territory of the United
States, then, to attain an equal degree of population, with the British
European dominions; they will have an hundred millions of inhabitants.
Let us extend our views to what may be the population of the two
continents of North and South America, supposing them divided at the
narrowest part of the isthmus of Panama. Between this line and that
of 50 deg. of north latitude, the northern continent contains about five
millions of square miles, and south of this line of division, the
southern continent contains about seven millions of square miles. I do
not pass the 50th degree of northern latitude in my reckoning, because
we must draw a line somewhere, and considering the soil and climate
beyond that, I would only avail my calculation of it, as a make-weight,
to make good what the colder regions, within that line, may be supposed
to fall short in their future population. Here are twelve millions of
square miles, then, which, at the rate of population before assumed,
will nourish twelve hundred millions of inhabitants, a number greater
than the present population of the whole globe is supposed to amount to.
If those who propose medals for the resolution of questions, about which
nobody makes any question, those who have invited discussion on the
pretended problem, Whether the discovery of America was for the good
of mankind? if they, I say, would have viewed it only as doubling
the numbers of mankind, and, of course, the quantum of existence and
happiness, they might have saved the money and the reputation which
their proposition has cost them. The present population of the inhabited
parts of the United States is of about ten to the square mile; and
experience has shown us, that wherever we reach that, the inhabitants
become uneasy, as too much compressed, and go off, in great numbers,
to search for vacant country. Within forty years, their whole territory
will be peopled at that rate. We may fix that, then, as the term, beyond
which the people of those States will not be restrained within their
present limits; we may fix that population, too, as the limit which they
will not exceed, till the whole of those two continents are filled up
to that mark; that is to say, till they shall contain one hundred and
twenty millions of inhabitants. The soil of the country, on the western
side of the Mississippi, its climate, and its vicinity to the United
States, point it out as the first which will receive populat