2 3 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at over forty-three millions, and the number of the latter at over six 

 millions ; and, in every reference to the distribution of population 

 for causes, it fails to distinguish between the black negro and colored 

 white, but includes them as one. It fails to tell how many of the six 

 millions of " colored " are of pure negro blood, how many are mulat- 

 toes, quadroons, octoroons, or of a less degree than pure white. It 

 fails to tell how many of the mixed blood are of pure white fathers, 

 or pure white mothers information necessary for the prediction of 

 the future progress, endurance, and social position of the " colored 

 race." This neglect, both in the last and preceding census reports, if 

 not willful, is not creditable to the science side of our Government. 



Before the war, citizenship was qualified by the word " white " in 

 the Constitutions of the several States, but there was no uniformity in 

 the definition of the word. Some States held that a person who had 

 more white blood than black blood in his veins was white within the 

 meaning of their Constitutions. Other States held that a person who 

 had less than three fourths or seven eighths of white blood was black, 

 and still other States held that anything less than pure white was black. 

 But since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, which declares 

 that " all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens 

 of the United States and the State in which they reside," and that " no 

 State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 

 or immunities of citizens of the United States," this qualification of 

 citizenship by the word " white " has no application, so far as the civil 

 and political rights of the citizen are concerned. Nevertheless, wher- 

 ever the law affects the social or semi-social relations of the citizen, 

 his rights are qualified, and the word white excludes from the equal 

 privileges and protection of the law all citizens having the least par- 

 ticle of colored blood in their veins. In one of the recent civil-rights 

 cases decided by the Supreme Court a case of the marriage of a 

 white woman with a colored man the court held that the State law 

 punishing the parties was not in conflict with the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, or with the civil-rights law founded on it, for the reason that 

 the State law applies the same punishment to both offenders, the 

 white and the black, without distinction ! True, the punishment 

 was equal without distinction of color, as it would have been in a 

 case of larceny. But the law in prohibiting the marriage could not 

 be constitutional, because it abridges the privileges of the citizen on 

 account of color ; it denies to the colored male citizen the equal privi- 

 lege and protection of the law extended to the white male citizen the 

 right to marry a white woman. It also denies the white female citi- 

 zen the equal privilege and protection of the law granted the colored 

 female citizen the right to marry a colored man. 



However much the prejudice of the law and the courts may give 

 an enforced unity to the negro race and the " colored whites," there is 

 no ignoring the physical fact that a person who is seven eighths white, 



