It is remarkable, that the excess in all the States is on the fide of males, except in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. In thefe States the females are confiderably the most numerous. This difference is obviously to be afcribed to the large migrations from all these States to Vermont, the northern and western parts of New York, the territory N. W. of Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, and fome to almost all the fouthern States. A great proportion of these migrants were males; and while they have served to increase the proportion of males in the States. where they have fettled, as is ftrikingly the cafe in Vermont and Kentueky, to which the migrations have been moft numerous, and where the males are to the females nearly as ten to nine, they have ferved to leffen the proportion of males in the States from whence they emigrated.

The number of flaves, in 1790, in all the States, was fix hundred ninety-feven thoufand fix hundred and ninety-feven. The increase of this number fince, owing to falutary laws, in feveral of the States, and the humane exertions of the government in favour of their emancipation and the prevention of any further importation, has happily been small, and will be lefs in future,

CHARACTER AND MANNERS.

FEDERAL AMERICANS, collected together from various countries, of ferent habits, formed under different governments, have yet to form their national character, or we may rather fay, it is in a forming ftate. They have not yet existed as a nation long enough for us to form an idea of what will be, in its maturity, its prominent features. Judging, however, from its present promising infancy, we are encouraged to hope, that, at fome future period, not far distant, it will, in every point of view, be refpectable.

Until the revolution, which was accomplished in 1783, Europeans were ftrangely ignorant of America and its inhabitants. They concluded, that the new world must be inferior to the old. The Count de Buffon fuppofed, that even the animals in that country were uniformly lefs than in Europe, and thence concluded that, " on that fide the Atlantic

there

there is a tendency in nature to belittle her productions." The Abbe Raynal, in a former edition of his works, fuppofed this belittling tendency, or influence, had its effects on the race of whites tranfplanted from Europe, and thence had the prefumption to affert, that "America had not yet produced one good poet, one able mathematician, nor one man of genius, in a fingle art or fcience." Had the Abbe been juftly informed respecting the Americans, we prefume he would not have made an affertion fo ungenerous and injurious to their genius and literary character. This affertion drew from Mr. Jefferson the following reply:

"When we shall have exifted as a people as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the English a Shakespeare and Milton, fhould this reproach be ftill true, we will inquire from what unfriendly caufes it has proceeded, that the other countries of Europe and quarters of the earth, shall not have inscribed any name in the roll of poets. In war we have produced a Washington, whofe memory will be adored while liberty shall have votaries, whofe name will triumph over time, and will in future ages affume its juft ftation among the most celebrated worthies of the world, when that wretched philofophy fhall be forgotten, which would arrange him among the degeneracies of nature. In phyfics we have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the prefent age has made more important discoveries, nor has enriched philofophy with more, or more ingenious folutions of the phænomena of nature. We have fuppofed Mr. Rittenhouse second to no aftronomer living: that in genius he must be the first, because he is felf-taught. As an artift, he has exhibited as great proofs of mechanical genius as the world has ever produced.—He has not indeed made a world; but he has, by imitation, approached nearer its Maker than any man who has lived from the creation to this day. As in philofophy and war, fo in government, in oratory, in painting, in the plastic art, we might shew that America, though but a child of yefterday, has already given hopeful proofs of genius, as well of the nobler kinds, which arouse the best feelings of man, which call him into action, which fubftantiate his freedom, and conduct him to happiness, as of the fubordinate, which serve to amuse him only. We therefore fuppofe, that this reproach is as unjust as it is unkind; and that, of the geniuses which adorn the prefent age, America contributes its full share. For comparing it with thofe countries, where genius is moft cultivated, where are the most excellent models for art, and scaffoldings for the attainment of science, as France and England, for inftance, we calculate thus: the United States contain three millions of inhabitants, France twenty millions, and the British islands ten. We produce a Washington, a Frank

lin,

lin, a Rittenhouse. France then should have half a dozen in each of thefe lines, and Great Britain half that number equally eminent. It may be true that France has; we are but just becoming acquainted with her, and our acquaintance fo far gives us high ideas of the genius of her inhabitants. It would be injuring too many of them to name particularly a Voltaire, a Buffon, the conftellation of Encyclopedifts, the Abbe Raynal, himself, &c. &c. We therefore have reafon to believe the can produce her full quota of genius."

The two late important revolutions in America, which have been fcarcely exceeded fince the memory of man, I mean that of the declaration and establishment of independence, and that of the adoption of a new form of government without bloodshed, have called to historic fame many noble and diftinguished characters who might otherwife have flept in oblivion.

