Part 12

We are told that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” If this be ever true, it cannot be better illustrated than by that sciolism which from the varieties of the human species would overthrow that sublime Unity which is the first law of Creation. As well overthrow Creation itself. There is no great intelligence which does not witness to this law. Bacon, Newton, Leibnitz, Descartes all testify. Laplace, from the heights of his knowledge, teaches that the curve described by a simple particle of air or vapor is regulated by a law as certain as the orbits of the planets; and is not Man the equal subject of certain law? God rejoices in Unity. It is with Him a universal law, applicable to all above and below, from the sun in the heavens to the soul of man. Not one law for one group of stars, and one law for one group of men,--but one law for all stars, and one law for all men. The saying of Plato, that “God geometrizes,”[147] is only another expression for the certainty and universality of this law. Aristotle follows Plato, when, borrowing an illustration from the well-known requirements of the Greek drama, he announces, that “in Nature nothing is unconnected or out of place, as in a bad tragedy.”[148] But Caste is unconnected and out of place. It is a perpetual discord, a prolonged jar,--contrary to the first principle of the Universe.

Only when we consider the universality of the Moral Law can we fully appreciate the grandeur of this Unity. The great philosopher of Germany, Kant, declared that there were two things filling him always with admiration,--the starry heavens above, and the moral law within.[149] Well might the two be joined together; for in that moral law, with a home in every bosom, is a vastness and beauty commensurate with the Universe. Every human being carries a universe in himself; but here, as in that other universe, is the same prevailing law of Unity, in harmony with which the starry heavens move in their spheres and men are constrained to the duties of life. The stars must obey; so must men. This obedience brings the whole Human Family into harmony with each other, and also with the Creator. And here, again, we behold the grandeur of the system, while new harmonies unfold. Religion takes up the lesson, and the daily prayer, “Our Father who art in Heaven,” is the daily witness to the Brotherhood of Man. God is Universal Father; then are we all brothers. If not all children of Adam, we are all children of God,--if not all from the same father on earth, we are all from the same Father in Heaven; and this affecting relationship, which knows no distinction of race or color, is more vital and ennobling than any monopoly. Here, once more, is that universal law which forbids Caste, speaking not only with the voice of Science, but of Religion also,--praying, pleading, protesting, in the name of a Common Father, against such wrong and insult to our brother man. In beautiful harmony are those words of promise, “I will make a _man_ more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.”[150] Against this lofty recognition of a common humanity, how mean the pretension of Caste!

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Assuming this common humanity, it is difficult to see how reason can resist the conclusion, that in the lapse of time there must be a common, universal civilization, which every nation and every people will share. None too low, none too inaccessible for its kindred embrace. Amidst the differences which now exist, and in the contemplation of nations and peoples infinitely various in condition, with the barbarian still claiming an extensive empire, with the savage still claiming a whole continent and islands of the sea, I cannot doubt the certain triumph of this great law. Believing in God, I believe also in Man, through whose God-given energies all this will be accomplished. Was he not told at the beginning, with the blessing of God upon him, “_Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it_”? All of which I am sure will be done. Why this common humanity, why this common brotherhood, if the inheritance is for Brahmins only? Why the injunction to multiply and subdue the earth, if there are to be Sudras and Pariahs always? Why this sublime law of Unity, holding the universe in its grasp, if Man alone is left beyond its reach?

I have already founded the Unity of the Human Family partly on the common destiny, and I now insist that this common destiny is attested by the unquestionable Unity of the Human Family. They are parts of one system, complements of each other. Why this unity, if there be no common destiny? How this common destiny, if there be no unity? Assuming the unity, then is the common destiny a necessary consequence, under the law appointed for man.

The skeptic is disturbed, because thus far in our brief chronology this common civilization has not been developed; but to my mind it is plain that much has been done, making the rest certain, through the same incessant influences, under the great law of Human Progress.

That European civilization which has already pushed its conquests in every quarter of the globe is a lesson to mankind. Beginning with small communities, it has proceeded stage by stage, extending to larger, until it embraced nations and distant places,--and now stamps itself ineffaceably upon increasing multitudes, making them, under God, pioneers in the grand march of Humanity.

