“The most intelligent white people admit the fact that they are trying to keep the negro down because otherwise the lowest white men will marry negro women.”
Now, where on earth did Dr. Hart get that?
Does not Dr. Hart know that the antipathy between the negro and the poor white is, and always has been, greater than the antipathy between the negro and the property-owning white?
Does not Dr. Hart himself, in another part of his article, express the belief that a dangerous antagonism exists between the poor whites and the negro?
Does Professor Hart believe that the true reason why the Southern people wish to maintain white supremacy is to keep poor whites from marrying negro women? Does he not realize that he makes himself a laughing-stock when he gives his name to a statement of that kind? No white man, rich or poor, wants a negro woman for a wife!
Dr. Hart may put that down as a proposition which is absolutely true.
There are many white men, unfortunately, who establish relations of concubinage with negro women, and this crime is frequently punished in the Southern courts; but where is the evidence that white men wish to take negro wives?
If that inclination is so strong, so ungovernable as to become the motive of the South in maintaining white supremacy, it should be capable of proof. Now, where is the proof? Produce it, Dr. Hart!
The simple truth of the matter is that Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart has allowed himself to be stuffed with a whole lot of nonsense upon a subject which he does not understand.