28 MEXICO. difficulty was found, in 1826, to discover persons on whom to bestow the boon of liberty, and I much doubt whether any can have been forthcoming in the present year. The advantages of such a position can only be appreciated by those, who know the inconveniences, and dangers, with which a contrary order of things is attended. In the United States, where the Slaves, Mulattoes, and Free Blacks, consti- tute more than one-sixth of the whole population,* they are a constant source of disquiet and alarm. In a country, where civil liberty is incessantly invoked, and where every thing is done in its name, and for its perpetuation, they are a proscribed, and degraded caste ; nor can they hope for any amelioration of their lot. Slavery rests upon the supposed natural inferiority of the slave to his master : to admit the manumitted slave to a participation of political rights, in com- mon with his former lord, would destroy this basis alto- gether; and the Free Black is, therefore, not only exiled from the society of the Whites, but excluded most carefully from power ; not by law, indeed, but by virtue of common usage ; for the law, in general, does not recognize any differ- ence of colour, or establish any distinction, except that of slave-owner and slave. -j- The consequence is, that the hos- tility existing between the free blacks, and the whites, in the United States, is even more inveterate than that of slaves towards their masters ; and that, in some of the States, (Vir- ginia especially,) it has been thought necessary to enact laws, by which all manumitted slaves are compelled to quit the
- By the census of 1810, the total population amounted to 7,239,903
inhabitants, of whom, 1,377,810 were blacks, either free or slaves ; by that of 1820, the total population was 9,638,226, of whom 1,538,118 were slaves, and 233,557 free people of colour. fin some states this is not the case : in South Carolina, for instance, the free people of colour are ineligible by law to any public situation. A Senator, or Representative, must be a free white man, uncontaminated by any mixture of African blood. — Vide McUish's United States, p, 275.
