697,879 were negro slaves, and 50,466 free persons of color. In the order of population, Virginia was first, 748,308, of whom 293,427 were slave, and 12,766 free colored; Pennsylvania second, 434,373, of whom 3,737 were slave, and 6,537 free colored; North Carolina third, 393,751, of whom 100,572 were slave, and 4,975 free colored; Massachusetts fourth, 378,717, of whom 5,463 were free colored; New York fifth, 340,120, of whom 21,324 were slave, and 4,654 free colored; Maryland sixth, 319,728, of whom 103,036 were slave, and 8,043 free colored; South Carolina seventh, 249,073, of whom 107,094 were slave, and 1,801 free colored; Connecticut eighth, 238,141, of whom 2,759 were slave, and 2,801 free colored; New Jersey ninth, 184,139, of whom 11,423 were slave, and 2,762 free colored; New Hampshire tenth, 141,899, of whom 158 were slave, and 630 free colored; Vermont (admitted, 1791) eleventh, 85,416, of whom 17 were slave, and 255 free colored; Georgia twelfth, 82,548, of whom 29,264 were slave, and 398 free colored; Kentucky (admitted, 1792) thirteenth, 73,077, of whom 11,830 were slave, and 114 free colored; Rhode Island fourteenth, 69,110, of whom 952 were slave, and 3,469 free colored; Delaware fifteenth, 59,096, of whom 8,887 were slave, and 3,899 free colored; Tennessee (admitted, 1796) sixteenth, 35,791, of whom 3,417 were slave, and 361 free colored. The District of Maine belonged to Massachusetts and contained 96,540, of whom 538 were free colored. Adding the population of this District to that of Massachusetts, the latter ranks second, thus making Pennsylvania third, and North Carolina fourth.

By this census the United States was disclosed to the world as a slaveholding nation: Massachusetts alone of the sixteen States having no slaves. By the census of 1800 Vermont drops out of the column of slaveholding States, but there appear the Territory of Indiana, with 135 slaves; that of Mississippi, with 3,489; that is, a Union of sixteen States in only three of which, Massachusetts, Vermont and Ohio (admitted, 1802) no slaves were held.

In 1810, there were seventeen States; New Hampshire drops out of the slaveholding column, so that the free soil column includes Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Ohio. In 1820, of the twenty-three States, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and Ohio are not in the slaveholding column; the new States since 1810 are Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Maine; Indiana is reported as having 190 slaves; Illinois, 917, though both were created out of territory in which, by the ordinance of 1787, slavery was forbidden.

In 1830, the Union comprised twenty-four States, Missouri having been admitted in 1821. Massachusetts is in the slaveholding column with one slave; Ohio has six; Indiana, three. Ten years later, two States have been added to the Union, Arkansas and Michigan: the States which do not appear in the slaveholding column are Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Vermont. Connecticut has seventeen slaves; Indiana, three; New Hampshire, one; New York, four; Ohio, three; Rhode Island, five; Pennsylvania, sixty-four. That is, between 1830 and 1840 slavery quite disappeared in these States.

In 1850, thirty-one States comprised the Union, of which sixteen were free and fifteen slaveholding. New Jersey with 236 slaves was the only Northern State in the slaveholding column. Ten years later, 1860, New Jersey reported eighteen. The Union then consisted of thirty-three States Minnesota and Oregon, both free States, having been admitted, the one in 1858, the other, in 1859.

Thus it appears that in 1790, judging alone by the actual presence of slaves in a State, slavery—that is the right to hold slaves-was almost universal in the Union, but in 1860 it no longer existed at the North. Yet in 1790, if the actual number of slaves in the several States be considered, the prospect of the perpetuity of slavery in New Jersey was as portentous as in Kentucky-the respective number of slaves in the two States being a few over 11,000; Connecticut and Tennessee had about an equal

number and New York only about 8000 fewer than Georgia. In the aggregate, in 1790, New England contained 2,934 negro slaves; New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 36,524; and the remaining States about 630,000.