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Europe had her dark ages when there was a night with “darkness visible,” and there was an earlier period in the history of each nation when Man was not less savage than now in the very heart of Africa; but the European has emerged, and at last stands in a world of light. Take any of the nations whose development belongs to modern times, and the original degradation can be exhibited in authentic colors. There is England, whose present civilization is in many respects so finished; but when the conquering Cæsar, only fifty-five years before the birth of Christ, landed on this unknown island, her people were painted savages, with a cruel religion, and a conjugal system which was an incestuous concubinage.[151] His authentic report places this condition beyond question; and thus knowing her original degradation and her present transformation after eighteen centuries, we have the terms for a question in the Rule of Three. Given the original degradation and present transformation of England, how long will it take for the degradation of other lands to experience a similar transformation? Add also present agencies of civilization, to which England was for centuries a stranger.

This instance is so important as to justify details. When Britain was first revealed to the commercial enterprise of Tyre, her people, according to Macaulay, “were little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands.”[152] The historian must mean, when those islands were first discovered by Captain Cook. Prichard, our best authority, supposes them “nearly on a level with the New-Zealanders or Tahitians of the present day, or perhaps not very superior to the Australians,”[153] which is very low indeed. There was but little change, if any, when they became known to the Romans. They are pictured as large and tall, excelling the Gauls in stature, but less robust, and, according to the geographer Strabo, with crooked legs and unshapely figures.[154] Northward were the Caledonians,--also Britons,--tattooing their bodies, dwelling in tents, savage in manners, and with a moral degradation kindred to that of the Southern Britons.[155] Across the Channel were the Irish, whose reported condition was even more terrible.[156] According to Cæsar, most in the interior of Britain never sowed corn, but lived on milk and flesh, and were clad in skins; but he notes that all colored their bodies with a cerulean dye, “making them more horrid to the sight in battle”; and he then relates, that societies of ten or twelve, brothers and brothers, parents and children, had wives in common.[157] Their religious observances were such as became this savage life. Here was the sanctuary of the Druids, whose absolute and peculiar power was sustained by inhuman rites. On rude, but terrible altars, in the gloom of the forest, human victims were sacrificed,--while from the blood, as it coursed under the knife of the priest, there was a divination of future events.[158] There was no industry, and no production, except slaves too illiterate for the Roman market. Imagination pictured strange things. One province was reported where “the ground was covered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could inhale it and live.”[159] In the polite circles of the Empire the whole region excited a fearful horror, which has been aptly likened to that of the early Ionians for “the Straits of Scylla and the city of the Læstrygonian cannibals.”[160] The historian records with a sigh, that “no magnificent remains of Latian porches and aqueducts are to be found” here,--that “no writer of British birth is reckoned among the masters of Latian poetry and eloquence.”[161]

And this was England at the beginning. Long afterwards, when centuries had intervened, the savage was improved into the barbarian. But from one authentic instance learn the rest. The trade in slaves was active, and English peddlers bought up children throughout the country, while the people, greedy of the price, sold their own relations, sometimes their own offspring.[162] In similar barbarism, all Jews and their gains were the absolute property of the king; and this law, beginning with Edward the Confessor, was enforced under successive monarchs, one of them making a mortgage of all Jews to his brother as security for a debt.[163] Nothing worse is now said of Africa.

Progress was slow. When in 1435 the Italian Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius the Second, visited this island, it was to his eyes most forlorn. Houses in cities were in large part built without lime. Cottages had no other door than a bull-hide. Food was coarse,--sometimes, in place of bread, the bark of trees; and white bread was such a rarity among the people as to be a curiosity.[164] When afterwards, under Henry the Eighth, civilization had begun, the condition of the people was deplorable. There was no such thing among them as comfort, while plague and sweating-sickness prevailed. The learned and ingenious Erasmus, who was an honored guest in England at this time, refers much to the filthiness of the houses. The floors he describes as commonly of clay strewn with rushes, in the renewal of which those at the bottom sometimes remained undisturbed for twenty years, retaining filth unmentionable,--“_sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et hominum, projectam cervisiam et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominandas_.”[165] I quote the words of this eminent observer. The traveller from the interior of Africa would hardly make a worse report.

Such was England. But this story of savagery and barbarism is not peculiar to that country. I might take other countries, one by one, and exhibit the original degradation and the present elevation. I might take France. I content myself with one instance only. An authentic incident of French history, recorded by a contemporary witness, and associated with famous names in the last century, shows the little recognition at that time of a common humanity. And this story concerns a lady, remarkable among her sex for various talent, and especially as a mathematician, and the French translator of Newton,--Madame Duchâtelet. This great lady, the friend of Voltaire, found no difficulty in undressing before the men-servants of her household, not considering it well-proved that such persons were of the Human Family. This curious revelation of manners, which arrested the attention of De Tocqueville in his remarkable studies on the origin of the French Revolution,[166] if reported from Africa, would be recognized as marking a most perverse barbarism.

