But the case will be still stronger when we come to inquire, as we must before we close, into the causes of the facts which have just been presented. There is no reason to believe that the slower increase of the colored race is at all due to any original inferiority in the powers of reproduction, or that any such inferiority exists. Its causes are to be found wholly in the different circumstances, characters, and habits of the two peoples. The negro is, to a great extent, a barbarian in the midst of civilization. He is destitute of those comforts of life, that care, skill, and intelligent watchfulness, which are indispensable to success in rearing children in the midst of the dangers, exposures, and diseases of infancy. His dwelling does not afford the necessary protection from the cold and storms of winter, or from the heats of summer: it is ill warmed and ill ventilated; he has not an unfailing supply of food and clothing suited to the wants of that most frail and delicate of living creatures, a human infant. Hence a large portion of his children die in infancy.
On the last page of the Appendix to the volume already referred to, is a most instructive table, showing the truth of this operation. Thus in 1850 the white population of Alabama was 426,514; the colored population, slave and free, was 365,109. In that year the deaths of white children under five years of age were 1,650; of colored children, 2,463. That is, only two thirds as many white children died as colored; and yet the white population was greater almost in the ratio of 7 to 6. By running the eye down the table, it will be seen that similar facts exist in every State where there is a large colored population. These facts leave us in no doubt as to the reason why the increase of the colored population is always slower than that of the white population.
This occurs, as the table just referred to shows, under slavery, where the pecuniary interest of the master will secure his watchful coöperation with the parent to preserve the life of the infant. But in freedom the same causes act upon the colored race with vastly more destructive effect. The preservation of infant life and health is then left solely to the care, skill, and resources of the parent. The result is that decay of the colored race which we have seen indicated in the census. It is essential to our purpose that this point should be made quite plain.