Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1860-09-04
Practical Results Of Amalgamation In the
goufhepu ssnfes

Practical Results Of Amalgamation In the
southern states.
"Observer" writes from Washington to
the New York Times, an interesting letter on
the relations ofSlavery, from which we make
the following extract:
Aside from the perpetual danger and un-
easiness, which attends upon American
Slavery, there is another evil which besets
those countries which tolerate It, even more
abhorrent to the minds Of the dominant race
than the perils Of bloody insurrection. l allude
TO the amalgamation Of races The extent OF
this danger is not at all appreciated, for the
reason that the distinctive features of.the Af-
rican soon disappear, and then those of the cor
rupted blood cease to be designated as colored.
Some ofthe most eminent families Of the South
are known to have African blood in their
veins; and the number of undstinguished
whites who are thus connected could be
counted by thousands. The odium which
attaches to the taint of African blood is so
great that families shake it off as soon as
possible by change of residence and prob
ably in name. In this way hundreds of free
colored people graduate yearly, and passthem-
selves off as pure Anglo-Saxons. So extern
sively is this system carried on, that the i'm
preston has gained ground that the mulatto
race is incapable of prOpagating itself; where
as, its ambition has prompted it to bleach out,
and cease to carry the mark of Ham upon its
brow.
The fact that persons having negro blood
may work out the stain, and be admitted into
the upper tier of pure whites rests not merely
hr,Ff fc
lated bylaw, in several, ifnot in all the South
ern States. The laws Of Virginia, of North
Carolina, of Alabama, and Louisiana define the
term mulatto to be person having negro
ancestor in the third or fourth degree-for the
State laws differ on this point. If am not
mistaken, the Virginia definition confines
the term to thosein the third degree For in
stance, a person whose father is white and
his mother black, is a mulattO of the halfbloOd
If female child of tins half blood-bear
child by a white man, it has only one-fourth
negro, and child of this quadroon by
white man would have but one-eighth negro
blood After this degree, if no further ad-
mixture of colored blood takes place, the laws
of Virginia regard the issue as white, if the
mother is free.
How many white people there are in Vir-
ginia, who, if the fact were as honorable as 1t
is isdegrading, could trace their lineage up TO
the purest Congo or Dahomey, it would be
difficult to ascertain. But if we recur to the
laws of population, and remember that there
were free negroes and mulattOes in Virginia
almost from the year that Slavery was intro
duced, the result will be anything but hatter-
ing to the vanity of the second, third and even
fourth families. Blackstone says: "lfwe only
suppose each couple Of our ancestors to have
left one with another, two children, and each
of these children, on an average, to have left
two more, land without such a supposition
the human species must be daily diminishing }
we shall find that all ofus have now subsist-
ing near two hundred and seventy millions Of
kindred to the fifteenth degree, ,atthe samedis-
tance from the several common ancestors as
ourselves are, besides those that are one or two
descents nearer to or further from the COM
mon stock, who may amount to as many
more" Intermarriages among the descend
ants of common ancestors would reduce these
figures a hundred or thousand times, as
Blackstone admits, but there would still re-
main formidable host of cousins. In the
case of persons of negro descent emerging
into Anglo-Saxonhood, their ambition would
prompt them to seek alliance with the pur-
est blood, lest, unhappily, the mark of Ham
should reappear in luxuriant crop Of WOOL
swarthy skin, or a fat nose.
1t may be hoped that this process Of ANAL
gamation has not gone so far as to be
ineradicable; but nothing future may be
counted with more certainty than that the con-
tinuance ofSlavery viii, in a century or two
more, utterly destroy the purity of the Anglo
Saxon sanguine current in the Southern
States. The presence of the negro, whether
slave OF free, must be attended with the same
result, and there is no escape but in the re-
moval of the whole colored race to the trop-
les. .T
The supposition of Blackstone as TO the
rate Of increase of population, is not more
than half equal to the facts as it exists in this
fahtrl1tf, should be studied in the light of tins
fact. According to that table, one black pro-
POsituS would have l6, ,3s4 descendants in the
eighteenth generation and fully that num-
Der of generations have elapsed since the in
PRODUCTION of Slavery into Virginia Well
may the Virginians all claim to be of 'the
First Families"