664 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



When the universal sentiment of a free people is opposed to a 

 statute, it might as well not be written ; it is practically a dead letter. 

 It therefore seems to be of little avail to contend about the adoption 

 of laws distasteful to the community in which they are to be enforced, 

 and little use in passing them. The only true mode of obtaining 

 beneficial legislation is to educate the people, who are to enforce the 

 laws among themselves, to understand their necessity or usefulness. 

 Most communities, wben left free to act, understand their own wants 

 and necessities better than anybody else. 



Still, it does not seem so absurd for intelligent and benevolent peo- 

 ple of New York and New England to disturb themselves about the 

 laws affecting the marriage relation of negroes with white people in 

 the South (say in North and South Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia), 

 as it would seem for a colored congregation, or a meeting of field- 

 hands in Louisiana, to pass resolutions condemning the divorce laws 

 of Connecticut or Maine. 



With the lawgiver, the contract of marriage the most important 

 of all contracts may be supposed to rest upon the gravest considera- 

 tions, and give rise to the most serious deliberations. He may well 

 inquire : 



1. What relations must be prohibited from marrying each other ? 



2. At how early an age may marriage be permitted, and what rela- 

 tions must be called upon to assent to the marriage of minors? 



3. Ought the insane who have lucid intervals to be permitted to 

 marry? 



4. Are there any diseases such as leprosy, elephantiasis, scrofula, 

 or others which ought to jarevent the marriage of such diseased per- 

 sons? 



5. Ought marriage with inveterate drunkards to be prohibited ? 



6. Are there any crimes which ought to be considered as a bar to 

 the marriage of the criminal ? 



7. Assuming, according to the prejudices of the largest number, 

 that the white is the superior race, ought laws to be passed prohibiting 

 marriage between white persons and Indians, negroes, Australians, or 

 Chinese ? 



What will be the effect of such marriages on the welfare of the 

 State ? Will they drag down the assumed superior race, while they 

 tend to build up the other race ? Will such marriages offend the race 

 prejudices alike of the black and wbite races ? Or will such marriages 

 be pleasing to the one race and displeasing to the other? Will not 

 the violation of race prejudices by such marriages occasion unhappi- 

 ness, and is there any advantage to the State to compensate the mis- 

 ery ? What has been the result of the marriages of white women with 

 negro men on the happiness of the wives and their offspring ? 



Such questions as these, it may be assumed, are in the mind and 

 province of the Legislatures when marriage laws are framed, and who 



