state.* But, it is well known, that, in making these comparisons, there are several circumstances to be taken into account, and that, as we have no accurate means of ascertaining these, our reasonings on the subject can lead us only to probabilities, rather than to positive certainty. The most important of these are 1. The migrations from Europe, which being chiefly to the states without slaves, swell the number of their white, and their gross, population, in any comparison with the slave-holding states. 2. The emigrants from the slave-holding states to the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. These lessen the apparent increase of the white population, in the slave-holding states, either in comparing them with the free states, or in comparing their white population with their slaves, or black population, bond and free. If the legislatures of the three last mentioned states, may be considered to afford just criteria of the origin of their constituents, one-third of their population has been drawn from the slaveholding states. 3. Until the year 1808, slaves were imported from Africa into South Carolina and Georgia; and they, of course, have augmented the numbers of the coloured and slave population, when compared with the whites. 4. The acquisition of Louisiana, by the greater proportion of its slaves, compared with its white population, has had a similar effect. On the other hand, the number of emigrants from the free states, together with the small proportion of European emigrants to the slave-holding states, lessens the apparent increase of the population in the former; and the emancipations of slaves also lessen their apparent increase. It is not easy to make a correct estimate of these conflicting influences; but if we suppose, that what the free states have gained by emigration from Europe, together with what the slave-holding states have lost by the migration of their citizens to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, is equal to the population of these three states, (and they cannot be much short of it,) then in the comparative view of the increase in the free and the slaveholding states, it would be proper to omit them, as well as Louisiana and Missouri, which formed no part of the Union, until after the second census. Comparing, therefore, the ten states having few or no slaves, to wit, Maine, New-Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, with the nine slave-holding states of Maryland, See Raymond's Political Economy, Chapter on Slavery: in which the above propositions are erroneously deduced from the three first censuses. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, the total increase of population, in the first, from 1790 to 1820, is 118 per cent.; while in the slave-holding states it is 123 per cent. The white population, during the same period, increased in the free states 121 per cent.; and in the slave-holding states, 122 per cent. The increase of slaves, in the last mentioned states, was, in the same period, but 110 per cent.; but of the whole black population, bond and free, 126 per cent. All of which facts are directly at variance with the propositions before stated. The greater increase of the whole black population, than that of the whites, in the slave-holding states, is to be attributed to the slaves imported previous to the year 1808, and to the acquisition of Louisiana, as is shown in the following table, by comparing the rates of increase of the different classes, during three successive periods of ten years each. Increase from 1790 to 1800. From 1800 to 1810. From 1810 to 1820. 36 per cent. 35 per cent. 33 per cent. Whites, The estimates in the preceding table are made on the whole population of the United States, but those made on the population of the slave-holding states afford the same consolatory evidence, that, although the black population had gained on the white, in the thirty years from 1790 to 1820, by reason of the two circumstances that have been mentioned, yet, in the ten years from 1810 to 1820, when the black population was left to its natural increase, the whites are found to have the greatest increase. Thus, the white population in all the slave-holding states, has, during that period, increased 33 per cent., while the whole black population has increased not quite 30 per cent. Although a few great results, as to the comparative increase of the different classes of our population, are rendered extremely probable, notwithstanding the indeterminate influences that have been noticed, yet it were greatly to be wished that the census of the United States had furnished yet more certain data for estimating the natural increase, by taking an account of the married women and the number of marriages of the preceding year, as was done in the census taken in New-York in 1825. Until that be done, we shall continue to believe, from the evidence before us, that there is no material difference in the natural increase of any class of our population, in any part of the country, with the exception of the free coloured population. If the superior healthiness of the Northern and Eastern states, over that part of the Southern states which lies below tide water, favours the greater increase of the former, this advantage is probably counterbalanced by the fact that marriages are somewhat earlier in the South, both from the effect of climate, and the greater facility of procuring the necessaries of life. And, although the slaves, having fewer moral and no prudential restraints, may be expected to increase faster than the whites, yet, on this very account, the former are somewhat less prolific. Perhaps, too, a greater number die in infancy. We however, hazard all these conjectures with distrust, being well aware of their inherent uncertainty. On the subject of the free coloured population, there seems to be but one opinion-that having neither the incentives to labour, which operate on the white man or the slave, they are indolent, needy, improvident and immoral; and on these accounts, increase more slowly than either of the other two classes. There are some valuable population tables in Dr. Cooper's book, which seem to be very correct, and which have aided us in making the preceding calculations. We intended to say a word or two on protecting duties, against which our author writes with great earnestness and force, but we have said so much on less hackneyed subjects, that we must be content with a reference to the work itself. ART. II.