CHAPTER XV.

NATURAL RELATIONS AND NORMAL CONDITION OF THE NEGRO.

There are now between four and five millions of negroes in the United States. They or their descendants must remain forever—for good or evil—an element of our population. What are their natural relations to the whites?—what their normal condition?

The Almighty has obviously designed all His creatures—animal as well as human—for wise, beneficent, and useful purposes. In our ignorance of the animal world, we have only domesticated or applied to useful purposes a very small number, the horse, the ox, ass, dog, etc.; but these we practically understand, so that even the most ignorant will not abuse them or violate their instincts. The most ignorant farmer or laborer would never attempt to force the dog to perform the domestic _rôle_ of the cat, or the ox that of the horse, or the sheep that of the ass, etc. He knows the natures of these animals—their relations to himself and to each other, and governs them accordingly.

The natural relations of parent and offspring, of brothers and sisters, of husbands and wives, are also measurably understood by the most ignorant, for natural instinct quite as much, as reason guides us in these things. The father knows that the child should obey him, and the latter feels instinctively that this obedience is a sacred duty. The same instinct prompts the brother to love his sister, and it may be said that all the relations of consanguinity, and the duties that spring from them, are regulated more by instinct than by reason. There are innumerable books written on this subject, to teach the duties of parents and offspring, husbands and wives, etc., but with a proper cultivation of the intellect and of the affections, just perceptions of the duties involved follow intuitively.

Passing beyond these domestic and family relations—the relations of individuals—of one man to another, and to the State or general citizenship, are less understood, for here nature must be led by reason, and though there are certain great and fixed facts that serve as landmarks for our guidance, we must mainly rely upon our reason.

It is true, Christianity indicated these relations two thousand years ago; nevertheless, they are almost totally disregarded in the Old World; but though too often misunderstood and misapplied among ourselves, they are sufficiently comprehended to constitute the foundation of our social order.

Another advance, and we arrive at the relations of races—of white men and negroes—and of other races that may chance to be in juxtaposition, and of which the whole world may be said to be profoundly ignorant in theory, while one-half of our people have justly and truly solved them in practice. The social order of the South—the social and legal _status_ of the negro—reposes on the natural relations of the white and black races, and, as has been observed, while the world is ignorant of these relations, the people of the South, indeed it may be said the American people, have practically solved them, and to the mutual benefit of all concerned. But before we can enter on a discussion of the natural relations and social adaptations of races, we must first clearly understand the relations that we bear to each other as individuals, and to the State or aggregate of individuals.

All the individuals of a species, whether animal or human, of course have the same faculties, the same wants, in a word, the same specialties. Occasionally chance—some accident, remote or immediate—deforms or blights individuals; they may be idiotic, insane, or otherwise incapable, but these are exceptional cases that do not disturb the great, fixed, and, unchangeable equality, sameness, or uniformity of the race. The white or Caucasian race, as has been observed, varies much more than any other race. There are tall men and short men, giants and pigmies, blondes and brunettes, red-haired and black-haired, but the nature remains the same; and if they were all placed under the same circumstances of climate, government, religion, etc., all would exhibit the same moral characteristics, and, to a certain extent, the same physical appearances. This is sufficiently illustrated among ourselves every day. Almost universally our people have sprung from the “lower classes” of European society. The coarse skin, big hands and feet, the broad teeth, pug nose, etc., of the Irish and German laborer pass away in a generation or two, and their American offspring have more delicate and classical features than even the most favored and privileged European aristocracy. Having the same faculties, the same wants, etc., it is a self-evident truth that they are entitled to the same rights, the same opportunities, to live out the nature with which God has endowed them. The Divine Author of Christianity promulgated this vital truth with great impressiveness. He selected his disciples from the lowest and most oppressed classes of the people, and thundered his most terrible denunciations in the ears of the sacerdotal aristocracy. The great body of the Jewish people were mere beasts of burden to their brethren—the priestly oligarchy—which governed the State and lived in idle luxury on the toil, ignorance, superstition, and misery of the people. On all occasions these oppressors were denounced, and the great and everlasting truth that God was no respecter of persons, and all men equally precious in His sight—even the beggar Lazarus and the repentent Magdalene—were the daily teachings of Christ. And there can be no doubt that the persecution and final crucifixion of the Author of the Christian religion was intended, by the rulers of the Jews, to crush out the great doctrine of equality, and thus to preserve their ascendency over the minds and fortunes of the people. The Divine ordinance—to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us”—is a complete exposition of our natural relations to each other, and an indestructible rule of nature as well as a religious obligation. All men—that is, all who belong to the race or species—having the same nature and designed by the Creator for the same purposes, the same rights and the same duties, it is an obvious inference that all human governments should rest on this great fundamental truth. No man should be permitted, indeed no man should be base enough to claim privileges denied to his fellow, or to any class of his fellows, and the same great principle which Christ ordained should guide His followers in their personal relations, should be the only legitimate rule in their political relations. To do unto others as we would have them do to us—to recognize in all other men the rights we claim for ourselves—to admit those reciprocal obligations which, in truth, spring from the necessities of our being—in short, to demand equal rights for ourselves, and to admit the same rights on the part of our fellows, seems so obvious, so instinctive, so just, and indeed self-evident, that an intelligent and just mind wonders how it ever could be otherwise, or that systems of government can exist in our own enlightened times in utter contradiction to such simple and self-evident truths. Government, the State, the aggregate citizenship, based on the great fundamental truth of equality, becomes a simple, beneficent, and easily understood institution. It leaves all men where God and nature places them, in natural relation to each other. Its functions, however complicated the details, are simply protective, leaving individuals to ascend or descend in the social scale, just as their industry, cultivation, and moral worth may be appreciated by their fellow-citizens. It protects one man from the violence or injustice of another, and the aggregate citizenship or nation from foreign aggression.

