604 LOUIS AGASSIZ, 



SO, then it is one of our primary obligations to 

 remove every obstacle that may retard the 

 highest development, while it is equally our 

 duty to promote the humblest aspirations that 

 may contribute to raise the lowest individual 

 to a better condition in life. 



The question is, then, what kind of common 

 treatment is likely to be the best for all men, 

 and what do the different races, taken singly, 

 require for themselves ? That legal equality 

 should be the common boon of humanity can 

 hardly be matter for doubt nowadays, but it 

 does not follow that social equality is a nec- 

 essary complement of legal equality. I say 

 purposely legal equality, and not political 

 equality, because political equality involves an 

 equal right to every public station in life, and 

 I trust we shall be wise enough not to com- 

 plicate at once our whole system with new 

 conflicting interests, before we have ascer- 

 tained what may be the practical working of 

 universal freedom and legal equality for two 

 races, so different as the whites and negroes, 

 living under one government. We ought to 

 remember that what we know of the negro, 

 from the experience we have had of the col- 

 ored population of the North, affords but a 

 very inadequate standard by which to judge 



