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such returns is but half of the duty properly incident to the execution of such a measure. They should be accompanied by such a digest and analysis of the information collected, comparatively with former periods, with foreign countries and the different sections of our own country, as would extract from the dry and barren mass of figures and special facts, that essence of political and economical philosophy in which their value consists. The labor of conducting the Census on these improved principles, and of preparing the Reports on the different branches into which the information accumulated would divide itself, would of course be very great, as the duty would be a very responsible one, requiring a great deal more than the mere clerical qualifications which seem on former occasions to have been brought to the task, under the general official supervision of the Secretary of State. We cannot know what plan will be adopted by Congress, but trust that it will be one that will not disappoint the country, in the hopes and expectations entertained by all men of intelligence whose attention has directed itself to this interesting subject.

With respect to the probable result of the approaching Census, so far as regards the mere enumeration of the population, it will probably not fall short of seventeen millions and a half. The results of the five former enumerations that have been made at the successive periods of ten years, have been as follows:

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The average ratio of increase has therefore been about 34 per cent. for every period of ten years, or 3.4 per annum; which would yield in 1840 about seventeen millions and a quarter, to which the great excess of immigration above all former precedent, known to have taken place, will probably be found to add another quarter of a million.

It will not be uninteresting to our readers if we extend the above table for the last fifty years, forward through the coming century. Those whose attention has never chanced to approach the subject will indeed be astounded at the stupendous result to which it will conduct them. The average ratio of increase may with entire safety be taken at .30 for ten years. That of the free population has heretofore averaged about 36 per cent., which that of the slaves, 30 per cent., has reduced, as above seen, to 34 per cent. We assume .30, for the sake of moderation, of which the result must at any rate be startling, and to exclude the accidental influence of immigration:

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The imagination is overwhelmed that would attempt to realize an idea of this glorious anticipation. And yet the child has already opened its eyes to the light, that is in all probability destined to close them upon the magnificent spectacle of upwards of two hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, from ocean to ocean, overshadowed by the waving of the Stripes and Stars! Nor one alone, but hundreds-thousands-for if the last census exhibited more than a thousand persons of the age of a hundred and upwards, many thousands of infants born about the present period must doubtless live to the year 1940. And the proportion will certainly be not inconsiderable, of the actual readers of this page, who will live to feel themselves, in little more than half a century hence, bound by the ties of citizenship and brotherhood to nearly seventy-five millions of fellow human beings!

And who will question the probability that the ratio of increase of our population will be, and must be, through an indefinite series of years in the awful depths of which all imagination is bewildered and lost, that which we have assumed-a ratio less than has heretofore marked our progress? What assignable cause is there that can arrest it? With a boundless expanse of fertile territory, within that region of the earth's surface most favorable to human life and the healthful developement of all its faculties-a climate which must ever increase in salubrity from time to time with the extension of cultivation-an intelligence and enterprise of national character which will not fail to improve to the utmost every natural resource and advantage-the gigantic steps which the science of the present age is daily taking in the developement of all the arts of utility, by which the physical sustenance and enjoyment of life can be facilitated and enhanced-the exemption from all possible danger of war, and from the heavy superincumbent pressure of accumulated misgovernment by which the nations of Europe have

NOTE. The actual numbers were: of Whites, Males 301, Females 238; total 539-of Negroes, Males 1017, Females 1062; total 2,079. Three-fourths, at least, of the latter ought certainly to be rejected, from the well known practice of aged negroes of claiming the round century of years as soon as they have outlived their own memory and other evidence of their actual age. This would reduce the whole number to about the statement above assumed.

heretofore been depressed, and stunted even in the natural growth which their physical circumstances and national characters might otherwise have permitted-the perfect freedom, alike of the moral and the animal man, to grow to the full stature and capacity of his nature, with ample room and verge enough" to spread freely in every direction-in such a state of things, what assignable cause is there, we repeat, that can arrest the progressive increase of our population at a similar rate to that which the past half century has witnessed?

It is in this anticipation that we find the chief reason for the deep, the intense solicitude, which every friend of American liberty and union ought to feel for the broad and strong establishment of sound principles, as the basis of that grand structure of political and civil society which we thus see rising upward towards the heavens before our eyes-such principles as will be adequate to sustain so colossal a fabric. It is for this that the patriot would struggle to reform every vicious institution, the operation of which is found, or is calculated, to exert a demoralizing influence on national character. For this, that he would lament to see the baleful poison of that universal passion for wealth so often ascribed to us, sapping and corrupting the roots of all that is truly good and great, accompanied with that spirit of dishonest gambling at the grand national gambling table of "the credit system," which we call by the more specious name of "speculation." For this, that he would frown sternly upon every attempt to sow discord and jealousy between different sections of the country; and would anxiously cultivate those feelings of harmony and brotherhood, which can only be maintained between great confederated communities by the peaceful pursuit by each of its own industry and its own interests, without encroachment on those of another by the advantages of partial federal legislation, and without an offensive interference with each other's domestic concerns and institutions. And for this that, in the working of our complex political machine, he would be anxious to restrain as much as possible the central action of the Federal Government, and carry out to the fullest extent that diffusion of power, at the greatest distance possible from the centre, on which the preservation of the Union wholly depends.

