As those who knew him do not need to be told, Alexander Cheves
Haskell was a man of character, pure and just and thoughtful. He felt
towards the African as only a Southerner who had himself never been the
owner of slaves can feel. He regarded him as of a less advanced race
than his own, but one who was entitled not only to just and kindly
treatment but to sympathetic consideration. When, however, the question
of the future of the Afro-American was raised, as matter for abstract
discussion, it was suggestive as well as curious to observe the fixed,
hard expression which immediately came over Haskell's face, as with
stern lips, from which all suggestion of a smile had faded away, he
pronounced the words:--"Sir, it is a dying race!" To express the thought
more fully, Colonel Haskell maintained, as I doubt not many who now
listen to me will maintain, that the nominal Afro-American increase, as
shown in the figures of the national census, is deceptive,--that in
point of fact, the Ethiop in America is incurring the doom which has
ever befallen those of an inferior and less advanced race when brought
in direct and immediate contact, necessarily and inevitably competitive,
with the more advanced, the more masterful, and intellectually the more
gifted. In other words, those of the less advanced race have a fatal
aptitude for contracting the vices, both moral and physical, of the
superior race, in the end leading to destruction; while the capacity for
assimilating the elevating qualities and attributes which constitute a
saving grace is denied them.
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