It is a misnomer to speak of government conferring rights; it may (or the thing called government in other lands may) take away, suppress, or withhold rights; but rights, as declared by Mr. Jefferson, are inherent and in fact inseparable from individual existence. God has endowed every man with the capacity of self-government, and imposed this self-government as a duty as well as a right. He has given him certain wants instincts, desires, etc., and endowed him with reason to govern and guide these things. As a citizen, he of course does not, or can not surrender any of his natural rights or control over himself. The State protects him from wrong or injustice, but himself a portion of the citizenship, he still governs himself. It is a contradiction to suppose that one man can govern another better than he can govern himself—that is, under the same circumstances, and therefore it is palpably absurd to limit suffrage or to exclude a portion of the people from participation in the government. All being naturally equal—for though some men may have more mental capacity than others, as we sometimes see some have greater physical powers—they have all the same nature; and therefore govern themselves and fulfill the purposes of their creation when they all vote at elections and participate in the making of laws. For purposes of convenience, a limited number of the people are delegated to conduct the government, but the popular will, the desire of the people, the rule of the entire citizenship, is complete; every vote tells, every man’s voice is heard, every one governs himself. And the government, limited or rather confined to its legitimate function of protection, leaves every one a complete and boundless liberty to do every thing or any thing that his instincts, wishes, caprices even, may prompt him to do, so long as he does not infringe upon the rights, interests, etc., of others.

Such, then, are the natural relations we bear to each other, and the social and governmental adaptations that spring from them. The mere conventional formula may be varied at times—the circle of individual action contracted or expanded as the public exigencies may demand, but the right and the duty of every man to an equal participation in the government, or in the creation of laws which govern all, is vital, and every man denied this is necessarily a slave, for he is then governed by the will of others and not by his own, as God and nature have ordained he should be.

There are no contradictions or discords in nature. All creatures, and the purposes God has assigned to them, are perfectly harmonious; and all their relations to each other, and the duties that spring from them, are in perfect accord. It is our ignorance, and sometimes our caprices and vices, that interrupt this harmony; but it is consoling to know, that happiness is inseparable from the due fulfilment of our duties, and therefore the wiser the world becomes, the better it will be. The man who loves his wife the most will also have the tenderest affection for his children; those who are most careful to respect the rights of others will be the most secure in their own rights, and the government, or state, or nation based on the natural relations that men bear to each other, will be the most prosperous and powerful.

