f time has elapsed, I believe that the territories
and dependencies of the United States will be covered by more than
100,000,000 of inhabitants, and divided into forty States. *i I admit
that these 100,000,000 of men have no hostile interests. I suppose,
on the contrary, that they are all equally interested in the maintenance
of the Union; but I am still of opinion that where there are 100,000,000
of men, and forty distinct nations, unequally strong, the continuance of
the Federal Government can only be a fortunate accident.

[Footnote i: If the population continues to double every twenty-two
years, as it has done for the last two hundred years, the number of
inhabitants in the United States in 1852 will be twenty millions; in
1874, forty-eight millions; and in 1896, ninety-six millions. This may
still be the case even if the lands on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains should be found to be unfit for cultivation. The territory
which is already occupied can easily contain this number of inhabitants.
One hundred millions of men disseminated over the surface of the
twenty-four States, and the three dependencies, which constitute the
Union, would only give 762 inhabitants to the square league; this would
be far below the mean population of France, which is 1,063 to the square
league; or of England, which is 1,457; and it would even be below the
population of Switzerland, for that country, notwithstanding its lakes
and mountains, contains 783 inhabitants to the square league. See "Malte
Brun," vol. vi. p. 92.

[The actual result has fallen somewhat short of these calculations, in
spite of the vast territorial acquisitions of the United States: but in
1899 the population is probably about eighty-seven millions, including
the population of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto Rico.]]

Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man, until human
nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall refuse to believe
in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together
forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory equal to one-half
of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry, ambition, and struggles
between them, and to direct their independent activity to the
accomplishment of the same designs.

But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase
arises from the continual changes which take place in the position of
its internal strength. The distance from Lake Superior to