rease as shown by the census reports.

The following table exhibits the development of the colored population
for the last one hundred years, as well as its decennial rates of
increase and percentage of the total population.

_Colored Population of the United States._

Year. Colored Decennial Increase Per cent
Population. Increase. per cent in of total
10 years. population.

1790 757,208 ....... ..... 19.27
1800 1,002,037 244,829 32.33 18.88
1810 1,377,808 375,771 37.50 19.03
1820 1,771,656 393,848 28.50 18.39
1830 2,328,642 556,986 31.44 18.10
1840 2,873,648 545,006 23.44 16.84
1850 3,638,808 765,169 26.63 15.69
1860 4,441,830 803,022 22.07 14.13
1870[11] 5,391,000 949,170 21.37 13.84
1880 6,580,793 1,189,793 22.07 13.12
1890 7,470,040 889,247 13.51 11.93

If we begin with 1810, the first census year after the constitutional
suppression of the slave trade, we see from this table that the growth
of the Negro element followed the ordinary law of population, viz: a
gradual decline in the rate of increase. In 70 years the decennial rate
of increase declined from about 30 per cent to 22 per cent. But from
1880 to 1890 there was a _per saltum_ decrease from 22 to 13 per
cent--that is, the decline in ten years was equal to that of the
previous seventy. And all this has happened during an era of profound
peace and prosperity, when the Negro population was subject to no great
perturbing influences. When a number of observations follow with
reasonable uniformity a fixed law, but a single result deviates widely
from this law it is usual to suspect the accuracy of the discrepant
observation. The author nowhere assigns any adequate cause for this
sudden "slump" in the increase of the colored population. Instead of
attributing it, in part at least, to the probable imperfection of the
eleventh census, he relies wholly upon a blind force recently discovered
and named by him "race traits and tendencies." The capriciousness of
this new factor, in that it may suspend operation indefinitely or break
loose in a day, does not seem to have occurred to the author, at least
it does not seem to affect the confident assurance with which he rel