Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1865-10-27
What has the Nation Done for
the Negro?

more.-N. y Times.
We suppose if the writer Of the above
sentence had found the man who fell
among thieves, he would have contented
himself with standing on the other side
warning the thieves off, or might posi-
bly, have caused their arrest. But he
would most certainly not have become
the good Samaritan who poured oil and
wine into the wounds of the victim OF
cruelty and brought him on his way
There is certain kind of philanthropy
in the world which gets tired very soon
in its efforts and frequently comforts it
self with the reflection that it has done
enough for humanity, and that "it does
not feel called upon just now to do much
more" Tits stingy kind Of philanthro-
py, If, indeed, it deserves the name oil
philanthropy at all. 1t never seeks OPP
portunities for doing good, but only what
it feels obliged to do. 1t is not sponta-
neous and hearty, but contracted and self
ish. iii gives, or is just, it is because
of importantly, and because it can not
dccently get rid of it, and not because it
is earnestly at work for the good of the
race.
But miserable and mean as the senti-
ment of the above paragraph is, its mean
ness is intensified by its misrepresenta-
lions. What has the nation done for the
negro, that it should so complacently con-
template its work, and "not feel called
upon just now to do much more ?" II
has suffered the negro 10 be enslaved for
nearly ninety years, and while Boosting
that this was the land of freedom and
equal right, it has suffered its national
capital to be disgraced during all that
time by the auction blocks and slave pens
of the barbarous institutions. For near
ly ninety years it never by any national
act recognized the freedom of the negro
or even admitted his manhood. For
nearly ninety years the greed of gain
and the shackles of commerce have bound
the nation and made il the servant of
slavery. AT last justice would sleep no
longer and the people declared that sa-
very should cease 10 rule the republic
The Shareholders in their madness rose
IN rebellion. Yet for more than two
years of bloody, and to US, disastrous war
be Government refused liberty to the
negro. At length the fierce judgments
which seemed to be visited upon us for
,ur crime, led the nation to do simple |
let Of justice which we dared not delay !
onger. To save ourselves, to turn away
he anger of inst God, to draw on our
ide the sympathies o f humanity all
over the world, to weaken the rebel cause,
and to aid our own arms and advance
our own flag, we determined to free the
slaves. Yet, in that terrible moment
We hesitated and held back from this
work with an infatuation almost as blind
and wicked as that which influenced
Pharaoh. 1t was not to save the negro,
it was not on his account at all that we
him, but it was because we
felt that our way of escape was through
his freedom and when at first we held
up before the black loyalst the hope of
freedom, we at the same moment told
his white master that if he would lay
down his arms in a hundred days be
should have his slaves again. What
credit should we have for this !? If the
writer in the Times should be held with
his head under water by white maj,
until he would acknowledge the human,
ity of negro, and afterwards ask the ne
gro to help him to get on dry land, what
kind of figure would he present strut.
ting about and gazing condescendingly
upon this negro and saying II have
done so much for you, Sambo, do not
feel called upon just now TO do much
more ?" And yet he puts the nation in
precisely that wretched attitude and is
doing what he can to induce the people
to be guilty Of the meanly ungenerous,
unjust and unrishteous abandonment of
the negro now, on the ground that it
does notfeel like exer.ing itself any long
err in behalf of freedom. 1t is some con-
however, to reflect that God
works, although man refuses to do JUS
tice and that there are millions of men
who believe that injustice is never either
right or expedient, and that while it
finds advocates in high places, it is no
time for the trends of humanity and of
equal and exact justice to remit a single
effort for its overthrow.-Fresman.
"They have a singular way of punish
ng robbery, in China" said a missionary
who had just returned from the Celes>