under 4,000,000. Of these, 750,000--nearly one-fifth of the whole
population--were negroes. Of the 3,170,000 whites, the ancestors of eight-
tenths were probably English, and most of the others spoke English and
were a homogeneous part of the community. Counting by sections, the States
north of Maryland had a population of 1,968,000, and those south of
Pennsylvania had 1,925,000; the States which were to be permanently slave-
holding contained, therefore, a population about equal to that of New
England and the Middle States. Only a small part of this population was to
be found west of the mountains. Settlement was working into central New
York, southwest Pennsylvania, the neighboring parts of Virginia, and the
upper waters of the Tennessee; but the only considerable western community
was in Kentucky. These distant settlers had an important influence on the
Union, since they lay within easy reach of the Spanish settlements, and
occasionally threatened to withdraw.

[Sidenote: Intellectual life.]

The intellectual life of the people was little developed. Schools had not
sensibly improved since colonial times. The graduating classes of all the
colleges in 1789 count up to about 170. There were but two schools of
medicine in the country, and no regular school of law. In one department
of literature alone were the Americans eminent: the state papers of public
men such as Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson are written with the force
and directness of the best school of English. Poetry there was; its
character may be judged by a single quotation from Barlow's "Vision of
Columbus," a favorite epic, published in 1787:--

"There stood stern Putnam, seamed with many a scar,
The veteran honours of an earlier war;
Undaunted Stirling, dreadful to his foes,