The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-07-19
Equality.


State, in which he takes ground against the
social equality of the white and black races
as an effect of law. Whether the train OF
argument in that address be original OF
dictated, it entities the party using it to a
certain amount of appreciation. Any dis
tasteful association, enforced by law, only
breeds strife, and embitters the original
prejudice. The attempt, for instance, to
intermingle children of different races at
the public schools would cause every de-
cent white person to withdraw his children
instantly; and, in short time, the whole
system would be abandoned to the negroes
1t is evident that this would not produce a
favorable effect upon the feelings of the
race which pays the school tax, nor really
promote it's intended object-the education
of the blacks.
Mr.. Dunn has shown sound sense, there
fore, in being able to appreciate tberdifi-
Guilty; but he appears to have adopted other
theories which may be as unsound as the one
her epudiates, and which, ipfact, lead logic
ally to it. He wants a>chance for his race,
and that chance means full political
equality.
Political equality means social equality.
1t is on the principle that the greater in
cludes the lesser. If a man is your equal
in the most delicate and difficult human
seience-that of civil government-he is
certainly equally competent to meet the
minor problems of social intelligence and
refined taste. If he is fit to stand beside
you in the Senate chamber, how can you,
except on special grounds, demur to his
entering the same bar-room with youf If
you must cope with his intelligence in re-
spectful contest in the public arena of the
most searching debate, why despise his
acumen in the punctilios of the boudoirf
No! There might be special causes for
distaste toward an individual, in such a
case, but no want of social equality could
be pleaded to justify refusal of social in
tercourse.
And, in fact, if it were possible to main
tain this political equality, social equality
would probably be found to be it's result
to notable extent. With negro senators
and representatives at Washington-with
negro secretaries in the Presidents Cabi-
net-how would it be possible long to main
y
between them and the white denizens of the
Capitalf If you suppose that they would
never have the capacity to get there, you
destroy your own theory of political fitness.
and you ignore the unscrupulousness of party
expediency, which will make yet greater
sacrifices for party success. They would
be there, and the same expediency which
put them in Office would invite them to the
parlor. You would meet them and their
wives at the Presidents levees, and ut the
dinners of secretaries.
The manners of the capital would infect
the provinces, and we should inevitably
see certain liberation prevailing, howso-
ever irrational and distasteful. This would
probably not be general; but, if permanent,
the poison of intermarriage would gradually
invade the purity of blood in both races.
The curse of mixed blood is sufficiently
seen in Mexico, where the haughtiest of all
the white races was unwise enough to es.
tablish the doctrine of political equality
among populations of different blood, and
this, too, where that equality is more theo-
retical than practical. When undesirable
marriages are not illegal, they will take
place, and an evil unchecked multiplies
with frightful rapidity.
We are supposlng now that purity of race
is thing to be desired by both sides. The
instinct of self-preservation is as strong in
q race as in an individual, and we can
hardly believe that a race which God has,
in His wisdom, separated from it's brothers
by distinguishing marks, would be willing
to see its peculiarities disappear in it's Off
spring. How undesirable soever those Pc
culiarities may appear to others, their pos
SCISSORS cherish them, when thew are the re-