Equally futile is the reply, so often made by our opponents, that miscegenation has already progressed far in the Southland, as witness millions of Mulattoes. Certainly; but do not such objectors know in their hearts that their reply is no answer, but is utterly irrelevant? We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins; but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into the veins of the Whites. We have no excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontinences; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural, they in nowise, not even in the slightest conceivable degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That blood to-day is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a question of individual morality, nor even of self-respect. He who commerces with a negress debases himself and dishonours his body, the temple of the Spirit; but he does not impair, in anywise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind. 

 Does some one reply that some Negroes are better than some Whites, physically, mentally, morally? We do not deny it; but this fact, again, is without pertinence. It may very well be that some dogs are superior to some men. It is absurd to suppose that only the elect of the Blacks would unite with only the non-elect of the Whites. Once started, the pammixia would spread through all classes of society and contaminate possibly or actually all. Even a little leaven may leaven the whole lump. 

 Far more than this, however, even if only very superior Negroes formed unions with non-superior Whites, the case would not be altered; for it is a grievous error to suppose that the child is born of its proximate parents only; it is born of all its ancestry; it is the child of its race. The eternal past lays hand upon it and upon all its descendants. However weak the White, behind him stands Europe; however strong the Black, behind him lies Africa. 

 Preposterous, indeed, is this doctrine that personal excellence is the true standard, and that only such Negroes as attain a certain grade of merit should or would be admitted to social equality. A favourite evasion! The Independent, The Nation, The Outlook, the whole North—all point admiringly to Mr. Washington, and exclaim: "But only see what a noble man he is—so much better than his would-be 

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