We are, it is true, at a great distance from the practical or complete development of our system, but in theory it is right, and most Americans recognize the truth and justice of its elementary principles. On the contrary, Europeans, and especially Englishmen, have scarcely a perception or glimpse of men’s natural relations to each other, and their whole social and political system, if thus it may be called, is in direct conflict with these relations, with the vital principle of democracy, with reason and common sense. A woman is the chief of the nation, whose husband is her subject—thus violating the relations of the sexes—of husband and wife—and thrusting her from the normal position of woman as well as contradicting the relations and duties of citizenship. God created her, adapted her, and designed her, for a wife and mother, a help-mate to her husband and the teacher and guide of her children; He endowed her with corresponding instincts to love, venerate, and obey her husband and devote her life to the happiness and welfare of her offspring, and to trample on His laws—to smother these instincts and force this woman to be a queen, a chief of state, the ruler over millions of men, is as sinful as it is irrational, as great an outrage on herself—her womanhood—as it is on the people who suffer from it. The annual expenditure for royalty amounts to several millions, and requires probably that some thirty thousand people should be employed or compelled to devote their labor to this purpose. Thirty thousand men, women, and children, ignorant, abject, and miserable, with no chance whatever for education, for the cultivation of their faculties or the healthy development of their natures, are bound to lives of toil and a mere animal existence in order to furnish means for this one family, not of happiness, but of boundless folly, which is supposed to constitute royal dignity. God created this woman with the same faculties, endowed her with the same instincts, and designed her for the same purposes as all other women in England, but the human law, disregarding the evident designs of the Almighty, has impiously sought to make her a different and superior being, to reverse the natural relations of the sexes, to render her husband subject to her will, to place her above many millions of men, the head of the state, to even force this fragile, weak, and helpless female to be the commander-in-chief of their armies, and they crush and pervert thirty thousand other people out of the natural order, and doom them to a mere animal existence, in order to sustain this one family in “royal splendor.” The two things are inseparable—the violation of the natural relation drags after it these frightful consequences. All these people thus doomed to ignorance and toil, to support the luxury and grandeur of royalty, would, under the same circumstances, be just as grand, majestic, and royal as the present royal family, and the wrong in the present instance may be measured or tested by the consideration that of these thirty thousand poor, ignorant, abject, and toiling creatures, whose labor, or the proceeds of whose labor is appropriated to the support of royalty, the majority would doubtless exhibit more capacity and refinement than those who rule over them, if, standing where nature placed them all in common, they were permitted to compete for superiority. The same unnatural order prevails on the Continent: the natural equality that God has stamped upon the race—for they are all white men—is disregarded, and though the people are ignorant, debased by poverty, excessive toil, and misery, the _status quo_ preserved alone by force. Nearly four millions of armed men are kept in constant readiness to repress and keep down the instinct of equality, while a “civil” force of perhaps a million more is constantly acting in conjunction with the former, in preserving that artificial and unnatural rule which the few—a mere fraction of the population—exercise over the many. And so instinctive and irrepressible is this sentiment—this innate and eternal law written by the finger of the Almighty on the soul and organism of the race—that if these armed forces were withdrawn, every government in Europe would be demolished within a week. Nor can the existing condition be preserved much longer. Those writers ignorant of the essential nature of the race, often indulge in absurd fancies in regard to the future of European society. They are good enough to say that democratic institutions may do for America, but that they will not suit the people of Europe, and therefore monarchy is to be a permanent institution. Democracy or equality is a fact rather than a principle. Beings who have the same nature, the same wants, and the same instincts will struggle, as they must struggle, for ever, to enjoy the same rights and to live out the same life. And though they are chained down by ignorance and misery as well as by the armed hordes of their tyrants, there can be no peace, no cessation of the conflict, no stopping-place short of the universal recognition of their natural relations to each other, and that fixed and eternal equality which the Almighty Creator has stamped upon the race and fixed for ever in its physical and mental structure.

If the natural relations that men bear to each other are thus misunderstood and disregarded in Europe, it may well be supposed that they are wholly ignorant of the natural relations of races, and without even the remotest conception of the relations that naturally exist between white men and negroes. It is therefore a subject never introduced or treated of—a _terra incognita_ to the European mind,—and dependent as we are on European authority, the natural relation of races, and the normal condition of the negro, have only quite recently become a subject of American investigation.

But while our writers and men of science have been, and quite generally are even now, wholly ignorant of these relations, indeed, worse still, in slavish subserviency to European dictation, have accepted the absurd theories of the former in explanation of the phenomena constantly presented to their view, our people have practically solved their natural relations to the inferior race, and placed or rather retained the negro in his normal condition.