-AMERICAN DRAMA. The Father of an Only Child. A Comedy. By WILLIAM Dunlap. Marmion. A Drama, in five acts. By J. N. BARKER, Esq. Superstition. A Tragedy. By the same. Ir might, perhaps, be a question with some, whether it be more indicative of a want of genius in the dramatic writers, or a want of taste in the readers, of these United States, that a large portion of the latter have, we believe, remained to this day ignorant of the very existence of the former. To the frequenters of the theatre, it is known, that some such strange monsters did once, and perhaps do still inhabit this barren wilderness of literature, unless perchance they have been starved to death, or become extinct like the mammoth and various other animals, whose remains sometimes rise up in judgment against them. But to a vast proportion of our readers, they are as if they had never beennot forgotten, for that would be something-but never known. For this reason, it will no doubt surprise the reader, to learn that we have actually in our possession, nearly sixty American dramas, consisting of tragedies, comedies, operas, serious and comic, melo-dramas and farces, besides others that baffle all our attempts at "codification." These last cannot be called by any name, Christian or Pagan, with which we are acquainted, and, like certain equivocal substances, which belong neither to the animal nor vegetable kingdom, must be left to be defined, when they shall become sufficiently numerous to merit the distinction. To those who have had occasion to observe, and to regret the prevalence of a certain colonial spirit, which equally affects our legal and literary tribunals, and, by a natural consequence, the opinions of the public, it will probably occur, that this total oblivion of our dramatic productions, is entirely owing to the accident of their not being worth remembering, or even meriting a passing notice. A perusal of the plays in our possession, has, however, satisfied us, that this is not altogether the fact. Unless we are greatly mistaken, there are some among them, not entirely unworthy of being read, and which, if represented on our stage, with the advantage of good scenery and good acting, would, or at least ought to be successful. They are, we really think, to say the least of them, quite equal to the productions of the present race of London playwrights, which are regularly brought out at our theatres, and to which the certificate of having been performed a hundred nights, with unbounded applause, gives all the efficacy of a quack medicine. Before, however, we proceed to notice some of these domestic wonders more particularly, it may, perhaps, be no uninteresting or useless task to glance at a few of the leading causes which have brought about that decline in the dignity and usefulness of the stage, which is now acknowledged on all hands to be notorious in England, and as an almost inevitable consequence in this country. For ourselves, we cannot but lament it most deeply, as one of those indications that point with unerring finger to the absence of that wholesome, manly and vigorous taste, which may be said always to mark the best periods in the history of every civilized country. Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, since the days of Jeremy Collier, we cannot but bear in our heads as well as our hearts, a love and respect for an art, which, in its purity, administers so delightfully to our taste as well as to our best feelings. Of all popular amusements ever devised, dramatic exhibitions are, when properly conducted, the most elegant and instructive. They address themselves both to the understanding and the senses, and carry with them the force of precept and example. In witnessing them, we are excited by the passions of others instead of our own, as is the case in the real transactions of life; and that stimulus, which may be pronounced to be one of the actual wants of our nature, is thus af forded to us, without any of the evil consequences resulting from an indulgence of the passions in our own proper persons. It is by this mode of giving play and excitement to the mind, by mimic representations, that the force of the operations of the passions in real life is unquestionably tempered and restrained; and hence it has always been held with justice, that the stage, in its legitimate and proper state, is a most powerful agent in humanizing and refining mankind. It operates also in other ways in bringing about this salutary result. It allures the people from an attendance upon barbarous and brutifying spectacles-from brawls, boxing-matches, and bull-baitings;-it accustoms them, in a certain degree, to intellectual enjoyments and rational recreations; and substitutes innocent amusement, if not actual instruction, in the place of those which afford neither one nor the other. A theatre, where the price of admittance is within the means of the ordinary classes of people, is a substitute, and a most salutary one, for tavern brawls and low debauchery. Those whose faculties are too obtuse to relish or comprehend the intrinsic excellence of a plot, the lofty morality or classic ease of the dialogue, are still instructed and amused through the medium of their eyes, and actually see before them examples to imitate or avoid. If it be said, that these examples are too far removed from the ordinary sphere of those who witness them, to be of any use, still it may be replied, that chastity, fortitude, patriotism, and magnanimity, are virtues of all classes of mankind, and that all can feel and comprehend them, though they may be exercised in circumstances and situations in which they never expect to be placed. That the Drama may be, has been, and actually now is, in some degree diverted from its proper and most important purposes, will hardly be denied by those who have the misfortune to like a good play; and though it cannot exactly be said of the infirmities of intellect, as it is of the maladies of the body, that when once the causes are known they are half cured; still it is certain, that a knowledge of the source of a defect, is indispensable to the finding of an adequate remedy. For this reason, the ensuing remarks may not be entirely without utility. It is generally, we believe, considered a sufficient apology in behalf of the persons who preside over this most delightful of all intellectual banquets, that the degradation of the stage originated in the necessity of administering to a taste already vitiated. The public must be pleased, that the manager may live. If the people require the attractions of a menagerie and a puppet-show combined, and will relish nothing living, but horses, dogs, dromedaries, and elephants, prancing in the midst of pasteboard pageantry, conflagrations, bombardments, springing of mines, blowing up of castles, and such like accumulations of awful |