Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[603] upon a fixed policy. Conceive for a moment the difference it would make in future ages for the prospects of republican institutions, and our civilization generally, if instead of the manly population descended from cognate nations the United States should be inhabited by the effeminate progeny of mixed races, half Indian, half negro, sprinkled with white blood. Can you devise a scheme to rescue the Spaniards of Mexico from their degradation? Beware, then, of any policy which may bring our own race to their level.

These considerations lead me naturally to the inquiry into the peculiarities of the two races, in order to find out what may be most beneficial for each. I rejoice in the prospect of universal emancipation, not only from a philanthropic point of view, but also because hereafter the physiologist and ethnographer may discuss the question of the races and advocate a discriminating policy regarding them, without seeming to support legal inequality. There is no more one-sided doctrine concerning human nature than the idea that all men are equal, in the sense of being equally capable of fostering human progress and advancing civilization, especially in the various spheres of intellectual and moral activity. If this be