The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-22 00:00:00

NEGRO CAPACI7Y.

It is a marvellous fact that the capacity of the
negro race should in the present day be as hotly
disputed as the qualities of a gorilla. The negro
has inhabited Africa from time immemorial. For
centuries the race has been associated with Euro-
peans—in some places free, but more generally as
slaves. In the Northern States negroes are born, grow
up, and die among their white fellow-citizens. In
the Southern States the association has been much
more intimate, for not only have they been among
them, but of them, living in their houses, administer-
ing to their wants, cultivating their fields, and in-
deed exciting that keen interest that always attaches
to property. In the Mauritius English planters have
been associated with the African from one aide of the
Continent, and in the West Indies with the African
from the other side. The Anglo-Saxon has known
them in slavery and in freedom—under the English,
under the French, under the American, and under
their own rule. English travellers have penetrated
into all parts of Africa, and published voluminous
accounts descriptive of the people. Yet but lately
a fierce controversy was carried on in the columns of
the English press with reference to negro capacity,
when those who ought to be best informed agreed
to. differ. Southerners positively assert that
Northerners know nothing of the negro character,
that all their acts have been based on misconcep-
tions, which some day they will bitterly regret, for
that they have led, and will hereafter lead, to fearful
results. The Northerner maintains that prejudice
and self-interested motives unfit the Southerner to
form a dispassionate estimate, that a missionary who
has lived and laboured among the blacks is a much
better qualified judge, and that they differ widely
in their opinions on this subject from the Southern
planter. Dr. SANFORD B. Hum' wrote an essay for
the United States Sanitary Commission, which has
just been re-published in a quarterly, on the negro
as a soldier. IVhen Dr. HuNT gathered his facts
the war was raging. When the employment of
negro troops was first proposed, a bucket-load of
doubts was dashed on the proposition. Had the
negro the physique to endure hardship ? had he the
necessary courage in action ? could he master the
details of drill and be handled when the knowledge
was required on the battle-field ? could he be con-
trolled when fairly aroused by bloodshed and in an
enemy's country ? Dr. HUNT answers these ques-
tions satisfactorily in the negro's favour, and by
reference to facts. The coloured man has a natural
aptitude for drill. Notwithstanding the formation
of his foot, which it was held would make him a bad
walker, experience proves that he marches as
well as any other soldier. He cannot stand
against the white in enduring fatigue, but he can
endure hunger for a much longer period. He
forages well and feeds largely, but shows no pecu-
liar tendency to diseases of the alimentary tract.
He bears injuries and recovers from them as well as
the white soldier. Gangrene is of rare occurrence ;
pneumonia, pleuro-pneumonia, and measles are
more frequent and fatal among negroes than among
whites, and the black is found by experience to be
as liable as the white to bilious, typhoid, and malarial
fevers. Nostalgia is unknown, and Dr. HUNT sums
up by mentioning only two disqualifications which
a lengthened trial has disclosed, viz., a greater lia-
bility to pulmonary and exanthematous diseases and
lack of education. So far the negro has shown an
inferiority, but this inferiority is nothing approach-
ing the degree anticipated. The true point of
interest, however, does not lie in the negro'smili-
tary
capacity, but in the qualities he developes in
his changed position in the South. The New York
Nation of Oct. 3 says :—" The negroes are disap-
pointing friends and enemies. They are every day
coming into possession of land in all the Gulf
States; they are working steadily and faithfully ;
the Bureau banks are bursting with their
savings; they are filling all the official posi-
tions in which they have been placed with
modesty and efficiency; they are rapidly acquir-
ing education and political insight, and it is safe to
say that half the land of the South is passing under
the sheriff's hammer, and will soon be in possession
of new men, on whom the traditions of the olden
time have no hold, and whose labours will soon
bring the South into the rank of civilised, modernised
communities, and get rid of the question which for
thirty years has cursed American politics. We :nay
then look for a period of great prosperity, and of
revived attention to the study and practice of social
science."

But is the Nation a sound authority on this sub-
ject? We believe that no journal in America is
more honestly edited. It has the best means of
procuring information on such points, and that in-
formation, whether for or against its own theories,
will be truthfully given. The experience of the
English in the West Indies is not encouraging, nor
is the history of negro .rule in St. Domingo. No
negro nation has yet taken a place in the world as a
civilised people ; everywhere they have been the
servant or the slave ; not alone to men of the Cau-
casian race, but to all with whom they have mixed.
The Jew—hated, oppressed, despised—has lived
through long centuries, rising everywhere superior
to such treatment, and never sinking to servitude,
but always proudly asserting his superiority to the
Gentile. Here, then, we have the contrast be-
tween the innate superiority and the innate degra-
dation. But, on the other hand, the settlement of
Liberia appears to have been a success, and the
decay of the West Indies preceded emancipation,
arising perhaps from causes wholly independent of
that measure. Nor, physically, is the mental power
far inferior to that of the people who, above all
others, boast of their " brain." The negro brain,
supposing the intellectual capacity can be measured
by cubic contents, shows that the average white
man has an advantage over the negro of
2.74 ounces, or about 5f per cent., though the
experiments have neither been complete nor ex-
haustive. Few nations have developed a capa-
city for self-government, and the negro failures
have certainly not equalled those of the Spaniard.
The question is one of momentous interest to
America. If the negro works, saves, studies, can
be trusted in official and commercial positions, and
above all concedes—for he will find out the truth
of the saying that concession is the essence of
politics—then we may indeed hope that not only
will a great danger be averted, but, in general
emancipation, a great good has been achieved. No
more interesting problem has ever been offered to
the world, nor one whose effects are likely to be
more generally felt. A million of men, emancipated
slaves, have simultaneously had their shackles
struck off and their votes recorded. Without a
period of transition they have passed from the
most degrading slavery to a freedom seldom allowed
to mankind. Broadly the question means
either a war of races or the resuscitation of the
South. If the negro takes his place as a hard-
working citizen, without pushing his pretensions
beyond the bounds of prudence, a splendid career will
re-open for the Southern States, the agricultural
mart of the world. Cotton will again erect its
throne with no false idol seated thereon styling
itself King. Corn, tobacco, rice, and sugar will
again pour in abundance from Southern ports over
Europe and the North. This is the one picture,
while the other is too horrible to contemplate. The
symptoms then which show the negro to be truly
represented by the Nation will be universally hailed
with satisfaction, as the dawn—after a period of
dreadful trial—of a brighter day on the sunny South,
which may yet realirealiseLundy'S Dream,- -A nglo-
American Times.