We are well aware, indeed, that this is exactly contrary to the
views of many who have built their opinions on popular assertions
and prejudice rather than on observed facts. The assumption is
that the negro desires to mingle his blood with that of the white
races. The reverse is the fact. There is, though it may seem to
some unaccountable, a certain pride of race, which leads the negro
to exult in the purity of his blood, and to regard a foreign element
in it as not only not desirable, but even objectionable. This
feeling does not belong simply to the negro on his own continent;
it perpetuates, perhaps magnifies itself when surrounded by another
people. Among them in this country a pure-blooded negro will, with
biting sarcasm, taunt the mulatto with the fact that the blood of
another race is in his veins.

This feeling, which must have been noticed by any one whose
observation has been extensive or intelligent enough to collect
the facts, leads the race to remain by itself; and when left to its
natural course, such is the result. The statistics of this country
show that the free black does not and cannot mingle with the white
race. No elevation or freedom can produce such an intermixture. Here
and there, but so seldom as to present but perhaps a single case
only in widely separated communities, there is an inter-marriage.
This seeming want of inclination, coupled with a natural and
insuperable repugnance on the part of the white, must ever keep
the two races apart when they stand on an equal footing of freedom.

The often repeated argument against emancipation, founded on the
notion that it would be necessarily followed by amalgamation, is
the product of the grossest ignorance and thoughtlessness, while
at the same time it betrays a shameful want of confidence in the