Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1853-01-22

the undofended gateways OF her mud-buit villa
ges. Yellow fevers aud blue plaques, and inter
mittent poisons that you can see as well as feel
await your approach as you ascend the rivers
Pestilence shoots from the mangroves that fringe
their noble banks; and the glorious sun, which
kindles all inferior nature into teeming, bursting
life, darts disease into your languid system.
No, you are not elected for this nome ntous work.
The Great Disposer, in another branch of his
family, has chosen out race, descendants of this
torrid region, children of this vertical sum- aud fit
ted them, by ages of stern discipline for the gra-
cious achievement.
From foreign realms and lands remote
Supported by His care,
They pass unharmed thro burning chimes,
And breathe the tainted air
Sir, believe that the suspicious work is be-
gun; that Africa will be civilized civilized by
her offspring and descendants. | believe it be-
cause will not think that this mighty and fer
tile region is to remain forever in its present
state; because can no other agency adequate
to the accomplishment of the work, and [ do
behold in this agency n most mysterious fitness
am aware that doubts were entertained of
the practicability of the work, founded in part
on the supposed incapacity of the civilized men
OF color IN this country to carry on undertaking
of this kind. and partly on the supposed hopeless
barbarism of the native races, which is thought
by some persons to be SO gross to defy the ap-
proach OF improvement. | believe both opinions
to be- erroneous.
1t would, think. be uni ust to urge as proof
of the intellectual inferiority of the civilized men
ofcolor in this country that they have not made
greater intellectual progress 1t appears to me
that they have done quite as much as could be
expected, under the depressing circumstances 10
which they have been placed. What branch of
the European family if held in the same condi-
ton for three centuries, would not be subject to
the same reproaehl Mr.. Jefferson, in his Notes
od Virginia urges the intellectual inferiorty of
the African race as existing in the United States
He might have been led to doubt the Justice of
his Conclusions by rejecting that, 10 the very
same work, he thinks it necessary to yindicate
the race to which we ourselves belong from
charge OF degeneracy made by an ingenious
French writer Why, sir. it is but short
time since we Anglo Americans were habitually
spoken of by our brethren in England us de-
generate and inferior race. Within thirty years
it has been contemptuously asked in the liberal
journals OF Europe in reference to the native
country OF Franklin and Washington, and Adams
and Marshall, and jefferson and Madison, of r.
wing, Prescott, Bancroft, Tcknor, Bryant, and
Longfellow, "Who reads an American book!''
In the face offacts like these, it becomes us to
be somewhat cautious in setting down the color
T.
GRITTY.
Again. sir, it is doubted whether there ia in
the native races of Africa basis of improvabity,
if may use that word, on which hope of their
future civilization can be grounded 1t is said
that they alone OF all the tribes of the earth have
shown themselves incapable of improving their
condition. Well, sir, who knows that OF the
early history Of our race we know but little in any
part of the globe. A dark cloud hangs over it
The whole north and west of Europe, until the
Roman civilization shone in upon it, was rs be-
nighted as Africa is now. 1t is quite certain that
at a very early period in the history Of the world
some of the native races of Africa had attained
high degree of culture. Such was the case of
the ancient Egyptians, dark coored race, though
not OF what we call the negro type. They are
considered the parents OF much of the civilization
OF tho Greeks and indeed of the whole ancient
world. AS late the fifth century, before the
Christian era Plato passed thirteen years in stu
dying their sacred words. The massive monu-
ments OF their cheerless culture have withstood
the storms OF time better than the more graceful
creations OF Grecian art. Races that emerged
from barbarism later than those of Africa have.
with fearful vicissitudes on the part of individual
States. acquired and maintained Il superiority
over Africa; but l am not prepared to say that it
rests on natural causes ola fixed aud abiding
character. We are led into error by contem-
plating things too much in the gross. There
are tribes in Africa which have made no con-
temptible progress in various branches of human
improvement. On the other hand, if we look
closely at the condition of the mass of the popu :
lation in Europe, from Lisbon to Archangel, from
the Hebrides of the Black sea--if we turn from
the few who possess wealth or competence, edu-
cation, culture, and that lor]ship over Nature and
all her forces which belongs to instructed mind.
Ii we turn from these to the benighted destitute,
oppressed superstitious, AFFECT millions, whose
lives are passed in the hopeless tolls of the field
the factory, the mine, whose inheritance is beg
gary, whose education is stod ignorance: at
whose daily table hunger and thirst are the
stewards; whose rare festivity is brutal intempe-
rance; if we could count their numbers, gather
into one aggregate their destution of the lows of
life, and thus estimate the full extent of the prac-
tlca barbarsm of the nominay civilized world
we should be inclined, perhaps, to doubt tho es-
sential superiority of the present improved Eu-
ropean race.
II itbe essentially superior, why did it renMH
SO long uuimproved? The Africans you say.&S
served in their original baharism for five thousa u
years. Well, the Anglo-Saxon race did g.
same thing tor nearly four Thousand years and in
the great chronology of Providence a thousand
years are but as day. little more than tea
centuries ago and our Saxon ancestors were not
more civilized than some of the African tribes of
the present day. They were savage, warlike
people-pirates by sea, bandits on shore-en
shaved by the darkest superstitions worshipping
dlvinities as dark and cruel as themselves. The
slave trade was carried on in Great Britain eight
hundred years ago us ruthessly as upon the coast
OF Africa at the present day. But it pleased Di-
vine Providence to pour the light of Christianity
upon this midnight darkness: by degrees civil
cation, law, liberty, letters, arts, came in: and at
the end oteight centuries we talk of the essen
tia Unborn superiority of tile Anglo Saxon race.
and look down with dsdau on those portions of
the humaa family, who have Jagged a little be
hind US in the march of civilization.
Sir, Mt thu nresant DIV f,;co !, not .l,o ,L.1