Change now the scene,--from ancient India, and the shadow of unknown centuries, to our Republic, born on yesterday. How unlike in venerable antiquity! How like in the pretension of Caste! Here the caste claiming hereditary rank and privilege is white, the caste doomed to hereditary degradation and disability is black or yellow; and it is gravely asserted that this difference of color marks difference of race, which in itself justifies the discrimination. To save this enormity of claim from indignant reprobation, it is insisted that the varieties of men do not proceed from a common stock,--that they are different in origin,--that this difference is perpetuated in their respective capacities; and the apology concludes with the practical assumption, that the white man is a superior caste not unlike the Brahmin, while the black man is an inferior caste not unlike the Sudra, sometimes even the Pariah; nor is the yellow man exempted from this same insulting proscription. When I consider how for a long time the African was shut out from testifying in court, even when seeking redress for the grossest outrage, and how at this time in some places the Chinese is also shut out from testifying in court, each seems to have been little better than the Pariah. In stating this assumption of superiority, which I do not exaggerate, I open a question of surpassing interest, whether in science, government, or religion. Here I must not forget that some, who admit the common origin of all men, insist that the African is descended from Ham, son of Noah, through Canaan, cursed by Noah to be servant of his brethren, and that therefore he may be degraded even to slavery. But this apology is not original with us. Nobles in Poland seized upon it to justify their lordly pretensions, calling their serfs, though white, descendants of Ham.[124] But whether employed by Pole or American, it is worthy only of derision. I do not know that this apology is invoked for maltreating the Chinese, although he is descended from Ham as much as the Pole. * * * * *