase of our national wealth,
they will be found mainly in the enormous extent of our fertile lands,
the vast emigration from Europe, and the constant addition of new States
to the Union. Thus, from 1850 to 1860, four new States were added to the
Union. These four States were almost an untrodden wilderness in 1850,
but in 1860 were rich and flourishing States, with a population of
638,965, and an aggregate wealth of $331,809,418. Within this decade,
from 1860 to 1870, at least six new States will be added to the Union.
This is evident from a reference to our present