end of the system. The population of the southern states was 2.6 million in 1800: 1.7 million whites (66 percent) and 0.9 million blacks (34 percent). By 1860 the population had increased nearly fivefold to more than 12 million: 8 million whites (67 percent) and 4 million blacks (33 percent; Table 6.1). In other words, the system was experiencing rapid but relatively balanced growth, and nothing portended impending doom. In some states, to be sure, the population was as much as 50–60 percent black, but nowhere did the black share of the population attain the levels seen in the West Indies
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