He
felt so deeply sure of his happiness that it seemed strange to him that
he could not aline his emotions and his mind.
As Peter stood staring up the Ohio River, it occurred to him that
perhaps, in some queer way, the morals of black folk were not the morals
of white folk; perhaps the laws that bound one race were not the laws
that bound the other. It might be that white anathemas were black
blessings. Peter thought along this line peacefully for several minutes.
And finally he concluded that, after all, morals and conventions, right
and wrong, are merely those precepts that a race have practised and
found good in its evolution. Morals are the training rules that keep a
people fit. It might very well be that one moral regime is applicable to
one race, and quite another to another.
The single object of all morals is racial welfare, the racial integrity,
the breeding of strong children to perpetuate the species. If the black
race possess a more exuberant vitality than some other race, then the
black would not be forced to practise so severe a vital economy as some
less virile folk.
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