ion, while exercising its share of
influence, will never be able, through the number of suffrages at its
disposal, to alarm the jealous susceptibility of the whites; the latter,
in fact, will be continually recruited by European immigration, and the
day will come when the few negroes of the United States will be scarcely
perceptible in the heart of a gigantic nation.

The honor of the North is at stake; it belongs to it to give an example
at this time, and to show, by the reform of its own habits, that it has
the right to combat the crime of the South. It must set to work
seriously, resolutely, to resolve the problem of the coexistence of
races, while the South resolves, willing or unwilling, the problem of
emancipation. Liberty in the South, equality in the North; the one is
no less necessary than the other; it may even be said that one great
obstacle to the idea of emancipation is this other idea that blacks and
whites cannot live together, but that one must some day exterminate the
other.

Why suffer the establishment of this lying axiom which checks all
progress? Why not cast our eyes on the neighboring colonies where the
prejudice of color reigned supremely before emancipation, and where it
has since become rapidly effaced. The United States have a lofty end to
attain; let them beware how they take too low an aim! They will not have
more than they need, with the efforts of all, the charity of all, the
sacrifices of all, the earnest endeavors by which all can elevate
themselves above vulgar prejudices, to accomplish a task at once the
most difficult and most glorious that has ever been proposed to a great
people.

The North, I repeat, is bound to give a noble example by obtaining a
shining victory over itself. Let it say to itself that coexistence is
not amalgamation; the question is not to marry negroes, but to treat
them with justice. The fear of amalgamation once vanished, many things
will change in appearance. Why, in fact, is the prejudice of race
stronger in the free States than in the slave States? Because the latter
know that slavery is a sufficient line of demarcation, and because they
have not to dread amalgamation. Now, this is and will be nowhere to be
dreaded; the instinct of both races will prevent such mingling, and the
blacks are as anxious to remain separate from the whites as the whites
are to avoid alliance with the blacks. As I have said, nothing but
slavery, and the perverse habits that it en