Though the census of 1840 is the last in which a New England State (Rhode Island, 4; New Hampshire, 1) is entered in the slaveholding column, New Jersey alone of the Northern States remaining in the column for 1860, we know that all slaves in Northern States of whom the census took notice after 1840 were either temporary residents of the State with their masters, or slaves who under existing laws had not yet attained the period at which they were entitled to enfranchisement. There was no introduction of new slaves into any Northern State, as property, after 1840. Texas was the last slave State admitted into the Union, 1845, a date which not only fixes the time when the State extension of slavery was limited, but also the time when, excepting in New Jersey, the last slave disappears in the free States. Texas was the twenty-eighth State and was followed in 1846 by Iowa, in 1848 by Wisconsin, both free States, at which time the Union comprised fifteen slave and fifteen free States. The admission of California, in 1850, as a free State, gave the free States the control of the Senate. It is interesting to note that the date of the admission of California coincides quite closely with that of the disappearance of a slave population at the North-there then remaining 236 slaves in New Jersey, which diminished to 18 by 1860.

As against these eighteen survivors at the North, in 1860, there were 3,950,531 slaves at the South. The free colored population was almost equally divided, in 1860, between the North and the South: there being 268,817 in the free States and 247,817 in the slaveholding States. But this apportionment derives its true significance from the actual distribution of free persons of color; thus they were a negligible quantity in the Gulf States-Texas, 355, as against 182,566 slaves; Mississippi, 773, as against 436,631

slaves; Louisiana, 18,647, as against 331,726 slaves; Florida, 932, as against 61,745 slaves, and Arkansas, 144, as against 111,115 slaves. Coming northward, the free colored population was more numerous, as in Virginia, 58,042, as against 490,865 slaves; North Carolina, 30,463, as against 331,059 slaves; Maryland, 83,942, as against 87,189 slaves, and Delaware, 19,829, as against 1,798 slaves. Crossing the border into the free States, the free colored population numbered 56,849 in Pennsylvania; 36,673 in Ohio; 49,005 in New York; but continuing north one finds only 709 in Vermont, 494 in New Hampshire and but 128 in Oregon. All this signifies that free persons of color were practically eliminated from the lower South and increased in numbers in the upper South-North Carolina, Virginia, and especially in Maryland (where they quite equalled the slave population in number) and in Delaware where they exceeded it a thousand per cent. Persons of color, who in 1860 were neither slaves nor could possess the rights and privileges of white men (excepting in Vermont and some parts of Massachusetts), though free to migrate, were not found in large numbers above the latitude of Philadelphia-the seemingly large number in New York being found chiefly in the city of New York in domestic service and as unskilled laborers. It would seem, therefore, that the natural law which determined the place of the free negro's residence might also affect the extension of slavery itself.

If the New England States had the climate of the Carolinas, would the census tables made at intervals of ten years, beginning in 1790, have recorded the disappearance of these States, and of their neighbors to the west, and of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, the middle West, California and Oregon, from the column of slaveholding States? Or, to put the question in a very simple way, was it too cold at the North to make negro slavery profitable? Did the climate of the South affect the opinions of its people concerning slavery?

It is certain that in 1860, when rumors of civil war were flying thick and fast, few negroes in the United States were

found living farther north than the latitude of Philadelphia; slavery had at that time disappeared in every Northern State (save a vestige in New Jersey-a Northern State with a southern climate), and in the northern tier of Northern States, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, northern New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, a negro was seldom met with. The climatic limitation of the range of the negro to-day is the same as in 1860.

It would seem then that the South had the negro on its hands in 1860, as it has him to-day, chiefly because of the law of climate. And the North did not have the negro in 1860, as it does not have him to-day, because of the same law. If it be asked why in 1790 and earlier, negro slavery existed in New England and in the Middle States in spite of the climate, the answer is contained in the question: it existed in spite of the climate. But negro slavery at the North was not profitable, excepting as at Newport, and at other markets, where slaves were bought and sold as commodities. Gradually the conviction grew at the North that slavery was wrong, and gradually slavery at the North disappeared. Whether the northern conscience would have pronounced slavery a crime had slavery been profitable all the way up to the Canadian border is a question which Southern men can answer perhaps more accurately than Northern men: for the climate which is necessary to the existence of the negro is the climate of the South rather than of the North. If slavery was right at the South at any time, it would have been right at the North whatsoever the climate at the North might be. So the question comes back to the rightfulness of slavery under a climate favorable to slavery-that is, to the rightfulness of slavery of itself. And herein lies one of the causes which led Southern men and Northern men to differ in opinion and by so much precipitated the Civil War. At present the important conclusion is that in tracing the history of slavery in the United States, we are early confronted by its disappearance gradually from the North and by its increasing strength at the