That the complexion of the free African renders his condition more unfortunate, we acknowledge. But why does it produce this effect? Not, surely, because _it is_ the degrading circumstance, but because it is clear, instantaneous, and irrefragable _evidence_ of the degrading circumstance. It is the only brand which cannot be counterfeited, and which cannot be effaced. It is borne by slaves and their descendants; and it is borne by no others. Let the Major prove, that, in any society where personal bondage has never existed, the (1) Second Part of Major Moody’s Report, p. 27. whites {369}and blacks have felt this mutual dislike. Till he can show this, he does nothing. But, it seems, an anonymous writer in South America, some years ago, declared, that the blacks never could amalgamate with the whites. (1) That a man who had passed his life among negro _slaves_ should transfer to their colour the feelings of contempt with which he regarded their condition, and the mean vices to which that condition necessarily gave birth, was perfectly natural. That he should suppose a feeling, of which he could not remember the origin, to be instinctive, was also natural. The most profound thinkers have fallen into similar errors. But that a man in England should believe all this, only because a man at Bogota chose to write it, argues a strange degree of credulity. Such vague authority is not sufficient to establish a fact. To quote it in support of a general proposition, is an insult to common sense. The expressions of this Columbian prove only, what the refusal of the Major to let a negro sit in his presence proves as satisfactorily, that there are very weak and very prejudiced people in the world. Feelings exactly similar to those which are unhappily so common among the whites of the United States, have often existed in cases where it is impossible to attribute them to physical causes. From a time beyond the researches of historians, an impassable gulf has separated the Brahmin from the Paria. The Jews were long regarded by the Spaniards and Portuguese with as much contempt and hatred as the white North American feels for the man of colour. The cases, indeed, are strikingly similar. The national features and rites of the Hebrews, like the black skin and woolly hair of the Africans, visibly distinguished them from the rest of the community. Every individual of the race bore about him the badges of the synagogue. Baptism itself could not wash away the distinction. Conversion might save him from the flames; but the stigma was indelible--he bore it to the grave--he bequeathed it to his children--his descendants, as long as their genealogy could be traced, were objects of scorn to the poorest Castilian peasant, who gloried in the name of an old Christian. But we will not multiply examples in a case so plain. We hasten to another argument, on which Major Moody (1) Second Part of Major Moody’s Report, p. 23. 24