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These are illustrations only, which might be multiplied and extended indefinitely, but they are sufficient. Here, within a limited sphere, obvious to all, is the operation of that law which governs Universal Man. Progress here prefigures progress everywhere; nay, progress here is the first stage in the world’s progress. Nobody doubts the progress of England; nobody doubts the progress of France; nobody doubts the progress of the European Family, wherever distributed, in all quarters of the globe. But must not the same law under which these have been elevated exert its equal influence on the whole Family of Man? Is it not with people as with individuals? Some arrive early, others tardily. Who has not observed, that, independently of original endowment, the progress of the individual depends upon the influences about him? Surrounded by opportunity and trained with care, he grows into the type of Civilized Man; but, on the other hand, shut out from opportunity and neglected by the world, he remains stationary, always a man, entitled from his manhood to Equal Rights, but an example of inferiority, if not of degradation. Unquestionably it is the same with a people. Here, again, opportunity and a training hand are needed.

To the inquiry, How is this destiny to be accomplished? I answer, Simply by recognizing the law of Unity, and acting accordingly. The law is plain; obey it. Let each people obey the law at home; its extension abroad will follow. The standard at home will become the standard everywhere. The harmony at home will become the harmony of mankind. Drive Caste from this Republic, and it will be, like Cain, “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.”

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Therefore do I now plead for our Common Humanity in all lands. Especially do I plead for the African, not only among us, but in his own vast, mysterious home, where for unknown centuries he has been the prey of the spoiler. He may be barbarous, perhaps savage; but so have others been, who are now in the full enjoyment of civilization. If you are above him in any respect, then by your superiority are you bound to be his helper. Where much is given much is required; and this is the law for a nation, as for an individual.

The unhappy condition of Africa, a stranger to civilization, is often invoked against a Common Humanity. Here again is that sciolism which is the inseparable ally of every ignoble pretension. It is easy to explain this condition without yielding to a theory inconsistent with God’s Providence. The key is found in her geographical character, affording few facilities for intercommunication abroad or at home. Ocean and river are the natural allies of civilization, as England will attest; for such was their early influence, that Cæsar, on landing, remarked the superior condition of the people on the coast.[167] Europe, indented by seas on the south and north, and penetrated by considerable rivers, will attest also. The great geographer, Carl Ritter, who has placed the whole globe in the illumination of geographical science, shows that the relation of interior spaces to the extent of coast has a measurable influence on civilization: and here is the secret of Africa. While all Asia is five times as large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the littoral margins have a different proportion. Asia has 30,800 miles of coast; Europe 17,200; and Africa only 14,000. For every 156 square miles of the European continent there is one mile of coast, while in Africa one mile of coast corresponds to 623 square miles of continent. The relative extension of coast in Europe is four times greater than in Africa. Asia is in the middle between the two extremes, having for every 459 square miles one mile of coast; and so also is Asia between the two in civilization. There is still another difference, with corresponding advantage to Europe. One third part of Europe is in the nature of ramification from the mass, furnishing additional opportunities; whereas Africa is a solid, impenetrable continent, without ramifications, without opening gulfs or navigable rivers, except the Nile, which once witnessed the famous Egyptian civilization.[168] And now, in addition to all these opportunities by water, Europe has others not less important from a reticulation of railways, bringing all parts together, while Africa is without these new-born civilizers. All these things are apparent and beyond question; nor can their influence be doubted. And thus is the condition of Africa explained without an insult to her people or any new apology for Caste.

The attempt to disparage the African as inferior to other men, except in present condition, shows that same ever-present sciolism. Does Humboldt repel the assumption of superiority, and beautifully insist that no people are “in themselves nobler than others”?[169] Then all are men, all are brothers, of the same Human Family, with superficial and transitional differences only. Plainly, no differences can make one color superior to another. And looking carefully at the African, in the seclusion and isolation of his native home, we see sufficient reason for that condition which is the chief argument against him. It is doubtful if any people has become civilized without extraneous help. Britain was savage when Roman civilization intervened; so was Gaul. Cadmus brought letters to Greece; and what is the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from Heaven, but an illustration of this law? The African has not stolen fire; no Cadmus has brought letters to him; no Roman civilization has been extended over his continent. Meanwhile left to savage life, he has been a perpetual victim, hunted down at home to feed the bloody maw of Slavery, and then transported to another hemisphere, always a slave. In such condition Nature has had small opportunity for development. No kindly influences have surrounded his home; no voice of encouragement has cheered his path; no prospect of trust or honor has awakened his ambition. His life has been a Dead Sea, where apples of Sodom floated. And yet his story is not without passages which quicken admiration and give assurance for the Future,--at times melting to tenderness, and at times inspiring to rage, that these children of God, with so much of His best gifts, should be so wronged by their brother man.