But while we exhibit the fair fidé of the character of the FEDERAL AMERICANS, we would not be thought blind to their faults.

"If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, figning refolutions of independency with one hand, and with the other brandifhing a whip over his affrighted flaves."

Much has been written to fhew the injustice and iniquity of enflaving the Africans; fo much, as to render it unneceffary here to fay any thing on that part of the fubject. We cannot, however, forbear introducing a few obfervations refpecting the influence of flavery upon policy, morals, and manners. From calculations on the fubject, it has been found, that the expence of maintaining a fave, especially if the purchase money be included, is much greater than that of (maintaining a free man: this, however, is difputed by fome; but fuppofe the expence in both cafes be equal, it is certain that the labour of the free man, influenced by the powerful motive of gain, is, at leaft, twice as profitable to the employer as that of the flave. Befides, flavery is the bane of industry. It renders labour, among the whites, not only unfashionable, but difreputable. Industry is the offspring of neceffity rather than of choice. Slavery precludes this neceffity; and indolence, which strikes at the root of all focial and political happine fs, is the unhappy confequence. Thefe obfervations, without adding any thing upon the injuftice of the practice, fhew that flavery is impolitic.

Its influence on manners and morals is equally pernicious. The negro wenches, in many inftances, are nurses to their miftreffes children. The infant babe, as foon as it is born, is delivered to its black nurse, and perhaps feldom or never tastes a drop of its mother's milk. The children, by being brought up, and conftantly affociating with the negroes, too 4 often

often imbibe their low ideas, and vitiated manners and morals, and contract a negroish kind of accent and dialect, which they often carry with them through life.

To these I fhall add the observations of a native of a state which contains a greater number of flaves than any of the others. Although his obfervations upon the influence of flavery were intended for a particular state, they will apply equally well to all places where this pernicious practice in any confiderable degree prevails.

"There must doubtlefs," he obferves, "be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people, produced by the existence of flavery among us. The whole commerce between matter and flave is a perpetual exercife of the most boisterous paffions, the moft unremitting defpotifm on the one part, and degrading fubmiffions on the other. Our children fee this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do what he fees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his felf-love, for reftraining the intemperance of a paffion towards his flave, it should always be a fufficient one, that his child is prefent. But generally it is not fufficient. The parent ftorms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the fame airs in the circle of fmaller flaves, gives a loose to his worft of paffions, and thus nurfed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be ftamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by fuch circumftances. And with what execration fhould the Statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms thofe into defpots, and thefe into enemies; deftroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patria of the other. For if a flave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another: in which he muft lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far as depends on his individual endeavour, to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miferable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry alfo is deftroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is fo true, that of the proprietors of flaves a very fmall proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought fecure. when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of

• Mr. Jefferson.

the

the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his juftice cannot fleep for ever: that confidering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of fituation, is among poffible events: that it may become probable by fupernatural inference !—The Almighty has no attribute which can take fide with us in fuch a conteft. But it is impoffible to be temperate and to pursue this fubject through the various confiderations of policy, of morals, of hiftory, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, fince the origin of the present revolution. The fpirit of the master is abating, that of the flave rifing from the duft, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the aufpices of Heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is difpofed, in the order of events, to be with the confent of their mafters, rather than by their extirpation."

Under the Federal government, from the measures already adopted, we have reafon to believe that all flaves in the United States, will in time be emancipated, in a manner most consistent with their own happinefs, and the true intereft of their proprietors. Whether this will be effected by tranfporting them back to Africa; or by colonizing them in fome part of the American territory, and extending to them their alliance and protection, until they shall have acquired ftrength fufficient for their own defence; or by incorporation with the whites; or in fome other way, remains to be determined.

In the middle and northern States, there are comparatively but few flaves; and of course there is lefs difficulty in giving them their freedom. In Massachusetts alone, and we mention it to their distinguished honour, there are NONE. Societies for the manumiffion of flaves have been inftituted in Philadelphia New York, and other places, and laws have been enacted, and other measures taken, in the New England States, to accomplish the fame purpose. The FRIENDS, commonly call Quakers, have evinced the propriety of their name, by their goodnefs in originating, and their vigorous exertions in executing, this truly humane and benevolent defign.

The English Language is univerfally spoken in the United Sates, and in it business is tranfacted, and the records are kept. It is fpoken with great purity, and pronounced with propriety in New England, by perfons of education; and, excepting fome few corruptions in pronunciation, by all ranks of people. In the middle and fouthern States, where they have had a great influx of foreigners, the language, in many instances, is cor

rupted