Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/118

 *sons of the same race; they inflict heavy punishments upon ministers and other officials who perform a marriage ceremony between a white person and one of another race, and upon those who issue licenses for such a marriage; and they declare the offspring of such marriages illegitimate and incapable of inheritance. In each of these positions, the courts, Federal as well as State, have upheld the twenty-six States and Territories.

Twenty-four States and Territories do not prohibit intermarriage between the white and other races. It is not within the province of this study to consider the actual amount of admixture that is going on in these States. But inasmuch as Boston has often been cited as the city in which the number of marriages between white persons and Negroes is very large (estimated by Senator Money, of Mississippi, at 2,000 in 1902), the report of the registry department of Boston for the years 1900-1907 is here added:

INTERMARRIAGES IN BOSTON

Colored man  White man   Total Number White      Colored     of Mixed woman       woman      Marriages

1900               32            3           35 1901                30            1           31 1902                25            4           29 1903                27            2           29 1904                27            1           28 1905                17            2           19 1906                17            2           19 1907                28            4           32

From this it appears that the number, never appreciably large, has been steadily decreasing.