If we should be asked if we believe it possible that this Union can hold together a hundred years hence with a population of two hundred and fifty millions, spreading from Atlantic to Pacific, and northward and southward as their free natural growth should extend—we answer, yes, provided the theory of the State-Rights doctrine be but fully and fairly carried out into practice. Administered as the Federal Government has been for the last half century, we must unhesitatingly answer, no. Too strong an action has been

propelled outward from the centre to afford a possibility of its successfully working on a scale so vastly enlarged as this supposition assumes. Thus continued, it must infallibly dislocate and dissever the system, so soon as the distances and the masses increase to proportions considerably beyond their present dimensions. Such collisions of interest between great sections of country, as we have seen to grow out of the vicious federal legislation of former times on Tariffs, National Banks, &c., must never be suffered again to grow out of similar causes. The danger is now happily past, and North and South are coming cordially together again on common ground; but its repetition might be fatal even at our present rate of population,--with such an increase as will ere long have taken place, it must certainly be so.

CHANNING ON "SELF-CULTURE."✪

When we behold a man gifted by his Creator with high and rare endowments for his mission in society-with intellect unsubdued, spirit unbowed, hope undimmed, and heart unsaddened, by the perpetual pressure of the infirm health which wastes and weakens his physical powers-like the lamp whose steady, clear, and heavendirected flame shines with a mild brightness through the attenuated transparency of the alabaster vase within which it is enclosedcombining in an admirably tempered character the piety of the Christian minister, the cultivated wisdom of the sage, the cheerful confidence in human nature, and in the future, of the philanthropic enthusiast-with a fervor, elevation, simplicity and purity, which seem to convey to those approaching him a better idea of the term apostolic than they before entertained-when we look upon such a man from a distance, in the quiet seclusion of his modest course of life, though haply known to us only by the writings that well attest the preeminent reputation of an eloquence, which is as of lips that have been touched by a coal of the sacred fire from the altar of all truth and holiness-it is with an affectionate reverence which is a thousand-fold nobler tribute of the human heart, than the homage which millions may pay to the vulgar glory or greatness of emperor or conqueror. And such are the feelings perhaps more extensively and earnestly entertained towards Dr. Channing than towards any other individual of our country and time. Of the justice of the

* Self-Culture. An Address introductory to the Franklin Lectures, delivered at Boston, September, 1838, by Wm. E. Channing. Boston: Dutton & Wentworth, Printers. 1838.

sentiment, we do not care to speak. It is one of those sentiments which prove their own justice-like that with which the hearts of year. multiplying millions turn to the high national Ideal which Washington has bequeathed as a perpetual patrimony to his country-a better and richer possession than all the prosperity that may grow out of the independence which he was one of the chief instruments to achieve for it. We only state the fact, as it unquestionably exists, and as an introduction to the brief notice which our limits permit, of the recently published pamphlet by Dr. Channing, of the above title.

It was delivered as an Introductory Address to a course of annual lectures in Boston, instituted in 1831, designed for and chiefly attended by the mechanical and laboring classes of men of that city. It is so thoroughly imbued with that spirit of elevated democracy and expansive philanthropy that have long characterized its author, that democracy which is the natural fruit of a lofty and pure Christian philosophy, that without wasting our allotted space with remarks of our own, we will extract from its pages as copious quotations as possible, to direct the attention of our readers to it; and in the hope that the interest which may be thus excited may cause its republication and wider diffusion in the sections of the country than those to which its circulation might otherwise probably be confined. Short and simple as it is, it is a book that we should like to see cross every threshold, and become an inmate under every roof in our broad and beautiful land.

After a few opening remarks, Dr. Channing proceeds to his subject, the duty of Self-Culture by all classes of society, in the following fine introduction, which will find a deep response in the bosom of every right-minded reader:

"I have expressed my strong interest in the mass of the people; and this is founded not on their usefulness to the community so much as on what they are in themselves. Their condition is indeed obscure, but their importance is not on this account a whit the less. The multitude of men cannot, from the nature of the case, be distinguished; for the very idea of distinction is, that a man stands out from the multitude. They make little noise and draw little notice in their narrow spheres of action; but still they have their full proportion of personal worth, and even of greatness. Indeed every man, in every condition, is great; it is only our own diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as a man, be he where or what he may. The grandeur of his nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions. His powers of intellect, of conscience, of love, of knowing God, of perceiving the beautiful, of acting on his own mind, on outward nature, and on his fellow creatures these are glorious prerogatives. Through the vulgar error of undervaluing what is common, we are apt indeed to pass these by as of little worth. But as in the outward creation, so in the soul, the common is the most precious. Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent, but these are all poor and worthless, compared with the common light which the sun sends into all our windows, which he pours freely, impartially, over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few. Let us not disparage that nature which is common to all men; for no thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of God, the image even of his infinity, for no limits can be set to its unfolding. He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place

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