The ancient poet tells us that there were heroes before Agamemnon,[170]--that is, before the poet came to praise. Who knows the heroes of those vast unvisited recesses where there is no history and only short-lived tradition? But among those transported to this hemisphere heroes have not been wanting. Nowhere in history was the heroical character more conspicuous than in our fugitive slaves. Their story, transferred to Greece or Rome, would be a much-admired chapter, from which youth would derive new passion for Liberty. The story of the African in our late war would be another chapter, awakening kindred emotion. But it is in a slave of the West Indies, whose parents were stolen from Africa, that we find an example of genius and wisdom, courage and character, with all the elements of general and ruler. The name borne by this remarkable person as slave was Toussaint, but his success in forcing an _opening_ everywhere secured for him the addition of “l’Ouverture,” making his name Toussaint l’Ouverture, Toussaint _the Opening_, by which he takes his place in history. He was opener for his people, whom he advanced from Slavery to Freedom, and then sank under the power of Napoleon, who sent an army and fleet to subdue him.[171] More than Agamemnon, or any chief before Troy,--more than Spartacus, the renowned leader of the servile insurrection which made Rome tremble,--he was a hero, endowed with a higher nature and better faculties; but he was an African, jet black in complexion. The height that he reached is the measure of his people. Call it high-water mark, if you will; but this is the true line for judgment, and not the low-water mark of Slavery, which is always adopted by the apologists for Caste. Toussaint l’Ouverture is the actual standard by which the African must be judged.

When studied where he is chiefly seen,--not in the affairs of government, but in daily life,--the African awakens attachment and respect. The will of Mr. Upshur, Secretary of State under President Tyler, describes a typical character. Here are the remarkable words:--

“I emancipate and set free my servant, David Rich, and direct my executors to give him _one hundred dollars_. I recommend him, in the strongest manner, to the respect, esteem, and confidence of any community in which he may happen to live. He has been my slave for twenty-four years, during which time he has been trusted to every extent, and in every respect. My confidence in him has been unbounded; his relation to myself and family has always been such as to afford him daily opportunities to deceive and injure us, and yet he has never been detected in a serious fault, nor even in an intentional breach of the decorums of his station. His intelligence is of a high order, his integrity above all suspicion, and his sense of right and propriety always correct and even delicate and refined. I feel that he is justly entitled to carry this certificate from me into the new relations which he now must form. It is due to his long and most faithful services, and to the sincere and steady friendship which I bear him. In the uninterrupted and confidential intercourse of twenty-four years, I have never given, nor had occasion to give him, an unpleasant word. I know no man who has fewer faults or more excellences than he.”[172]

The man thus portrayed was an African, whose only school was Slavery. Here again is the standard of this people.

Nor is there failure in loftiness of character. With heroism more beautiful than that of Mutius Scævola, a slave in Louisiana, as long ago as 1753, being compelled to be executioner, cut off his right hand with an axe, that he might avoid taking the life of his brother slave.[173]

The apologist for Caste will be astonished to know, but it is none the less true, that the capacity of the African in scholarship and science is better attested than that of anybody claiming to be his master. What modern slave-master has taught the Latin like Juan Latino at Seville, in Spain,--written it like Capitein at the Hague, or Williams at Jamaica,--gained academic honors like those accorded to Amo by the University of Wittenberg? What modern slave-master has equalled in science Banneker of Maryland, who, in his admirable letter to Jefferson, avows himself “of the African race, and in that color which is natural to them, of the deepest dye”?[174] These instances are all from the admirable work of the good Bishop Grégoire, “De la Littérature des Nègres.”[175] Recent experience attests the singular aptitude of the African for knowledge, and his delight in its acquisition. Nor is there any doubt of his delight in doing good. The beneficent system of Sunday Schools in New York is traced to an African woman, who first attempted this work, and her school was for all alike, without distinction of color.[176]