prosperity. Let us guard our freedom from corruption, never forgetting that the only way to preserve our freedom is to use it aright. So let us do; and it may well be that we have yet seen only the morning brightness of a day of which the meridian splendor will surpass anticipation, and whose sun will not go down. Table VII., annexed to this chapter, gives the square miles of surface of each State, its population in 1870, its population in 1790, its rank in population in 1780, its rank in population in 1870, and the present number of representatives in Congress to which it is entitled. The table permits many interesting comparisons of the States with each other, and of the present with the past.. It shows the vast disparity between the States in extent, Texas, the largest, being more than two hundred times as large as Rhode Island; and in population, New York, the most populous, having more than one hundred times the population of Nevada. It also shows the great and rapid increase of population through the whole country; and the rank of the States when measured by population, and the changes which have taken place in this rank in the last eighty years. It will be seen that the population of the States was, in 1790, 3,942,270; there were then no territories. In 1870 the population of the States was 38,115,641, and of the territories, 442,730, making the whole population of the United States 38,558,371; showing that the increase of the population in these eighty years was almost eightfold. When the first House of Representatives was organized, the whole number was 65, now it is 292. |