It is not surprising,
then, that in nearly every one of these communities the great man was
a Virginian. It has been assumed by the Virginians that they have
descended from a superior race, and this may be true as regards many
families whose ancestors were of Norman descent; but it is not true of
the mass of her population; and for one descendant from the nobility
and gentry of the mother country, there are thousands of pure
Anglo-Saxon blood. It was certainly true, from the character and
abilities of her public men, in her colonial condition and in the
earlier days of the republic, she had a right to assume a superiority;
but this, I fancy, was more the result of her peculiar institutions
than of any superiority of race or greater purity of blood. I am far,
however, from underrating the influence of blood. That there are
species of the same race superior in mental as well as in physical
formation is certainly true. The peculiar organization of the brain,
its fineness of texture in some, distinguish them as mentally superior
to others, as the greater development of bone and muscle marks the
superiority of physical power.
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