Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1865-08-11
NO. 90.

!surprlses me. 1t is not as individuals OF
a nation common to us all that they
Ispeak of themselves, but, to use the Lam
guage of one of them, speaking to myself.
they feel that they have long been an
oppressed and down -trodden people"
Hildreth, in his ''DespOtism in Amer
lea" declared slavery to be in itself a
state of war, and this character is indel-
IDLY impressed upon both races of the
South. The captive learns duplicity to-
ward his captor, and in the slave it has
| become a marked characteristic 1t is a
fair startgem for which he feels no guilt.
l have seen a master beasting of the fdel-
lty of his servant, and discussing the sub
| lject of slavery In his presence, while the
1 negro waited upon him with an impassive
/ humility which would make you believe
no intelligent idea of freedom had ever
penetrated his brain. Yet | have seen
that same negro afterward in camp, trans
formed into a clear headed ally of our
troops, leading them to his masters bu-
ried stores, or guiding them to the TANKS
of the enemy's lines, with an intelligence
and steadlness of purpose which left no
doubt as to his understanding of the con-
fict between himself and his master.
The daily and hourly repetition Of
proofs of this fact, many Of them too
subtle for description, but none the less
convincing to the observer, has fully con-
vinced me that never between Norman
and Saxon, nor between Gaul and Frank,
was there more conscious hatred, or an
antagonism more likely to prove inVeter-
ate, than between black and white on our
Southern soil The negroes will have no
sense of security nor faith in their for
mer masters, even if they offer them po-
litical rights; they will fear them as Dan
dos dOnd ferentes-
What does history teach us in regard
to the permanence and dura bllIty of such
prejudiees and enmities of race Spea k
ing on this subject, Augustln IhIerry, IN
his history of the roman Conquest, says:
1W hateXer degree of territorial unity
| the great modern States of Europe may
appear to have attained; whatever may be
the community of manners, language,
and public feeling, which the habit Of
| living under the same government. and
| in the same stage of civilization, has in
troduced among the inhabitants of each
of those States, there is scarcely one Of
them which does not even now present
living traces of the diversity of the races
of men, which in course of time have
come together In 1t. This variety
shows itself under different aspects, with
features more or less marked Sometimes
it is a complete separation of idioms, of
local tradition, of political sentiments,
and sort of instructive enmity distin-
gushing from the great national mass the
population of few small districts; and
sometimes a mere difference of dialect or
even of accent, marks, though more fee
bly,, the limit of the settlements Of men,
once thoroughly distinct and hostile to
each other.
If fifteen centuries of common govern
ment aud political Union have not been
able to obliterate the distinctions and
even the instructive enmity" of races
which were physiolOgically similar, what
encouragement have we that success Will
attend forced political fusion of bitterly
hostile races from the antipodes of the
human family2
The process by which even the com
parative unity of the English people was
achieved, is described by the same philo-
sophie historian, whom | have quoted,
near the close of his great work, as a com
plete amalgamation" of the Norman and
Saxon idioms, and mixture of the two
races, which it took four centuries of
sanguinary war to accomplish.
Just stepping as we are from the battle
| field on which the descendants of a COM
mon ancestry, so little removed from US
that we can literally reach back our
hands to grasp those of our common sires,
have waged the most tremendous and ter
rible of modern wars, 1t does not become
us to argue that peaceful discussions will
quietly settle differences which in former
times were settled by the sword; but the
memory Of the almost present as we'll as
Of the remote past calls upon us to bulld
our polity solidly upon principles which
experience as well as reason prove to be
| durable, and more than ever to avoid de-
luding ourselves with the cry of peace,
peace. when there is no peace
As, during those weary years of war,
| have pondered this problem In the In
tervals Of strife or by the camp tre at
night, [ have been more impelled to
| the belief that the only basis of perma-
nent nationality is to be found in com
plete homogenity of people, of manners
and of laws. The rapid fusion of the ra-
ces of Western Europe as they have met
upon our shores, has secured the former
of these requisites, and the Yankee race
| Ct adopt the epithet as an honorable one
| marked as it is with salient chaTacterls-
| tics. is so complete an amalgamation OF
all the families from the eastern bounda-
rv of Germany to the western coast Of
| Ireland. that there are few of US In whose
veins are not mixed the blood of several
But this unhappy race of which we arc
sDeakiug does not amalgamate with the
rest. It is entirely immaterial to discuss
why it is so; the fact no one can deny
nor can it be denied that its salvation OF
its destruction will surely be worked out
in its family isolation.
Because there could be no real unity
of people between the Southern whites
and Southern blacks, it seems manifest
to me that there could be no political
unity. but rather strife for the mastery
lin which the one or the other would &c
to the wall.
The struggle for the supremacy would
be direct and immediate, and [ see nC
hope whatever that the weaker race
4 would not be reduced to hopeless subjec-
4 tion. or utterly destroyed. There is nj
reason to suppose that Missouri border
rufianism could never be repeated OF
new fields, aud the strife once inaugura-
ted the merciless war would continue as
long as the obnoxious race had an exis
1 tence Y gu have expressed your antlcl
patton of such result in one state o
the case, how is it that you do not SCI
that direct struggle for power at tbs
ballot-box would make the contest more
deadly?
[ hold that there is great rhllosopihlc
truth in the words of Guizcs, IN summing
up the eight centuries Of bloodshed Out
of which the French emerged INTO natl0n-
ality from the petty races and tribes. ne
says, "In the life OF nations, that uuIoI
which is exterior aud visible, the unity OF
name and government, aithougn !mpoF-
tant. is by no means the hrst IN lmpor-
tance. the most real, or that which makes
indeed one nation. There is unity. which