EVOLUTION. 237 



or who is but one thirty-second part colored, is not black. Of the six 

 millions of blacks, " black " according to the United States census and 

 the decisions of the courts, perhaps nearly two millions are of a mixed 

 color, more white than black. Many of them are descendants of the 

 most distinguished white blood in the history of the nation. To what 

 race do they belong ? By State laws and the decision of the Supreme 

 Court they belong to the negro or the American-African race. By 

 the law of nature they belong, either to the Anglo-American race, or 

 are a race within themselves. It is no longer a doubtful question ; 

 their eonstant increase in numbers shows that they are engenesic, and 

 capable of maintaining within themselves a race of their own. Can 

 such a people as this mixed race, imbued with the instincts, capabili- 

 ties, and ambitions common to their white blood, be forever thrust 

 back upon the negro race ? Is the race-conflict so irrepressible in this 

 country that they can not ever be merged in the white race ? Or is 

 it wiser for science and the law to recognize, in the process of the for- 

 mation of races, that they are strictly a distinct and intermediate race ? 

 Already, in proportion to numbers, as many of them stand as high in 

 intellectual development as white persons of the same class. And as 

 the great mass of mankind, white and black, must ever be laborers and 

 followers, and as all the avenues of trade and commerce, learning, cul- 

 ture, and civil and political distinctions, are open to all, this " mixed 

 race " must eventually become sharp competitors for the supremacy in 

 this country. What the result may be to this republic is a problem 

 for the publicist, the scientist, and the statesman to solve. 



---- 



EVOLUTION. 



By H. H. BOYESEN. 



I. 



BROAD were the bases of all being laid 

 On pillars sunk in the unfathomed deep 

 Of universal void and primal sleep. 

 Some mighty will there was, in sooth, that swayed 

 The misty atoms which inhabited 

 The barren, unillumined fields of space ; 

 A breath, perchance, that whirled the mists apace, 

 And shook the heavy indolence that weighed 

 Upon the moveless vapors. Oh, what vast, 

 Resounding undulations of effect 

 Awoke that breath ! What dizzying aeons passed 

 Ere yet a lichen-patch the bare rock flecked ! 

 Thus rolls with boom of elemental strife 

 The ancestry e'en of the meanest life. 



