The Colored Race 167 



city of the negro to hold an independent position. As long 

 as he is influenced by contact with the white man, as in the 

 southern portion of the United States, he gets on very well. 

 But place him free from all such influence, as in Hayti, and 

 he shows no signs of improvement ; on the contrary he is 

 gradually retrograding to the African tribal customs, and 

 without exterior pressure will fall into the state of the inhabit- 

 ants of the Congo. If this were only my own opinion, I 

 should hesitate to express it so positively, but I have found no 

 dissident voice amongst experienced residents since I first 

 went to Hayti in January, 1863. 



"I now agree with those who deny that the negro could 

 ever originate a civilization, and that with the best of educa- 

 tions he remains an inferior type of man. He has as yet 

 shown himself totally unfitted for self government and incap- 

 able as a people to make any progress whatever. To judge 

 the negro fairly one must live a considerable time in their 

 midst, and not be lead away by the theory that all races are 

 capable of equal advance in civilization." p. 134. 



I am speaking now of course of the race without any ad- 

 mixture of white blood ; with it the problem becomes a differ- 

 ent one ; the intellectual level rises, and the more this element 

 enters into the combination the nearer the new product ap- 

 proaches the Caucasian. We may meet with the intellect of 

 an Alexander Dumas, or Bumas, fils, though I think the pro- 

 duct a rare one. It is in the large mixed-element that we 

 find examples of those who have risen above the multitude of 

 their race and have shown qualities which ally them closer to 

 the superior race. To writers like Mr. Tourgee this factor of 

 miscegenation does not enter at all into their calculations. 

 They speak of v\^hites and blacks as though it were a question 

 of color only, with a .sharp color line separating the two races, 

 a mere difference in the amount of pigment in the Malpighian 

 layer. One would think from their treatment of the subject 

 that equal political rights and equality before the law meant 

 equality moral, .spiritual and intellectual. They lump to- 

 gether the entire colored population as a homogeneous mass 

 to be measured by one standard. They bring forward ex- 