There are eight millions of white people and four millions of negroes in juxtaposition. The latter are, in domestic subordination and social adaptation, corresponding with their wants, their instincts, their faculties, the nature with which God has endowed them. They are different and subordinate creatures, and they are in a different and subordinate social position, harmonizing with their natural relations to the superior race, and therefore they are in their normal condition. This, if not exactly a self-evident, is certainly an unavoidable truth—a truth that no amount or extent of sophistry, self-deception, authoritative dictum, or perverted reasoning can gainsay a moment, for it rests upon _facts_, fixed forever by the hand of the Creator. The negro is different from, and inferior to the white man. He is in a different and inferior position, and therefore, of necessity, is in a normal condition. _That_, as a general proposition, is true beyond doubt, for there is no place or material for doubt. God has made him different—widely different, as has been shown; that difference is as unchangeable as are any of the works of the Almighty. _He_ has therefore designed him, of course, for different purposes—for a different and subordinate social position whenever and wherever the races are in juxtaposition. It needs no argument to prove this truth, great and startling as it must be to those who have never before contemplated it. The _facts_—the simple, palpable, unchangeable facts—only need to be stated, and the inference, the inductive fact, the absolute truth, is unavoidable. God has made the negro different from, and inferior to the white man. They are in juxtaposition—the human law corresponds with the higher law of the Almighty; the negro is in a different and subordinate position, and therefore in a normal condition. But it may be said by some that while this is so, or while the negro, in juxtaposition, must be subordinate, it does not follow that the actual condition of things at the South is essentially right, natural, and just. They would be mistaken, however, for the _facts_ involved do not permit or admit of any such assertion. The white man _is_ superior, the negro _is_ inferior, and therefore the inference is unavoidable that the latter is in his normal condition whenever the social law or legal adaptation is in harmony with these natural relations of white men and negroes. It is true that a wide field for inquiry, for comparison, for arriving at relative truth, is here opened to our view, but the simple, precise, and unavoidable truth remains unaltered and unalterable—the different and inferior negro is in a different and inferior social position at the South, and therefore in harmony with the natural relations of the races, he is in a normal condition. If it were said that the existing condition were defective—that in some respects injustice were done the negro—that there was a wide field for improvement in the social habits of the South—in short, for the progress and improvement of Southern society, then there would be reason, perhaps, in such suggestions. But to say or to assert that the condition of the negro at the South was wrong or unjust in its essential character, would be altogether absurd, and an abuse of language that none but those wholly ignorant of the facts involved would ever, or could ever, indulge in. The simple statement of the facts lying at the base of Southern society, however false our perceptions of them, or whatever our ignorance of them, or whatever may be the perversity of those who will not seek to comprehend them, is sufficient, when clearly presented, to convince every rational mind that the negro is in his normal condition only when in social subordination to the white man.

But however obvious or irresistible this momentous truth, when it is thus forced upon the mind as an inductive fact, it is also demonstrable through processes of comparison, which, if not quite so direct or palpable, are equally certain and reliable. And the normal condition of the negro, or the social adaptation at the South, necessarily involves the protection as well as the subordination of the inferior race. The two things are in fact inseparable, as in the case of parents and children, or the relations of husband and wife, or indeed any condition of things resting on a basis of natural law.

Any one capable of reasoning at all must see that four millions of subordinate negroes in juxtaposition with eight millions of superior white men, must be in a subordinate social position—that the instinct of self-preservation, the primal law, obviously demands that the superior shall place the inferior in just such position as its own interests and safety may need—that it may and should even destroy it, utterly obliterate it from the earth, if its own safety requires it—though such instance never could happen unless some outside force or intermeddling brought it about—that the mode or manner, or special means are of secondary consideration, and to be determined or worked out according to circumstances, the habits, progress, and condition of the master race. Contemplating, therefore, the great existing fact—the juxtaposition of vast masses of widely different social elements at the South—the inference is unavoidable, that it is the right and the duty of the dominant race to provide for the wants of such a population, and that, for the common welfare and safety, they may and must place the negro element just where their own reason and experience assure them is proper and desirable. This has been done, and is done, but instead of the State or government providing directly for these things, individuals are left, to a great extent at least, to provide for the wants of the subordinate race. The motive of personal interest, therefore, is brought into action—a motive often, doubtless, stronger than affection, and though, like the latter, it will not always save the weak and dependent from wrong and cruelty, it usually serves as a sufficient protection. The father loves his child, the being so inferior, so weak and dependent on his affection. He has absolute control over the actions, the labor, the time, habits, etc., of his son, may compel him to labor for him, or hire out or sell his services to another, and it is only on rare occasions that this natural affection of the father is not sufficient protection for the offspring, and the State is compelled to interpose its power to save the latter from the parent’s cruelty. It is the utmost interest of the father to treat his offspring with kindness, and though affection is the dominant feeling, his real interests are always advanced by this treatment, so that it might be said that the man who loves his children most will have the most useful and the best children. And in the relation of husband and wife a similar result necessarily follows: the husband who loves his wife most tenderly will—other things being equal—always have the best wife, and the wife who loves her husband and children most devotedly will be rewarded by the greatest love and the greatest happiness in return.

