w is a _useless_ disgrace to
Massachusetts. Under existing circumstances, none but those whose
condition in life is too low to be much affected by public opinion, will
form such alliances; and they, when they choose to do so, _will_ make
such marriages, in spite of the law. I know two or three instances where
women of the laboring class have been united to reputable, industrious
colored men. These husbands regularly bring home their wages, and are
kind to their families. If by some of the odd chances, which not
unfrequently occur in the world, their wives should become heirs to any
property, the children may be wronged out of it, because the law
pronounces them illegitimate. And while this injustice exists with
regard to _honest_, industrious individuals, who are merely guilty of
differing from us in a matter of taste, neither the legislation nor
customs of slaveholding States exert their influence against _immoral_
connexions.

In one portion of our country this fact is shown in a very peculiar and
striking manner. There is a numerous class at New-Orleans, called
Quateroons, or Quadroons, because their colored blood has for several
successive generations been intermingled with the white. The women are
much distinguished for personal beauty and gracefulness of motion; and
their parents frequently send them to France for the advantages of an
elegant education. White gentlemen of the first rank are desirous of
being invited to their parties, and often become seriously in love with
these fascinating but unfortunate beings. Prejudice forbids matrimony,
but universal custom sanctions temporary connexions, to which a certain
degree of respectability is allowed, on account of the peculiar
situation of the parties. These attachments often continue for
years--sometimes for life--and instances are not unfrequent of exemplary
constancy and great propriety of deportment.

What eloquent vituperations we should pour forth, if the contending
claims of nature and pride produced such a tissue of contradictions in
some other country, and not in our own!

There is another Massachusetts law, which an enlightened community
would not probably suffer to be carried into execution under any
circumstances; but it still remains to disgrace the statutes of this
Commonwealth. It is as follows:

"No African or Negro, other than a subject of the Emperor of Morocco,
or a citizen of the United States, (proved so by a certificate of the
Secretary o