Sugar planter. [volume] (West Baton Rouge [i.e. Port Allen, West Baton Rouge Parish, La.]) 1856-1925, 1860-04-21
From the New Orleans Mirror.
Negro Iechanics.

AL a. W. ~ . ssNSo
Bows Review, from the pen of Judg'
Hopkins of Mobile, directs attention L
the injury which is likely to he inflicted
on the South by the system Of instruct
ing negroes in the mechanic arts, ane
employing them as mechanics. He says
If it be desirable to preserve the patriar
chal system Of negro slavery now sub
s;sting at the South, q the very bes'
bases Of social order, Of moral and do
mestrc integrity, is we'll as an %agricu'tu
raj necessity, which zone may doubt who
has evoked wisdom aud virtue in pursu
lug the question, Shareholders should al
lay this antagonism in their midst, by
agreeing, through legislative action to
%confne the negro to the soil. thus to ele'
vate and open up the mechanic trades to
the non-slaveholding people around
them. Dignity the trades to the level
of the professions, in common accepta'
ton, and idIing, loa6ng, longing, fox
hunting, or, 10 other words, genera al dis
sipation Of health, energy, and time,
among the young men ofthe South would
almost entirely cease, and in the r place be
substituted general and busy industry.
By combining the negro to the soil, the
mechanic would be at once converted
from an open or secret enemy Of negro
slavery, into its finest advocate and sup
porter, because lie would then feel him
self lifted up in the scale Of socia! res
pectab'Iity, and maintained in that posi-
ton by the subordind1ed negro confined
exclusively to mental services. Before
the law and the community, all white
citizens would stand strictly OF a footing
OF equality, and be alone distinguished
Oy courtesy 8nd merit.
At present it is so common to instruct
negroes in the mechanic arts, that in al
most every list Of plantation slaves adj
vertised for sac some are put down as
carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, and
not unfrequen,ly, engineers. Consider
ing then the social inequality recognized
by law in the South as existing between
the negro and white races-an inequa!-
ity tacitly admitted even in the North
it is by no e remarkable that we
have not many free Southern born me-
chanics. The white mechanics has to
submit here to the competition of negro
mechanics, and, not only so, but to the
deg'af alton consequent on so unnatu, al
and improper a competition. He mus,
work as cbeaply as the slave ; mus: sub
NIT to an unpleasant compsniousbip
which is not expected of him in the
North, and mrst often consent to consi-
der the negro in the light Of an ove'seer.
These are facts which cannot be denied,
and no young s%outberner Of spirit will
consent to learn a trade or calling the
pursuit Of which tends to degrade him in
his own eyes and that Of his associates.
II We wish to foster Southern manu-
factories in Which the white men Of the
South are to seek employment, We must
encourage white mechanics by removing
the rivalry which now confron,s them i'll
servile population. In the work.
shops Of Northern cities the free negro
is not permitted to enter as a mechanic.
He al not work at the same bench with
the white workman, and his right 70 a
seat in the same railroad car is even
questioned. But here in the
South the difference in status between
white and colored folks is by no means
SO distinctly marked. Gu, planters teach
their slaves trades, which, BY the newt
able law Of social relationships, tends to
degrade skilled labor, and in our railroad
cars the lady and her servant are seated
side by side. In the North the free ne
gro is forced by the pressure Of public
opinion into the lowest Of human en-
ployments--such employments as white
men are disencIined to engage io--
but here the slave is placed in the work
shop. or engaged in the erection Of new