In the case of the master and so-called slave, interest instead of affection is the dominant feeling; but even here they are inseparable as well as in the relations just referred to. It is the utmost interest of the master to treat his negro subject with the greatest kindness, and in exact proportion as he does so, he calls into action the affections of the latter. Every one who practically understands the negro, knows that the strongest affection his nature is capable of feeling is love for his master—that affection for wife, parents, or offspring, all sink into insignificance in comparison with the strong and devoted love he gives to the superior being who guides, cares, and provides for all his wants.

There is, then, this radical difference between parent and child, and master and “slave”—the first, prompted by affection, is rewarded by interest, while the latter, impelled by interest, is followed by affection; and the grand result in both cases is happiness, well-being, the mutual benefit and common welfare of all concerned—that universal reward which God bestows on all His creatures, when, recognizing their natural relations to each, they adapt their domestic habits and social regulations to those relations.

The popular mind of the North, so deplorably ignorant of all the facts of Southern society, has a general conception, perhaps, of negro subordination at the South, but none whatever of the reciprocities of the social condition. The negro—a different and inferior creature—must be in a social position harmonizing with this great, fundamental, and unchangeable fact; but while he owes obedience, natural, organic, and spontaneous, he also has the natural right of protection. Or, in other words, while he owes obedience to his master, the latter owes him protection, care, guidance, and provision for all his wants, and he can not relieve himself of this duty or these duties without damaging himself. For example: the master who overworked his people, or under-fed them, or treated them cruelly in any way, would necessarily compromise his interests to the precise extent that he practiced, or sought to practice, these cruelties. They would become feeble from over-exertion, or weak and prostrated from the want of healthy food; while indifference to the master’s interests, sullenness, perhaps sometimes fierce hate, would impel them to damage his property, and in any and every case their labor would be less valuable. Furthermore, God has so adapted the negro that he can not be overworked; and though the master or overseer may kill him in the effort, he can not, nor can any human power, force him beyond a given point, or compel him to that extreme exertion which the poor white laborer of Europe is often forced into. Subordination and protection, the obedience of the inferior and the care of the superior, the subjection of the negro and the guidance of the white man, are therefore inseparable, and when we outgrow and abandon the mental habits borrowed from Europe and designate the social condition where these elements exist, by a proper term or word, it should be a compound one that embodies both of these things.

Such, then, are the domestic habits and social adaptations at the South, or where widely different races are in juxtaposition, and which, in truth, spring from the necessities of social existence whenever they are found together. But, as already remarked, the truth, essential justice, beneficence, and necessity of this condition—this subordination on the one hand and protection on the other—while an obvious, and, indeed, unavoidable conclusion or inference from the great and unchangeable facts involved—are equally demonstrable by comparison with other conditions. Or, in other words, while the mere statement of existing facts, in their natural order and their true relations, irresistibly and unavoidably forces the mind to the conclusion that Southern society reposes on a basis of natural law and everlasting truth, its essential justice, naturalness, and beneficence may be made equally clear to the mind by comparing it with other conditions where these elements are found to exist. We absolutely know nothing of the negro of antiquity except that recently revealed on the Egyptian monuments, through the labors of Champolion and others, and possibly a glimpse occasionally of negro populations through Roman history. The ignorant Abolitionists, and the scarcely less ignorant European ethnologists, on this subject, fancy negro empires and grand civilizations long since extinct; and Livingstone and others, with the false and nonsensical notion that there should be found remains of these imaginary empires, of course succeeded in finding them occasionally, or the interests of the “friends of humanity” would languish, and perhaps subside altogether. But the author desires to say to the reader that while, as an anatomist, he _knows_ that an isolated civilized negro is just as impossible as a straight-haired or white-skinned negro, he has also consulted history, ancient and modern, European and Oriental, Pagan and Christian, and in the _tout ensemble_ of the experience of mankind there is nothing written—book, pamphlet, or manuscript—in the world that casts any light whatever on this matter, or that authorizes the notion that populations, where the negro element dominated, had a history. Since the great “anti-slavery” imposture of modern times began, there are many writers and lecturers who assume such things, as that negro empires had often existed and exercised vast influences on the progress of mankind—that the rich and powerful republic of Carthage was negro—that even Hannibal, the man who so long contested the empire of the world with the grand old Romans, was a negro—indeed, some of these ignorant and impious people have assumed that Christ was a negro; but it is repeated, there is no negro history, nothing whatever, except what we now see on the Egyptian monuments, that indicate the position of the negro or the condition of society when in juxtaposition with white men.

