would have been based upon some sort of qualification such as the
southern states have very generally adopted in subsequent years; but
the idea of social equality of slave and master was so repulsive to
the white people of the South that it could not be tolerated under
any sort of government."

"This question of social equality," remarked Percy, "has probably
been the cause of more misunderstanding between the North and the
South than all other questions relating to the negro problem. I have
rarely, if ever, talked with a southern man who did not have it
firmly fixed in his mind that the common idea of the northern people
is that the negro race should be made the social equal of the white
race. This I have heard from southern lecturers; I have read it in
southern newspapers; and I have found it in books written by
southern authors; but, Mr. West, I have never yet heard that idea
advanced by a man or woman of the North.

"Of course there have been visionary theorists or 'cranks' in all
ages, and there must have been some basis for this almost universal
erroneous opinion in the South that the people of the North
advocated social equality or social intercourse between the white
and colored races; and yet nothing could be farther from the truth.
In all my life in the North, I think I have never seen a colored
person dining with a white man. This does not prove that there are
no such occurrences, but it certainly shows that they are extremely
rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the South I have seen
a white woman bring her colored maid or nurse, to the dining car and
sit at the same table with herself and husband. Of course there is
no suggestion of social equality or social intercourse in this, but
there is a much closer relationship than is common or would be