The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-05-13
NEGRo-PHoBIA.

Ildtlei NJ" iaNOiou ny VI now
blessed in the peaceful pursuits Of industry and en-
terprise, are to enjoy that repose and happi-
which the world apt associate with graft
fled ambition the possession Of great wealth. The
rarest gifts the most inestmabe treasures and un-
told civil and religious privileges, have been lavish
ed npon the American people but instead of enjoy
ing with gratitude the blessings so bountully pro-
yded, instead of engaging resolutely and unitedly,
with thankful hearts and willing hands, in the great
work which destiny appears to have marked out for
us, trife with the great trusts which have been
confded to care, oiter by the wayside when not
second of time should be lost, and permit ourselves
to be drawn within the influences of disease which
weaSens the mental and physical abilities of all who
are brought within reach Of its blightng touch.
If stranger to our people and institutions
to read with the daily illusions of the black-re
publican press, to hear the debates in Congress in
our backrepublican legislatures to listen to the po-
ltical sermons of any of the three thousand cer-
gymen,' or to witness the struggles and contentious
among the settlers of Kansas, he could arrive at
other conclusions than that our revolutionary strug
gle was for the black and not the white race--that
the republic was founded for Africans and not Eu
ropeans that constitution was framed and our
glorious Union formed exclusively for the benefit of
the colored man--and that presses and
States are now engaged in the dsinterested task of
eevating socially and politically some three millions
of black people at the expense of some twenty mil
lions of white people.
Blind to the great events which are now transpir-
ing in the Old World, and which promise to infu
| ~ 4. 4 ~ IL
degree and blind TO things past present and future,
thousands and hundreds of thousands of our deuded
and politically diseased countrymen can see nothing
save it appears in Ethiopian form and color, and
can do nothing unless stimulated by African odor.
They seem possessed of negro-paobia which as yet
dees the most skilful constitutional treatment In
vited to become sharers of the rich inheritance in
the fertile plains and valleys of the far West they
refuse to avail themselves of the teeming riches at
their hand until their mad, utopian ideas of negro
equality are settled according to their own crazed
notions of right and wrong. In a country stretching
from ocean to ocean from the great chain of lakes
in the North to the Mexican gulf in the South
they can see nothing but crispcd hair and black
skins At time when the united energies of the
whole people should be engaged in reclaimng the
wilderness, extending our manufactures, seeking
new outlets for trade, widening and Strengthening
our commercial relations, securing better and speed
Ter communications with our Pacific possessions and
cementing our vast confedcracy in the unity of a
national spirit and with the binding influences of
common interests and a common destiny, fanatical
legislators engaged in vain wretched attempts to
elevate the negro to condition foreign to his nature
and education, and fanatical preachers are hurting
their anathemas against the highest judicial tribunal
in the land because its decisions conflict with their
sectional ideas and insane schemes.
We are led to make these remarks from reading
in late number Of the Harrisburg Pennsylvania)
Union an article on ''the slavery question compared
with greater issues" The article, although long
well timed and so well written, and contains so many
views which should meet with the hearty approval
of every true patriot that give it below entire:
From Harrisburg (pa) Union
THE SLAVERY QUESTION COMPARED WITH
GREATER ISSUES.
While fanaticism grows frantic the alleged wrongs
Of the coloed man. country progresses in all those
material elements which constitute the basis and the bull
wark of its power.
culsory glance into the future will show how
this question OF slavery must become subordinate
to gander and more absorbing issues The fact that ma
ture has nerposed nsurmountable barrier between
the two races, and that all attempts Mt humanitarian
legislation have only tended to strengthen this barrier
and to widen the distance between the whites and Blacks
to the infinite and almost rremediabe injury of the lat
ter, has stamped upon every abolition movement the
brand Of impracticabiity and i'm the same ratio has d.
rected the attention of intelligent and nqning men to
other great questions. Whether regard the enormous
procession of social and political evils that has swept over
the North like devastating pestience the result the
late sectional organization, whether consider its dam
aging effect upon national reputation abroad, we
must arrive at the conclusion that emancipation
be accomplished by sudden and passionate com
bnatons and that each effort to elevate and improve
the condition of the negro made by those who are ncom
petcnt and incapable of the task will only sink him deep
and lower in the political scale
In this country the reign of all anaticsms has been
brief 1t is impossible in the nature of things that
party which subsss alone upon prejudice which can
boast OF spperructure OF and of law can last
than few years y must give way before the com
the aspects of the times struck with tho number Of
great ideas which beginning to stir the waters Of pub.
JIG opinion and hence it is that these ideas many Of them
grand and magnificent beyond conception must swallow
up all those contemplate sns which have afflicted our
country during the last five memorable years
First among these ideas is the great project of opening
transit between the Gulf Of Mexico and the Pacific
ocean, the Mexican Tehuantepec isthus This
scheme ardently conceived by the early naygao has
within the last fifteen years derived extraordinary i'm
poranee from the discussions our sister republic and
the growing greatness of our enerprising communities
the Pacific borders Every administration since 1910
has given to 1t profound reflection but up to this time no
conclusion satisfactory to its speedy completion has been