As depicted on the monuments, the negro was then as he is now at the South, in a position of subordination; while isolated, he was as he is now, a simple, unproductive, non-advancing savage. In this condition of isolation he multiplies himself, and therefore is in a natural condition. His acute and powerful senses make amends for his limited intelligence, and enable him to contend with the fiercer and more powerful creatures of the animal creation, while the fervid suns and luxuriant soils of the tropics, where the earth may be said to produce spontaneously, enable him to live with little more exertion than simply to gather their rich and nutritious products. It is a natural condition, so far as it goes, for, as has been said, he increases and multiplies his kind; but it can not have been designed as the permanent condition of the race, for that involves the anomaly of waste, uselessness, a broad blank in the economy of the universe. But as that aspect of the subject will be discussed in another place, it need not be entered on here.

The condition of savagism, or whatever we may term it, where the negro is isolated and without any thing to call his wonderful powers of imitation into action, where he is simply a useless, non-advancing heathen, surely no one, however perverted his mind may be on this subject, will venture to say is a preferable condition to that which he enjoys at the South. It might suffice to say that he increases with more than double rapidity, to demonstrate the fact of his superiority of condition in the latter; but there are moral considerations that show this with still greater distinctness. It is true that we must not take our own standard to test this matter, or we must not assume that that which would constitute our own happiness would also secure the greatest happiness of the negro. Of course the white man never did and never could live such a life as the isolated negro; but, contemplating the negro in the South as he now exists, in comparison with the condition of the isolated negro in Africa, will any one or can any one doubt for an instant the immense superiority of the former condition? He is cared for in his childhood by his master as well as his mother, taken care of when ill, always supplied with an abundance of food and clothing, given every chance for the development of his imitative faculties, permitted to marry generally as he pleases, to feel always that he has a guide and protector, and a constant, peaceful home; and in his old age will be cared for and decently buried with all the sanctions and comforts of the Christian religion. In Africa, a negro, isolated from the white man, rarely has a home, rarely knows his father, is left unprotected in his childhood to all the chances and uncertainties of savagism, sometimes nearly starved, at other times gorged with unwholesome food, without any possible chance for education or the development of his faculties, liable at any moment of his life, in some wild eruption of hostile tribes, to be carried off a slave, perhaps to be eaten by the victors, and after running the gauntlet of savagism, if he lives to old age, to be left to perish of hunger, if no longer able to seek food for himself. But it is quite unnecessary to multiply words on this point; the condition of the negro in America, under the broad glare of American civilization and the beneficent influences of Christianity, is so vastly and indeed immeasurably superior to that of the African or isolated negro, that we have no terms in our language that can truly or fully express it. We ourselves, under our beneficent democratic institutions, doubtless enjoy an extent of happiness or well-being, over that of the masses of our race in the Old World, somewhat difficult to measure or express in words, and it is reasonable to say that the negro population of the South, relatively or comparatively, enjoys even greater happiness, when contrasted with African savagism. There is, in fact, no other condition to compare with, for freedom, the imaginary state that the Abolitionists have labored for so long, is not a condition, and has an existence in their imaginations alone, and not in the actual breathing and living world about us. They have a theory, or rather an abstract idea, that the negro is a _black_-white man, a black Caucasian, a creature like ourselves except in color, and therefore that, placed under the same circumstances—that is, given the same rights and held to the same responsibilities—he will manifest the same qualities, etc. On this foolish assumption legislatures and individuals have acted, and both in the South and in the North considerable numbers of these people have been thrust from their normal condition into what? Why, into the condition of widely different beings.

If any one were to propose to give the negro straight hair, or a flowing beard, or transparent color, or to force on him any other physical feature of the white man, everybody would denounce the wrong as well as the folly of thus torturing the poor creature with that which nature forbids to be done. It has been shown that, in the mental qualities and instincts of the negro, the differences between him and the white man are exactly measured by the differences in the physical qualities, and therefore the efforts of the Abolitionists to endow the negro with freedom involve exactly the same impieties and the same follies as if they sought to change the color of the skin. Or if it was sought to force the child to live out the life of the adult—or the woman that of the man, or to compel our domestic animals to change their manifestations and to contradict the nature God has given them, it would be promptly denounced as cruel, impious, and foolish. All that could be done would be to destroy them—to shorten the life of the unhappy creatures; and this is exactly what has been done, and is now done, in regard to negroes; but, owing to a universal ignorance and wide-spread misconception, that which should be denounced as the grossest wrong has been regarded as the highest morality and philanthropy!

