Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1853-01-14
0be y a ii D Spy.
FRIDAY. JANUARY Ia. 1854.
A Physiologicnl Queslion.


The Richmond, Va, Examiner in a recent
leading article says that the statement in the De-
ularation Of Independence that call men are born
free and equal,' has no reference whatever to
grees, for negroes are not men.
This assertion, that "negroes are not men" is
a popular one at the South; and we heur the same
thing occasionally, from certain white animals at
the North, also We have sc little respect for
such an assertion or for those that make
it. that we hardly know how to treat the subject
seriously,
If the negro is not nan, what is he? Is hea
beasts An answer in the negative seems hardly
safe, when we remember that Tonissaint Lou
venture has lived, and that such men as Alexan-
der Dumas still live An answer in the affirma-
tive would scarcely be creditable to certain Anglo
Saxon legislators, cavaliers and gentlemen of
the first families who have somewhat extensive
ly mingled their blood with that of the negro,
and have transmitted their Caucasian features,
and proud spirit to beings, who from this circum-
stance, are, at least, Sone1chat hnman. If he be
not man, of what crime are those men guilty,
who have thus mingled their blood with his I?
Psychologists say that man is the only being
who has an arehed foot, who can walk upright,
who can point towards nything, and can express
his emotions and wants by articulate sounds so
to be understood by his fellows The negro
has sometimes been modelled by white sculptors,
as representative of manly beauty. Ancient
history, and archaeology, tell that in old times
he was courageous in battle, and wise in counsel,
even according to white nations of bravery and
wisdom, long before the great Caucasian race had
got out of the bogs and woods where it dwelt, or
knew how to wear those habilments, vulgarly
called pants.
II the editor Of the Richmond Examiner, or any
of his disciples, should ever gaze upon the calm pa.
cid counteuance Of the Sphynx, which still looks in
schema majesty the plains of Egypt he would
find that that mystical symbol Of divinity bears the
impress of the negro face. The Persian, Greek,
and Roman empires have passed, in slow procession
before the Sphynx, towards oblivion, in all their
pride and powers but that mysterious statue, which
asserted. before kings and their armies the divinity
and humanity of the Ethiopian family Of men, sill
stands, in its solemn antiquity before high heaven,
to admonish the Caucasian race Of the same mpcr.
ishable fact.
But the weak spot of the Examiners logic does
not lie in this question of negro humanity, after ALL
There is nota creature, with grain of reason,
amongst the whole negotiating brood of whites,
who support this absurd falsehood, with leebest
show Of reason. It i'd mere tissue of impudent
fiinsy assertion, meant to sustain the crime of sla.
very.
The Southern sensualiss and Northern nnnies as
sumo this absurcity as the premises upon which they
attempt to build the whole rotten superstructure of
slavery. 1t is to slavery that the weakness Of the
Examiners logic is 10 be traced. In order to sus.
tain that most unnatural, inhuman, illogical detesta-
BILE, brutal, and brualizing system, the Examiner
and such like presses compelled to resort to sub.
teriuges of argument, that make honest white men
blush for their races claim 10 reason and humanity
When white Virginian fathers have settled the ques-
ton whether their mulatto children are human
or not, it will be tine enough begin to discuss the
humanity of the negro.