The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn
the offender in spite of his offense. But for the female dissolute there is no forgiveness, however we may extra-socially pity or even admire. A double standard—an abomination! But while none may approve, yet every one admits and applies it—for reasons deeper than our conscious logic, and irresistible. For the offense of the man is individual and limited, while that of the woman is general, and strikes mortally at the existence of the family itself. 

 Now the idea of the race is far more sacred than that of the family. It is, in fact, the most sacred thing on earth; and he who offends against it is an apostate from his kind and mounts the apex of sacrilege. 

 At this point we hear some one exclaim, "Not so fast! To sit at table, to mingle freely in society with certain persons, does not imply you would marry them." Certainly not, in every case. We may recognize socially those whom we personally abhor. This matters not, however; for wherever social commingling is admitted, there the possibility of intermarriage must be also admitted. It becomes a mere question of personal preference, of like and dislike. Now, there is no accounting for tastes. It is ridiculous to suppose that no Negroes would prove attractive to any whites. The possible would become actual—as certainly as you will throw double-double sixes, if only you keep on throwing. To be sure, where the number of Negroes is almost vanishingly small, as in the North and in Europe, there the chances of such mésalliances are proportionally divided; some may even count them negligible. But in the South, where in many districts the Black outnumbers the White, they would be multiplied immensely, and crosses would follow with increasing frequency. 

 It is only the sense of blood superiority, the pride of race, that has hitherto protected the white labourer. Break this down or abate it, and he sinks swiftly to the level of the mongrel. Laugh as you will at the haughtiness of the ignorant Southerner, at his scorn of the Negro, perhaps his superior, it is this very race self-respect that is the rock of his salvation. As Bernhard Moses points out, it was because the Anglo-Saxon so cherished this feeling that he refused to amalgamate with the Indians—a proud and in some ways superior race—but drove them relentlessly, and often, it may be, unrighteously before him into the sea. It was just because the Spaniard, though otherwise proud enough, did not cherish this feeling, that he did amalgamate with the victims of his greed and descend into hopeless depths of hybridization. So far, then, from doing aught to weaken this sentiment, we should do our utmost to 
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