predetermined design of some to make an issue on this matter, to appeal to a supposed popular bigotry and fanaticism in order to conceal the most vital and most stupendous truth of modern times—a truth underlying all our sectional difficulties, and which, truly apprehended by the mind of the masses, will instantly explode those difficulties—renders it an imperative duty to expose the folly and sophistry of those who strive to keep it out of sight. They assume that the Bible teaches the origin of all mankind from a single pair—that the Mongol, Indian, Negro, etc., with the same origin, have the same nature as the white man, and consequently have the same natural rights, and that we owe to them the same duties that we owe to ourselves or to our own race. And, moreover, they proclaim a belief in this assumption as essential to salvation, or, in other words, that if it be rejected Christianity will disappear from the world. It need not be repeated that the writer will not condescend to argue a self-evident, actually existing, every-day palpable and unavoidable physical fact, or insult the reader’s understanding by presenting proofs to show that the Negro is specifically different 58from himself—that is a matter beyond the province of rational discussion, and entirely within the domain of the senses; yet, as already observed, in the subsequent chapters of this work the extent of these differences separating whites and blacks will be demonstrated, their physical differences and approximations shown, in order to determine their moral relations and social adaptations. But the assumption that belief in the dogma of a single human race or species is vital to the preservation of Christianity needs to be exposed, as it is in reality as monstrous in morals as stupid and absurd in fact. We cannot believe that which we know to be untrue, and to affect such belief, however good the motive may seem, must necessarily debauch and demoralize the whole moral structure. There are many things—such as the belief in the doctrine of election, original sin, of justification by faith, that admit of belief—honest, earnest, undoubting belief—for they are abstractions and purely matters of faith that can never be brought to the test of physical demonstration, or to the standard of material fact, but the question of race—the fact of distinct races or rather the existence of species of Caucasian, Mongols, Negroes, etc., are physical facts, subject to the senses, and it is beyond the control of the will to refuse assent to their actual presence. Can a man, by taking thought, add a cubit to his stature? Can he believe himself something else—a woman, a dog, or that he does not exist—that black is white, or that red is yellow, or that the Negro is a white man? It is possible to deceive
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