Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/61

Rh in 1840 those new slave States, with the addition of Florida, contained 3,409,132, while the population of the new free States—with the addition of Wisconsin and Iowa contained 2,967,840. In 50 years the new slave States had increased 323 per cent., and the new free States 1090 per cent.

In 1790, the whole free population of the present free States was 1,930,125; the free population of the present slave States and territories was 1,394,847. The difference in the number of free persons in the North and South was only 535,278. But in 1840 the free population of the free States and territories was 9,727,893; the free population of the slave States and territories only 4,848,105; the difference between the two was 4,879,788. In 50 years the free persons in the slave States had increased 247 per cent.; the free persons of the free States 404 per cent. It is true something has been added to the North by immigrations from abroad, but the accessions which the South has received by the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, by the immigration of enterprising men from the North, and by the importation of slaves, is perhaps more than adequate to balance the Northern increase by foreign immigration.

The Southern States have great advantages over the Northern in soil, climate, and situation; they have a monopoly of the tropical productions so greatly sought by all northern nations; they have superior facilities for the acquisition of wealth, and through that for the rapid increase of population. In some countries the advance of both is retarded by oppressive legislation. Of this the South cannot complain, as it will by and by appear. The new land lay nearer to the old Southern States than the old free States, and that not "infested with Indians" to the same extent with the soil since conquered and colonized by the emigrants from the Northern States. The difference of the increase of the two in wealth and numbers is to be ascribed, therefore, to the different institutions of the two sections of the land.