The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-06-02

the black man, habtuated as he was ia
it for ages, as it does even the white man,
whenever he goes there temporarily indolent
His wants were few, his intellect was therefore
never quickened, his inventive and suggestive
faculties were but little tasked, and enjoyment
quiet and repose, became the great aim of his
life, and not improvement, as with us Stabil-
ity was thus fixed upon all around him. He
ceased almost to bear the image of human
being, and he fell an easy prey to the cupidity
and craft of northern men.
How could the negro expect to escape that
general law of our gl0be-that northern men
shall in physical strength be above southern
men, and that through it they shall gradually
encroach upon and ultimately subdue southern
countries, and rule over them
Such is the fate of all southern countries.
China, East India, Europe, all are living proofs
of the fact Southern people never mingle with
northern men, except to be ultimately sup
planted by them; nor can you point me to q
single permanent northern acquisition south
ern nation has made. This fact is lesson
which history has indelibly written upon the ne
grOs back The rule may have its few tempo
rary exceptions among the whites but with the
blacks it is the absolute decree of fate. No
southern people have yet founded permanent
empire northwardly; while all over our globe
northern men rule in southern chimes Rome
conquered all the nations south of it, but itself
fell beneath the strokes of northern barba-
rians; and in Turkey the lesson will be re-
peated, before children, now born, will sink to
their graves.
But by strange reversion Of fate it is no
less true that, while northern physical force
subdues that of the south, in return, southern
science, southern law and southern religion,
rule the northern mind To this, however, the
negro is a negro is lamentable exception, un-
less we admit the old Egyptians to be his
cOuntrymen, and then it is true of him in a
very high degree The Africans mind, as We
find it here, is, as q general rule, almost a
blank, and we have taken small pains to make
it otherwise We rule both his body and mind
AS to the latter we have not used it, nor mis-
used it; we have left it nearly rs it was. We
did not want the negrO's mind, we wanted his
bodily strength and that we have used extern
sveIy, and to some purpose.
1t has made the West Indies, Brazil and our
Southern States, what they are. True, the
masters intellect directed this labor but it
remains nevertheless fact, that the slaves
labor, involuntary though it may be, created,
and creates to this day nearly all the wealth
in the countries referred TO-
1t is an indisputable fact that this invoun-
tary labor has fortified more acres in Ameri-
ca than that of the free European and equal
ly undeniable is the position, that leaning
chiefly on this labor, the European advanced
and brought into use the greater part of this
American continent.
have now nothing to do with the question,
hot fn no nd
vanced Americas progress. The proof in the
promises does not exist; and both sides have
nothing left but assertions, whose truth or I'M
truth can afford to leave to be decided by
time What have to do with is the fact, that
man, whatever be the color of his skin, has in
his sinews his muscles, his intellect, his pro-
duction, and his consumption the seed of that
relative power and wealth which each nation
may enjoy. To al America and all our earth
owes whatever Of comfort exists within it.
The black population was necessary ingre-
dent to American growth. Such was the OBJ
ject of its importation, and the result has fully
justified, in dollars and cents, the primitive in
offensive idea which suggested the importa-
ton. And | hesitate not to say that black labor |
is still, and will remain for some time perhaps |
foreCer, necessary to many parts of America,
and that without it large portions Of America
,an never be developed Scan the map of |
look over Brazil, think of
The Amazon and the Orinoco and reflect npon
he cotton fields the coffee estates, and the |
ugar plantations; and leaving the question of |
lavery or freedom untouched, it must be clear
hat the original idea to settle those portions
If America with Africans, remains to this day |
lot only a feasible idea, but the only one by |
tInao - ha -, ,oI
preserved to the use Of man. Whether it was
right to make it an expectation rather than
an cmigration-how far or whether at all, the
crueltios on the passage can be justified, (all
emigrants are matreated) and whether the
OF the negro, are proper questions to be dis
cussed by themselves; but we have tor the
present only to do with the result and IL places
beyond dispute the fact that the presence of
of that population in America has, in spite of
cruelty and wrong, and the evils necessarily
flowing therefrom, proved vast benefit to the
whites, and those of the blacks who survived
this ieartully brutal experiment upon the laws
of migration.
Their labor lacks the permanence of the labor
of the white man but remember the latter &C.
cumuidtes, while that quickening impulse, call it
good or bad, has never found an echo in the
slaves breast
Their mental improvement is lamentably be-
hind ours; but whose is the responsibility Do
not utterly deny a quality, for whose cxtin-
guishment we have labored as matter of self
existence. Slaves need good sound bodies; but
whether they have souls, and what degree of
intellect they require, IL another question 1t
seems to be the rule that the less of the latter,
so as to leave them still human beings, the
better for slavery, The master must supply
the mind-the slave the body: and the former
must always act upon the fear that the slave
May become like of thom"
Education is therefore avoided. The slave
must he az near the animal rs is consistent
with the desire to make his labor profitable.
And we have almost succeeded and triumph
anty we cxclaim, The negro is an ape and
we thank God
That we not like one of those"
Suppose, kind friends, we take q journey
not intending report thereof for publication
to Russia, to the barbaric and nomadc tribes
OF high Asia, to the Bashkeris and the Cal
mucks, to the Fins and the Cossacks, and to
the homes of the old Scythians We see, there,
human beings whose countenances cvince bru-
WV P'oSioHH, Wlosc Clicck DOueb prOtTuue,
whose eyes make you tremble, and whose
whole exterior-white though it is--shocks
you. The lullabies sung over my cradle were
the songs of joy Of our mothers, that these bar
baric hordes were once more returning to their
homes, after they had barbarously overrun
France. The means by which children were
frightened, then, was to tell them that the
Russians were coming" meaning thereby the
savage hordes of Eastern Russia. These men,
civilized white man. live whore your ancestors
lived two thousand years ago. They look as
some OF our forelathers then looked They act
and they think as our forcfathers then thought.
In fact, If We want to see specimen of some
OF our ioretathers, there they are, to the very
life; the chain of the debasement of despotism
has only worn little deeper. 1t would be hard
to trace any one Of us specially back to any
one of these tribes and their homes. Our
l. II I