Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/618

 

peaceful, semi-dormant times of colonial rule were undoubtedly favorable to the evolution of a race which is rapidly absorbing the Indian and Spanish parent stock and advancing toward a fixed type. What this will be is wholly a matter of speculation. If left to themselves the mestizos must in time become the national race, as already represented by a large body among them, but our age is not one of exclusiveness, and growing intercourse is opposed to strict conservatism. Mexico is exposed in an exceptional manner to the encroachments of universal progress, lying as she does on the borders of a nation impelled above any other by the spirit of the age. The territory ceded by the treaty of 1848 is rapidly transforming

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