7,239,814 36.45

1820 9,638,131 33.13

1830 12,866,020 33.49

1840 17,069,453 32.67

1850 23,191,876 35.87

1860 31,443,790 35.58

"This shows an average Decennial Increase of 34.69 per cent. in
population through the seventy years from our first to our last census
yet taken. It is seen that the ratio of increase, at no one of these
seven periods, is either two per cent. below or two per cent. above the
average; thus showing how inflexible, and, consequently, how reliable,
the law of Increase, in our case, is.

"Assuming that it will continue, gives the following results:

YEAR. POPULATION.

1870 42,323,041

1880 56,967,216

1890 76,677,872

1900 103,208,415

1910 138,918,526

1920 186,984,335

1930 251,680,914

"These figures show that our Country may be as populous as Europe now is
at some point between 1920 and 1930--say about 1925--our territory, at
seventy-three and a third persons to the square mile, being of capacity
to contain 217,186,000.

"And we will reach this, too, if we do not ourselves relinquish the
chance by the folly and evils of Disunion or by long and exhausting War
springing from the only great element of National discord among us.
While it cannot be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of
Secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population,
civilization and prosperity, no one can doubt that the extent of it
would be very great and injurious.

"The proposed Emancipation would shorten the War, perpetuate Peace,
insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of
the Country. With these, we should pay all the Emancipation would cost,
together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt
without it.

"If we had allowed our old National debt to run at six per cent. per
annum, simple interest, from the end of our Revolutionary Struggle until
to-day, without paying anything on either principal or interest, each
man of us would owe less upon that debt now than each man owed upon it
then; and this because our increase of men through the whole period has
been greater than six per cent.; has run faster than the interest upon
the debt. Thus, time alone, relieves a debtor Nation, so long as its
population increases faster than unpaid interest accumulates on its
debt.

"This fact would be no excuse for delaying payment of what is justly
due, but it shows the great importance of time in this co