THE LITERARY 



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OF THE LINN^AN ASSOCIATION OP PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE. 



Vol. I. SEPTEMBER, 1845. No. 11. 



NUG.E ETHNOLOGIC AE, NO. II. 



BY PROF. H. S. PATTERSON, M. D. OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



In alluding to the efforts made to find an account of tlie origin of 

 the existing varieties of the human species in Scripture, it may be super- 

 fluous to mention the hypothesis wliich woukl refer the production of 

 the African variety to the curse pronounced against Ham, or rather 

 against one of the offspring of that undutiful son : — ''Cursed be Canaan, 

 a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren." So preposterous an 

 assertion could not be made by any man pretending to science. I would 

 not mention it, but that it has been used popularly in lulling the con- 

 sciences of men to sleep in the commission of the most atrocious of 

 crimes. Cupidity has turned the leaves of holy writ with her blood- 

 stained hands in search of a warrant for her enormities, and thought 

 that here she found authority for her infamous traffic in the bodies of 

 men. The passage in question was read in the Convention to amend 

 the Constitution of Pennsylvania in advocacy of the clause denying the 

 rights of citizenship to all tinged with Ethiopian blood. Yet nothing 

 but a desperate text-hunting in support of established abuses, could have 

 distorted it to this use. If the cur.se affected all the descendants of Ham, 

 who will believe that the Ninevites and Egyptians, the originators of the 

 first great civilization of which the world has any record, were veritable 

 negroes .'' The curse, however, is said to apply only to the youngest of 

 the four sons of Ham, this name is mentioned three times in connexion 

 with it, while none of the others are once alluded to. The ciiildren of 

 Canaan were the tribes afterwards overcome and well nigh extermina- 

 ted by the Israelites, and it is probably to this event that the prophetic 

 malediction has reference. That they were Caucasian is indubitable. — 

 This subject may be referred to again. 



In medio tulissimiis ibis ! was good advice given long ago, and if gen- 

 erally true, will bear me out in the position I now assume. Tiioso who 

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