4th. How to prevent the whites from securing the lion's share of
the labor of the blacks?
This is a question which my want of familiarity with the operations
of the laboring classes prevents me from answering in a manner
satisfactory to myself. Is it not possible to apply to the
superintendence of the working negroes something like the system
which regulates the duties of the foreman in all our manufacturing
establishments?
I should like to go on and attempt to devise some scheme in
conformity with the convictions I have expressed in these letters.
But I have little ability in the way of organizing, and then the
subject is so novel that I am not prepared to propose anything very
definite.
Ever truly yours,
LOUIS AGASSIZ.
FROM DR. S.G. HOWE.
NEW YORK, August 18, 1863.
MY DEAR AGASSIZ,
I cannot refrain from expressing my thanks for your prompt
compliance with my request, and for your two valuable letters.
Be assured I shall try to keep my mind open to conviction and to
forbear forming any theory before observing a wide circle of facts.
I do not know how you got the idea that I had decided in favor of
anything about the future of the colored population. I have
corresponded with the founders of "La Societe Cosmopolite pour la
fusion des races humaines" in France,--an amalgamation society,
founded upon the theory that the perfect man is to be the result of
the fusion of all the races upon earth. I have not, however, the
honor of being a member thereof. Indeed, I think it hardly exists.
I hear, too, that several of our prominent anti-slavery gentlemen,
worthy of respect for their zeal and ability, have publicly
advocated the doctrines of amalgamation; but I do not know upon
what grounds.
I do, indeed, hold that in this, as in other matters, we are to do
the manifest right, regardless of consequences. If you ask me who
is to decide what is the manifest right, I answer, that in morals,
as well as in mathematics, there are certain truths so simple as to
be admitted at sight as axioms by every one of common intelligence
and honesty. The right to life is as clear as that two and two make
four, and none dispute it. The right to liberty and to ownership of
property fairly earned is just as clear to the enlightened mind as
that 5 x 6 = 30; but the less enlightened may require to reflect
about it, just as they may want concrete signs to show that five
times six do really make thirty. As we ascend in numbers and in
morals, the intuitive perceptions become less and less; and though
the truths are there, and ought to be admitted as axiomatic, they
are not at once seen and felt by ordinary minds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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