Remember that I have thus far presented the case only with
reference to the Southern States, where the climate is particularly
favorable to the maintenance and multiplication of the negro race.
Before drawing any inference, however, from my first assertion that
the negro will easily and without foreign assistance maintain
himself and multiply in the warmer parts of this continent, let us
consider a few other features of this momentous question of race.
Whites and blacks may multiply together, but their offspring is
never either white or black; it is always mulatto. It is a
half-breed, and shares all the peculiarities of half-breeds, among
whose most important characteristics is their sterility, or at
least their reduced fecundity. This shows the connection to be
contrary to the normal state of the races, as it is contrary to the
preservation of species in the animal kingdom. . .Far from
presenting to me a natural solution of our difficulties, the idea
of amalgamation is most repugnant to my feelings. It is now the
foundation of some of the most ill-advised schemes. But wherever it
is practiced, amalgamation among different races produces shades of
population, the social position of which can never be regular and
settled. From a physiological point of view, it is sound policy to
put every possible obstacle to the crossing of the races, and the
increase of half-breeds. It is unnatural, as shown by their very
constitution, their sickly physique, and their impaired fecundity.
It is immoral and destructive of social equality as it creates
unnatural relations and multiplies the differences among members of
the same community in a wrong direction.
From all this it is plain that the policy to be adopted toward the
miscellaneous colored population with reference to a more or less
distant future should be totally different from that which applies
to the pure black; for while I believe that a wise social economy
will foster the progress of every pure race, according to its
natural dispositions and abilities, and aim at securing for it a
proper field for the fullest development of all its capabilities, I
am convinced also that no efforts should be spared to check that
which is inconsistent with the progress of a higher civilization
and a purer morality. I hope and trust that as soon as the
condition of the negro in the warmer parts of our States has been
regulated according to the laws of freedom, the colored population
in the more northern parts of the country will diminish. By a
natural consequence of unconquerable affinities, the colored people
in whom the negro nature prevails will tend toward the South, while
the weaker and lighter ones will remain and die out among us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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