THE IXTERMIXGLIXG OF RACES. 343 



which is highest with that which is lowest in the scale of develop- 

 ment."* 



But such commingling seldom, if ever, takes place from deliberate 

 choice on the part of the reciprocating races ; nor, indeed, are many 

 marriages the result of calculation regarding their issue. If, early 

 or late, the nations of the United States are destined to coalesce, the 

 coalition will come about not with observation, but through the grad- 

 ual and almost imperceptible obsolescence of prejudices. 



There is one point which, in dealing with the subject of miscege- 

 nation on this continent, has hitherto received meager attention — the 

 diversity of the stocks from which the African emigration to America 

 has been derived. f Some of them were more distinct from others than 

 the Spaniard from the Norwegian or the German from the Italian. 

 "With several of them there came, no doubt, a considerable share of 

 darkened Semitic blood, while others could claim kindred with races 

 that had won power and renown while Europe was yet in barbarism. 

 Apart from any consideration of white admixture, there has, there- 

 fore, been an interblending of dusky tribes which must have mate- 

 rially modified Africa's contribution to the population. As for the 

 more serious question of its relations to the Aryan element there is, 

 as already intimated, difference of opinion. According to the census 

 of 1880, the colored population of the United States was 6,577,497, 

 that of the whites being 43,402,408. During the ten years from 

 1870 to 1880 the ratio of increase in the former (34*8 per cent) was 

 larger than it had been during any decade except one, that from 1800 

 to 1810. The fact that the ratio of increase of the white population 

 during the period from 1870 to 1880 was only 29 2 per cent, accord- 

 ing to the census, naturally occasioned comment and even alarm. In 

 "The Popular Science Monthly " for February, 1883, Professor E. W. 

 Gilliam, in an article on the subject, based on the statistics of the last 

 two censuses, maintained that the colored people were increasing at a 

 rate which, unless prompt measures were taken to prevent it, would 

 result in the inhabitants of the country becoming Africanized. Mr. 

 Henry Gannett, in a recent contribution to the same journal, disputes 

 the data on which Professor Gilliam founded his argument, and denies 

 that the negroes, either in the cotton States or in the country at large, 

 are increasing so rapidly as the whites, and holds that the fear enter- 

 tained of the latter being ultimately outnumbered is entirely ground- 

 less. Nevertheless, even if the colored people were pretty evenly dis- 

 persed through the States, the proportion is large enough to cause 

 uneasiness to those who think that their absorption would not im- 

 prove the nation. As it is, while, since the close of the war, the tend- 



* " How shall we help the Negro ? " in " The Century," June, 1*85. 



f On this point see " The Dance in Place Congo," by George W. Cable, in " The Cent- 

 ury," February, 1886 ; and " Race and the Solid South," by Cassius M. Clay, in the 

 " Xorth American Review," same month. 



