“But with the lawyer it is different.  A representative of a Mississippi newspaper that is unfriendly to me is now on the ground.  He has a list of all the Republicans,—­especially the colored ones,—­holding positions in this department.  The name of this lawyer is on that list.  It is the intention of the faction his paper represents to bring pressure to bear upon me to force me to turn all of these men out of office for political reasons, regardless of their official standing.  But, so far as your friends are concerned, I shall defy them except in the case of this lawyer, and also in the case of this physician if attention is called to him.  In their cases, or either of them, I shall be obliged, for reasons already given; to yield.”

Strange to say, attention was never called to the case of the physician and he remained in office during the whole of Mr. Cleveland’s first administration.  I made a strong appeal to the Secretary in behalf of my friend, the white lawyer.  I said in substance: 

“Mr. Secretary, you ought not to allow this deserving man to be punished simply because he was brave enough to legally marry the woman of his choice.  You know him personally.  You know him to be an able and brilliant young man.  You know that he is now discharging the responsible duties of the position which he occupies in your department with credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of his official superiors.  You know that you have not a better nor a more capable official connected with the public service than you have in this able young man.  Under these circumstances it is your duty, as the responsible head of your department, to protect him and his estimable family from this gross wrong,—­this cruel injustice.  For no one knows better than you do, Mr. Secretary, that this alleged opposition to amalgamation is both hypocritical and insincere.  If a natural antipathy existed between the two races no law would be necessary to keep them apart.  The law, then, against race intermarriage has a tendency to encourage and promote race intermixture, rather than to discourage and prevent it; because under existing circumstances local sentiment in our part of the country tolerates the intermixture, provided that the white husband and father does not lead to the altar in honorable wedlock the woman he may have selected as the companion of his life, and the mother of his children.  If, instead of prohibiting race intermarriage, the law would compel marriage in all cases of concubinage, such a law would have a tendency to discourage race intermixture; because it is only when they marry according to the forms of law that the white husband and father is socially and otherwise ostracized.  Under the common law,—­which is the established and recognized rule of action in all of our States in the absence of a local statute by which a different rule is established,—­a valid marriage is nothing more than a civil contract entered into between two persons capable of making contracts.  But under our form of government marriage, like everything else, is what public opinion sees fit to make it.