614 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



duties of whites are manifest to common and 

 honest minds, so far would I admit the first 

 and perform the second, though the heavens 

 fall. I would not only advocate entire free- 

 dom, equal rights and privileges, and open 

 competition for social distinction, but what 

 now seems to me the shocking and downward 

 policy of amalgamation. But the heavens are 

 not going to fall, and we are not going to be 

 called upon to favor any policy discordant 

 with natural instincts and cultivated tastes. 



A case may be supposed in which the higher 

 race ought to submit to the sad fate of dilu- 

 tion and debasement of its blood, — as on an 

 island, and where long continued wrong and 

 suffering had to be atoned for. But this 

 is hardly conceivable, because, even in what 

 seems punishment and atonement, the law of 

 harmonious development still rules. God does 

 not punish wrong and violence done to one 

 part of our nature, by requiring us to do 

 wrong and violence to another part. Even 

 Nemesis wields rather a guiding -rod than a 

 scourge. We need take no step backward, 

 but only aside, to get sooner into the right 

 path. 



Slavery has acted as a disturbing force in 

 the development of our national character and 



