1830] Population and Area 403 adopted the idea of the sovereignty of the people of the United States. This new idea was to bear immediate fruit in Jackson's own time, in a manner that many of those who had voted for him scarcely dreamed of at the moment of his election. It will be well to examine the condition of the country at such an epoch-marking period. 273. Population and Area in 1830. — The population of Numbers, the United States was now slightly under thirteen millions, 1830. in comparison with five and one half millions in 1800. Of this increase of over seven and one quarter millions, not more than four hundred and fifty thousand were immigrants. It was in the first thirty years of the century that the institutions of the country became crystallized on a democratic basis, and this work was accomplished by the original population of the country and their children. English institutions remained the dominant institutions, and the English language remained the dominant language. The area of the United States had more than doubled in Area, 1830. the same time; in 1830 it was over two million square miles, in comparison with less than eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles in 1800. Meantime the settled area had increased in about the same proportion: in 1830 it was six hundred and thirty thousand square miles, as against three hundred and five thousand square miles in 1800. This great increase in the area of settlement had been due, for the most part, to colonization of lands west of the Alleghanies. Of the eight states admitted to the Union. since 1800, only one (Maine) was situated on the Atlantic Growth of slope; the others (Ohio, 1803; Louisiana, 1812; Indiana, 1316; Mississippi, 1817; Illinois, 1818; Alabama, 1819; Missouri, 1821) were all west of the Alleghanies. This rapid growth of the West had been partly offset by a large increase in the population of the seaboard states, but the center of population had moved westward one hundred and twenty-five miles, to the western boundary of Maryland; in 1800 it had been only eighteen miles west of Baltimore. the West. 404 N The cities. Backwoodsman, 1829 The nation as a whole was still a rural people, as only about seven per cent of the population was collected into cities and towns of over eight thousand inhabitants (for 1800, see p. 321). Nevertheless, owing to the growing 1830] Influence of Slavery 405 importance of manufacturing and commercial pursuits in the northeastern states, the tendency toward town life had become fairly apparent, so far as that section was concerned. The population of New York City had more than trebled, rising from sixty thousand, in 1800, to two hundred thousand in 1830; of this increase, no less than eighty thousand had taken place in the last decade, 1820-30. Other large cities were Philadelphia, with one hundred and sixty-seven thousand inhabitants against seventy thousand in 1800; Baltimore, with eighty thousand, and Boston, with sixty-one thousand, in comparison with twenty-six and twenty-four thousand respectively in 1800. New Orleans, with forty-six thousand, was the only city of considerable size south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, as Charleston, Savannah, Richmond, and Norfolk had not grown in proportion to the total populations of the states in which they were situated. On the other hand, Cincinnati, on the northern bank of the Ohio River, was already a thriving town of twenty-four thousand inhabitants. It seemed not unlikely that the same distinctions between the free and the slave states, noticeable east of the Alleghanies, would soon find their counterpart west of those mountains. 274. Influence of Slavery. The total population had Increase of more than doubled in thirty years, the slave population slaves. increasing in almost precisely the same proportion as the white population. The latter had numbered nearly four millions in 1800; in 1830 it was ten and one half millions; the slave population, in the same time, had increased from nine hundred thousand to over two millions, and there were about three hundred thousand free negroes in 1830, mostly in the Northern states. In 1800 the free white Distribution inhabitants had been distributed between the North and of slave and free populaSouth, in proportion of twenty-five to thirteen. In 1830 tion. the proportion was about the same; but the South had maintained its place only through the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida and the rapid settlement of the states bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. The influence of slavery in Influence of slavery. In limiting population becomes at once apparent by a study of the figures relating to the thirteen original states. 1800 the free whites living east of the Alleghanies and north of Maryland had outnumbered those in the Southern states, excluding the people of Kentucky and Tennessee, two to one; in 1830 they outnumbered them five to one. The introduction of improved methods of transport, and the further encouragement of Northern manufactures, would inevitably create centers of industry in the northwestern states, stimulate emigration to that region, and still further build up the manufacturing and commercial towns in the northeastern states. Unless something were done to check this growth, the time was not far distant when the free population of the North would outnumber that of the South five to one. Discerning Southern leaders were already apprehensive of this result. In this fact is to be found 1830] Improvements in Transportation 407 their determined hostility to the continuance of the protective system, which they had helped to introduce. Already the improvements in transportation were begun: Jackson's administrations witnessed the development of canal communication, the rapid extension of steam transport on the water, and the introduction of the steam locomotive. The development of these engines of civilization was destined. to exercise an influence on the history of the United States far exceeding that of any political factor whatever. The political results that have flowed from the introduction of methods of cheap and rapid transit have equaled in importance the economic results - for America at least. 275. Improvements in Transportation. It is difficult Improvenowadays to understand the conditions of transport which ment in prevailed prior to the development of the present railway tation, system. To those living at the time of Jackson's inaugura- 1800-30. tion, the improvements already made for the conveyance of passengers between the centers of commerce and government seemed stupendous. In 1800 the stage drawn by transpor |