fourth Negro blood ; while all the colored chiefs of departments in
that infant republic hold in their veins more or less of white-blood ;
which component had been copiously infiltrated, prior to emigration
from America, into that population generally. If all the white-
blood were suddenly abstracted, or the flow of whitening elements from
the United States to be stopped, the whole fabric would doubtless
soon fall into ruins ; and leave as little trace behind as Herodotus s
famous Negro colony of Colchis, or the more historical one of Meroe.
From the best information procurable, we know that there has been
a vast deal of exaggeration, among colonizationists at home, about
this mulatto colony of Liberia abroad ; nor, much as we should be
gratified at the success of the experiment, can we perceive how any
durable good can be expected from it, unless some process be discovered
by which a Negro’s head may be changed in form, and enlarged
in size. History affords no evidence that cultivation, or any known
causes but physical amalgamation, can alter a primitive conformation
in the slightest degree. Lyell himself acknowledges : ■
“ The separation of the colored children in the Boston schools arose, not from an indulgence
in anti-Negro feelings, but because they find they can in this way bring on both races
faster. Up to the age of fourteen, the black children advance as fast as the whites ; but
after that age, unless there be an admixture of white-blood, it becomes in most instances
extremely difficult to carry them forward. That the half-breeds should be intermediate
between the two parent-stòcks, and that the colored race should therefore gain in mental
capacity in proportion as it approximates in physical organization to the whites, seems
natural; and yet it is a wonderful fact, psychologically considered, that we should be able
to trace the phenomena of hybridity even into the world of intellect and reason. 450
To persons domiciled in our slave-States, it is really amusing to
hear the many-toned hosannahs sung in Old England and in New
England, over thè success of the Republic of Liberia ; while the world
shakes with laughter at Frenchmen for attempting a republic, or any
other stable form of government short of absolute despotism ; as if
Negroes were a superior race to the Franco-Gauls !
Robespierre gave, in palliation of his cruelties, that you could not
reason with a Gallic opposition : the only way to silence it being
through the guillotine. It would be a curious investigation to inquire,
what wuts the type of those turbulent spirits ? I have little doubt that
each despot of the hour would be found to have been one of those
dark-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed fellows, depicted so well [supra]
by Bodiqhon ; and if the imperial government were simply to chop
off the head of every demagogue who was not a blond white-man,
they might “ get along” in France as tranquilly as in England, Germany,
and the United States. DarUskiimed race's, history attests,
are only fit for military governments. It is the unique rule genial to
their nhysical nature : they are unhappy without it, even now, at
Paris. None but the fair-skinned types of mankind have been able,
hitherto, to realize, in peaceful practice, the old Germanic system
described by Tacitus — “ De minoribus rebus, principes consultant ;
de majoribus, omnes”—omnes, be it understood, signifying exclusively
white men of their own type.
If these remarks be true in basis, it is evident, theoretically, that
the superior races ought to be kept free from all adulterations, otherwise
the world will retrograde, instead of advancing, in civilization.
It may be a question, whether there is not already too much adulteration
in Europe. Spain and Italy, where the darker races are in the
majority, continue still behind in the march. France, although teeming
with gigantic intellects, has been struggling in vain for sixty
years to found a stable government — her population is tainted with
bad elements ; and wherever Portuguese or Spanish colonies attempt
to compete with Anglo-Saxons, they are left astern, when not “ annexed.”
It is the strictly-white races that are bearing onward the
flambeau of civilization, as displayed in the Germanic families alone.
Sir Walter Scott declares : —
“ The government of Spain, a worn-out despotism, lodged in the hands of a family
of the lowest degree of intellect, was one of the worst in Europe ; and the state of the
nobility in general (for there were noble exceptions) seemed scarcely less degraded. The
incestuous practice of marrying within the,near degrees of propinquity had long existed,
with its usual consequences : the dwarfing of the body and the degeneracy of the understanding.
” 45i To which Mr. Percival Hunter adds, that “ writers on lunacy attribute the
insanity, or rather the innate idiocy, so frequent among certain Scotch families, to the old
national practice of never marrying out,of their clan.” 452
The civilization of ancient Rome, achieved by a very mixed race,
although grand in its way, was, nevertheless, characterized throughout
by cruelty, a certain degree of barbarism and want of refinement.
These crude elements of the laws of hybridity — laws by no means
clearly defined in anthropological science — derive some illustration
by contrasting the aristocracies of Europe. In England, where intermarriages
between impoverished nobles of the Norman stock with
wealthy commoners of the homogeneous Saxon, and where elevation
of plebeians to the peerage, reinvigorate the breed, such patrician
classes comprehend more manly beauty (Circassia, perhaps, excepted)
than exists in the same number of individuals throughout thé globe.
“ What proportion,” well asks the Westminster Review, “ of the old Percy blood flows in
the veins of those who claim the honor of the family’s representation ? The fanatics of
‘blood,’ i. e., those who are not content to yield that reasonable amount of regard to it,
which sense and sentiment both permit, should remember that when the main line has
merged, again and again, into other families, the original blood must be but a small constituent
of the remote descendant’s personality.
“ The great subverter of the aristocratic principle in the creation of peers, was Pitt In
fighting his battle against the Whigs, he availed himself immensely of the moneyed interest ;