nd immunities which others enjoy."

"Yes," said he, "in proportion to his age, and his capacity. Minors, and
the imbecile, are entitled to protection, but may not be oppressed."

"Ah," said I, "how soon you find your general rules intercepted and
qualified by circumstances. Minors, and the imbecile, then, may not be
admitted to equal privileges with us. But are not all men born free and
equal?"

"Now let me add to 'minors' and 'the imbecile' one more class. There are
two races existing together in a certain country. One has always been,
there, a servile race. The other are the lords of the soil; the
institutions of the country are by their creation; they have acquired a
perfect right and title to the government.

"You know, from all history, that two races never could, and never did
live together on the same soil, unless they intermarried, or one was
subject to the other. You admit this historical fact.

"It is proposed, now, by some, to give the subject race a right to vote
and to hold office, so that their equality in all things shall be
acknowledged."

"Pray," said Mr. North, "will you object to this? Has not God 'made of
one blood all nations of men'?"

"Yes," I replied, "but read on, in that same verse:--'and hath
determined the bounds of their habitation.' There is a law of races;
races must have antipathies, unless they intermarry; he who seeks to
confound them may as well labor for the conjugation of all the tribes of
animals. He and his results would prove to be monsters.

"The Anglo Saxon race on this continent properly say to the Negro, 'If
by conquest you get possession of the land, we must, of course, succumb
to you. We are now in possession, and mean so to continue. Hard,
therefore, as it seems not to let you vote in parts of the country where
your numbers are such as to endanger our majority, or afford temptation
to demagogues to inflame your prejudices and passions by historical
appeals to them, and severe as it may seem not to let you form military
companies, (which would also be mischievous in the same way) we
nevertheless propose to exclude you from this right of suffrage, and
from separate organizations, for our own defence, and that we may
preserve our institutions for our proper descendants. We are very sorry
that our English ancestors began to impose you upon us, and that Newport
and Salem vessels brought so many of you here into slavery; but we
cannot think of requiting you for this by j