First census in America

We're turning the clock back further - to 1790, the year of the first U.S. census.

Constitutional Count Launched the year after George Washington became president, the inaugural census fulfilled a requirement set forth in the new U.S. Constitution - that "we the people" be counted every 10 years. Why? To let the nation divvy up federal taxation and representation. The Constitution says:

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers.

Not surprisingly, the census form was considerably simpler in 1790 than it is today. It focused on just five data points: the number of free white males 16 and up (considered a measure of potential military and economic might), the number of free white males under 16, the number of free white females, the number of "other free persons," and the number of slaves.

Key Findings

The census found that fewer than 4 million people lived in the United States. The official tally was 3,893,635. Virginia was by far the most populous state (with 748,000 people), followed by Pennsylvania (with 435,000), North Carolina (with 395,000) and New York (with 340,000). That helps explain why four of America's first five presidents hailed from Virginia.

Nationwide, nearly 700,000 people - more than 1 in 6 Americans - were slaves. Nearly 300,000 of them lived in Virginia, with another 300,000 in Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Of all the slaves counted, more than 90 percent lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a line of stone markers placed between 1763 and 1767 to separate Pennsylvania from Maryland and Maryland from Delaware.

Virginia had more enslaved people than seven other states had people. That helps explain - though not excuse - the Constitution's "three-fifths" clause, under which representation was based on counts of "the whole number of free Persons" plus "three-fifths of all other Persons," excluding "Indians not taxed." Virginia and the other slave states got fewer representatives than they would have if slaves had counted the same as "free Persons," but more than they would have if slaves had counted as property.

As for that supposed measure of potential military and economic might, the number of free white men 16 or older came to just 807,000. But the nation was growing fast. The 1800 census counted 5.3 million Americans, a 35 percent increase over the 1790 count. The population increased by another 36 percent between 1800 and 1810