that the antipathy of race is stronger
in the United States than elsewhere, and that the Americans, in this
respect, are inferior to the English. I am as conscious as any one else
of those infamous proceedings towards free negroes which are the crime
of the North, a crime no less odious than that of the South. What
conscience is not aroused at the thought of those prejudices of skin
which do not permit blacks to sit by the side of whites, in schools,
churches, or public vehicles? Only the other day, nothing less than a
denunciation in open parliament was needed to begin the destruction, by
a public rebuke, of the classification which is being made on the
English steamers themselves between Liverpool and New York. There are
some new States which purely and simply exclude free negroes from their
Territory; those which do not exclude them from the Territory, repulse
them from the ballot-box. The injustice, in fine, is as gross, as
crying, as it is possible to imagine.

Must we conclude from this that the coexistence of races, possible
elsewhere, is impossible in the United States? I distrust those sweeping
assertions which resolve problems at one stroke; I refuse, above all, to
admit so easily that iniquity must be maintained for the sole reason
that it exists, and that it suffices to say: "I am thus made; what would
you have? I cannot change myself," to abstract one's self from the
accomplishment of the most elementary duty. To endure negroes at one's
side, to respect their independence, to abstain from wrongs towards
them, to consent to the full exercise of their rights, is an elementary
duty; Christian duty, I need not say, demands something better.

Does this mean that we are to set ourselves up as judges, and brand as
wretches all those who thus mistake the laws of charity and justice? I
fear much that, in their place, we would do precisely as they. Living in
the South, we would have slaves, and would defend slavery to the last;
living in the North, we would tread under foot the free colored class.
Is there then neither the true, nor the false, nor justice, nor
injustice? God forbid! The just and the true remain; iniquity should be
condemned without pity; but we are bound to be more indulgent towards
men than, towards things. We are bound to remember that the influence of
surroundings is enormous, and that, if crimes are always without excuse,
there are many excusable criminals. When we examine men by the prejudice