The negro is thrust from the care and protection of a master at the South, but he has none of the responsibilities of society laid on him, and furthermore, there is no very pressing competition for the means of subsistence. He has nothing of what are called rights—that is, is not forced to live the life of another being—and though he has no master to teach and guide him, his powers of imitation are, to a certain extent, called into action, for he is still in juxtaposition and subordination. But even under these favorable circumstances, he rapidly—as contrasted with those under the care of masters—declines and dies. There is, at this time, a large number of these people in Maryland, Virginia and other transition States. Their condition is truly deplorable, and is every day getting worse, for the increase of whites is every day adding to the pressure on them, and rendering the means of subsistence more difficult to obtain. It seems to many, doubtless, a great wrong to place them again in a normal condition, and true relation to the whites—which would be a wrong like that of the inebriate forced back into temperance—a process, in truth, of great suffering, but desirable in the end. If the abnormal habit of drunkenness continues, the man will die within a given time; but if he reforms and recovers his normal state, he may live many years.

There will be few, if any, more negroes “emancipated,” as forcing them out of a normal condition has been termed, in the South, and therefore it is only a question of time when these people, left as they are now, will become extinct. As a question of kindness and humanity, therefore, it is like that of the drunkard: left as they are, they must perish; but if restored to a normal state, whatever their temporary suffering, they or their descendants may live forever. Most unfortunately, however, there is another difficulty involved in the fortunes of these poor people. They have a large infusion of white blood—a very large portion, perhaps, are mulattoes, and therefore while in the case of the typical negro there could be no doubt where true humanity pointed us, in the case of these mongrels there is room for doubt and difficulty. But in the more Northern States, where it is sought to force the habitudes of white men on them, they perish rapidly. The mortality is greater in New England than in the Middle States, and greatest of all in Massachusetts where they are citizens, and the ignorant and misguided, however well-meaning, “friends of freedom” have their own way, and give full scope to their terrible kindness. The whole subject may be summed up thus:—The negro, in a normal condition, increases more rapidly than the whites—for the negress, if not more prolific, escapes by her lower sensibility the numerous chances of miscarriage, premature births, weakly children, etc., which ordinarily attend on the higher and more susceptible organization of the white female.

The “free” or abnormal negro of the Southern States tends to extinction—of the Middle States still more rapidly—and finally, most rapidly of all in New England. Or the actual laws governing this matter may be summed up thus:—In precise proportion as the negro is thrust from his normal condition into that of the white man, he tends to extinction, or one might say, that precisely as the rights of the white man are forced on the negro, he is destroyed. All the negroes brought to this continent were in a normal condition. The monstrous assumption set up by British writers when the colonists began to throw off the British dominion, that negroes were _black_-white men, and, naturally considered, entitled to the same _status_, after nearly a hundred years, and an amount of wrong, falsehood, and suffering to these people that is beyond computation, has at last culminated. From this time forth, few, if any, will be “emancipated.” Indeed, it is far more likely that the numbers restored to a normal condition will outnumber those thrust from their natural relations to white men. If all the legislation on the subject were suddenly blotted out, of course there would be no such thing as a “free negro” on this continent, and this is the point towards which the course of American society is now rapidly tending. It may be somewhat difficult to determine that period—for we know not what may be the action of many of the States that have a considerable population of this kind—but one can not err when saying that it can not be remote, and it is absolutely certain to arrive within the next hundred years. Indeed, it is most probable that from the culmination of the great “anti-slavery” imposture, or from the starting-point of the reaction, to the final period when such a social monstrosity as a “free” negro will be entirely extinct in the New World, the interval will be less than that of the strange and wide-spread delusion which has so long run riot over the understanding, the common sense, the interests, and self-respect of our people.

