388 ETHNOLOGY. 



like you to read a letter which I wrote last year to Mr. William Tracy, 

 of New Tork, dated September 11,1868. Facts, it is said, are God's 

 arguments. I venture to affirm that if the names I have just cited had 

 been negroes, three-fourths of them at least would have been living 

 to-day J for in all that space of time I know of only one negro con- 

 nected with either institution who has died, N. R. Eichardson, of sun- 

 stroke. 



Now, who is to blame for these things 1 'So one in the past ; but if 

 they are continued in the future, after God has presented his arguments, 

 then those who continue them must be blamed. I do not charge guilt 

 upon any one in the past, for I believe that these things were not done 

 at the instigation of wrong passions, but under the delusion of a false 

 theory. And you, gentlemen in America, proud of your race and blood, 

 have thought, perhaps, that it must, as a matter of course, endure here, 

 when strengthened by a negro basis, and bring to the negro an acces- 

 sion of improving mental qualities. But your theory has not stood the 

 test. So far as physical health and vigor are concerned, I would rather 

 take my chance here as a pure Caucasian than as a mongrel. The ad- 

 mixture of the Caucasian and negro is not favored by Providence in 

 inter-tropical Africa, whatever may be the case in America. Let me 

 beg you to look at this matter at once before wasting anymore thou- 

 sands upon an impracticable scheme. God does not intend that the 

 Egypt of America shall be reproduced in this African Canaan. If per- 

 sons who are half and three-fourths Egyptian could live and thrive here, 

 if the families whose disappearance and extinction I have noticed in my 

 letter to Mr. Tracy could have lived and carried out their views, and 

 gratified their tastes, we should long since have had a miniature Egypt 

 here with its caste feelings and prejudices. 



The friends of the negro in America must learn to believe that the 

 negro can exist and jjrosper without the aid of white blood in his veins. 



Now that slavery is abolished in America, and the blacks are being 

 educated, it is to be hoped that all good men will discourage, as far as 

 possible, the " miscegenation " doctrine. The negro race is injured 

 by it far more than the white, for by prejudice the nondescript progeny is 

 consigned to our side, even if they are three fourths or seven-eighths 

 white, and thus involve us in an inextricable " muddle." This is cer- 

 tainly a vexed question. But the higher plane to which the American 

 people have attained by the recent revolution has given them loftier 

 views and wider sympathies, and has furnished the means of education 

 for the negro, which will su^iply the transition process from his low 

 estate to a more intelligent and respectable position. Eespect for the 

 uegro is becoming more and more, in the progress of events in America, 

 the happy distinction of our age. The uegro is being taught to respect 

 himself, and soon he will think it no honor to mingle his blood with 

 that of the Caucasian, Indian, or Mongolian. 



