Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/97

 Memorandum in re Corpus juris cannot be eliminated, and although it may seem a trite subject—this question of population—to refer to in a memoran dum of this sort, it nevertheless has so

85

Among a number of other deductions, he made these:

for if the administration of Justice re quires the making of a clear statement

“This shows an average decennial increase of 34.6 per cent in population through the seventy years from our ﬁrst to our last census yet taken. It is seen that the ratio of in crease at no one of these seven periods is either two per cent below or 2 per cent above the average, thus showing how inﬂexible and consequently how reliable the law of increase

of our system of jurisprudence in order

in our case is. Assuming that it will continue,

to make Justice possible today, we can

it gives the following results:"

intimate a connection with and bearing upon the problem before us that it should be taken into contemplation,

but imagine how much more serious

conditions will be a few decades hence when our population is twice what it is

Lincoln then inserted a table of esti mated decennial increases from the year 1870 to 1930 by decades and said :—

now, if a complete, accurate and com

prehensive statement

of our Corpus

juris is not available. Furthermore, the increase of popu

lation in America indicates how rapidly the profession will enlarge in numbers,

and proves that the demand will rapidly increase for copies of such a work, and therefore indicates that from the ﬁnan cial standpoint, there is no question but that the foundation which made its pro duction possible will be restored, no matter what the original cost may be. Lincoln, when President, as the nation drifted into civil war, deemed this

question of population of such vital im portance as to cause him to discuss it in extenso in his second annual message.

See Messages and Papers of the Presi dents, Vol, VI. p. 136 et seq. Lincoln there exhibited the increase by decades in the population of the nation as follows: Ratio of

Increase (‘75)

"These ﬁgures show that our country may be as populous as Europe is at some point be tween 1920 and 1930."

He had previously massed much in the way of statistics concerning density of population in various states and in

Europe. He then made an extraor~ dinary prediction as follows: — “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."

This message was sent to Congress December 1, 1862. We did, however, decrease for the time being our ratio

of increase by continuing the war and so Lincoln's estimate that in 1900, we would have a population of one hundred and three millions was somewhat higher than the fact, yet he had indicated that that would be the result if the war were continued.

“ Year

Population

“1790 “1800 "1810

3,929,827 5,305,937 7,239,814

—- — 35.02 36.45

"1820 ‘‘1830

9,628,131 12,866,020

33.13 33.49

in 1910 of approximately one hundred millions (the estimate), a mere twenty ﬁ'ue per cent decennial increase (as against the more than 34% used by Lincoln

"1840 "1850 “1860

17,069,453 23,191,876 31,443,790

32.67 35.87 35.58"

in his calculation) will have the following startling results—I do not state the detail ﬁgures lower than tens of thousands

Now, applying the Lincoln method and assuming that we have a population