Of course, no comparison proper can be made with so shadowy and intangible a thing as this. It is not a condition—it is only an attempt after that which neither has nor can have an existence. If it had been assumed simply that the _status_ of the negro was wrong at the South, and that some other _status_ was proper for him, then possibly an experiment would have been legitimate. But, as it was assumed that the negro was a Caucasian, whose color merely was different, and naturally entitled to the position of the white man, all these efforts were made to reduce the assumption to practice, and compel him to live out the life of the former. There could be and can be only a single end to such effort. God created him a negro, a different and inferior being, and of course no human power could alter or modify, to the millionth part of an atom, the work of the Eternal. That which destroys a creature, or under which he dies, can never be right, or even approach to that which is right. When nature is so outraged that she refuses to indorse the human action, or when she in mercy interposes her power to limit such action, then we can not possibly mistake the wrong we are doing, or attempting to do. It is an historical fact that slaves never propagated while in that condition, and the supply was constantly kept up by fresh wars and increased captives. It was such a stupendous outrage on the natural relations, that men of the same species bear to each other, or on that natural and unchangeable equality common to the race, that nature refused to propagate it, or to consent to its permanent existence. Nature also refuses offspring to prostitution—that terrible cancer so corrupting to Northern society, and who does not see her wisdom and beneficence in thus refusing a permanent existence to so foul a blot on the sexual relations? So, too, in the case of mulattoism, where a monstrous violation of the physical integrity of the races is involved, nature interposes and forbids it to live. And in incest—the violation of the laws of consanguinity, where relatives intermarry—nature appropriately punishes them, through the idiocy and impotency of their offspring, which is always forbidden to exist beyond a determinate period. Free negroism, therefore—the attempt to force a different and inferior being to live out the life of a different and superior being—is not a condition, and can not be compared with that which is, or that which the higher law of nature grants, a fixed order of life. There are, then, only two possible conditions for the negro—isolation or juxtaposition with the white man—African heathenism or subordination to a master—a blank in the economy of the universe, or the social order of the South, where he is an important element in the civilization, progress, and general welfare of both races. It is not in the scope of this work to treat of the natural relations or social adaptations of other races. They must be determined by experience, though the starting-point—the fundamental truth—that when in juxtaposition they must occupy a subordinate social position, corresponding with the degree of inferiority to the white man, may be said to be self-evident, or, at all events, an unavoidable truth.

In conclusion, it may be well to repeat the great leading truths that underlie the subject discussed in this chapter.

All of God’s creatures, animal as well as human, have a right to live out the life—the specific nature—that He has endowed them with, and we have comprehended this great, vital, and fundamental law in respect to our domestic animals, and generally conform to it. The natural relations of the sexes—of parents and offspring—are also understood, and generally lived up to in our daily life. The natural relations of men to each other are less understood, but the natural order, the equality of rights, and equality of duties, based on an equality of wants, is a vital principle of Christianity, and however far we may be from living it out in practice, our political system, and the whole superstructure of our civil and legal institutions, repose upon this fundamental law of nature.

This natural order is generally disregarded in the Old World, though even there, with all their numerous false traditions, relics of barbarism, and ancient wrongs, as well as modern corruptions, they are forced, to a certain extent, in their legal and civil institutions, to recognize it. Nature absolutely forbids any change or any violation of her laws, or, in other words, the work of the Almighty can not be altered by human force or accident. The millions of Europe are, therefore, unchanged in their essential natures, and the few who rule and wrong them are only able to prevent the development of their specific and latent capabilities by their systems of repression. But the natural order—the natural relations they bear to each other—the inherent and eternal equality that God has stamped forever on the organism of the race, is perpetually struggling to manifest itself; and though buried in a profound animalism, though deluded by false theories and corrupted by innumerable lies, and steeped in poverty and misery fathomless and measureless, they are only temporarily kept from asserting the natural order and specific nature of the race by four millions of bayonets.

The natural relations of races, and especially of the white man and negro, have been wholly misunderstood, for, ignorant of the nature and specific wants of the negro, it necessarily followed that it should be so. But while in theory we have been ignorant of these relations, the people of the South have solved them in practice. Their actual experience of the negro nature, of its wants, its capacities, its industrial adaptations, perhaps we may say, the instinctive necessities of a society where widely different social elements are in juxtaposition, have developed a social order in practical harmony with the best interests and highest happiness of both races. That society rests on the same basis as that of the North, with the superadded negro element, which, in social subordination corresponding with its natural inferiority and natural relations to the white man, is immovable and everlasting, so long as the foundations of the world remain unaltered and unalterable. Ignorance and impiety may beat against it; folly, delusion, and madness may waste their wild energies in blind warfare on it; European kings and nobles, all those who live and flourish for a time on the perversion of the natural order and the degradation of so many millions of their kind—their natural equals—may combine to overthrow it; dupes, instruments, open foes and secret traitors may aid them, and the great ignorant and deluded masses for a time may be blindly impelled in this direction, but all in vain; the social order—the supremacy of the master and the obedience of the “slave”—will remain forever, for it is based on the higher law of the Almighty, the natural relations of the races, the organic and eternal superiority of the white man and the organic and everlasting inferiority of the negro.