On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo

Let this mode of viewing the question be compared with that of the monogenists, and let it be asked which of the two modes is more apt to please the defenders of slavery. If all men are descendants of one couple, – if the inequality of races has been the result of a curse more or less merited, – or again, if the one have degraded themselves, and have allowed the torch of their primitive intelligence to become extinct, whilst the other have carefully guarded the precious gift of the Creator, – in other words, if there be cursed and blessed races, – races which have obeyed the voice of nature and races which have disobeyed it, – then the Rev. John Bachmann is right to say that slavery is a Divine right; that it is a providential punishment; and that it is just, to a certain point, that those races who have degraded themselves should be placed under the protection of others, – to borrow an ingenious euphemism from the language of the defenders of slavery.⁸⁸ But if the Ethiopian is king of Soudan by the same right as the Caucasian is king of Europe, what right has he to impose laws upon the former, unless by the right of might? In the first case, slavery presents itself with a certain appearance of legitimacy which might render it excusable in the eyes of certain theoricians; in the second case, it is a fact of pure violence, protested against by all who derive no benefit from it.

From another point of view, it might be said that the polygenist doctrine assigns to the inferior races of humanity a more honourable place than in the opposite doctrine. To be inferior to another man either in intelligence, vigour, or beauty, is not a humiliating condition. On the contrary, one might be ashamed to have undergone a physical or moral degradation, to have descended the scale of beings, and to have lost rank in creation.