CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HOWE. 605 



of the capabilities of the pure blacks as they 

 exist in the South. We ought, further, to 

 remember that the black population is likely 

 at all times to outnumber the white in the 

 Southern States. We should therefore be- 

 ware how we give to the blacks rights, by 

 virtue of which they may endanger the pro- 

 gress of the whites before their temper has 

 been tested by a prolonged experience. Social 

 equality I deem at all times impracticable, — 

 a natural impossibility, from the very charac- 

 ter of the negro race. Let us consider for a 

 moment the natural endowments of the negro 

 race as they are manifested in history on their 

 native continent, as far as we can trace them 

 back, and compare the result with what we 

 know of our own destinies, in order to ascer- 

 tain, within the limits of probability, whether 

 social equality with the negro is really an im- 

 possibility. 



We know of the existence of the negro 

 race, with all its physical pecuHarities, from 

 the Egyptian monuments, several thousand 

 years before the Christian era. Upon these 

 monuments the negroes are so represented as 

 to show that in natural propensities and men- 

 tal abilities they were pretty much what we 

 find them at the present day, — indolent, 



