[592]
The more I consider the subject to be examined and reported upon, the more I am impressed by its vastness; the more I see that its proper treatment requires a consideration of political, physiological, and ethnological principles.
Before deciding upon any political policy, it is necessary to decide several important questions, which require more knowledge for their solution than I possess.
Among these questions, this one occupies me most now. Is it probable that the African race, represented by less than two million blacks and a little more than two million mulattoes, unrecruited by immigration, will be a persistent race in this country?
or will it be absorbed, diluted, and finally effaced by the white race, numbering twenty-four millions, and continually increased by immigration, beside natural causes.
Will not the general practical amalgamation fostered by slavery become more general after its abolition?
If so, will not the proportion of mulattoes become greater and that of the pure blacks less?
With an increase and final numerical prevalence of mulattoes the question of the fertility of the latter becomes a very important element in the calculation.
Can it be a persistent race here where
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