The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1866-07-10
The probable Fate of the Negro.

The fanatics VINO. IN their assumed dHectlOD
Car the negro would apologize for all his bad
,raits declare that his barbarism is the re-
'mIt of bondage, and that, We're his faculties
tn have full play, he would be at least the
anal. and in some respects the superior, Oh
the white man.
II would seem that the records OF forty
.onturies on the monuments of Egypt should
hove some weight in this question. On those
,tnoendous works, we see the Ethiopian al
ways represented as a captive or slave
terms then synonymous. Never Is he seen
an level with the Caucasian.
On the confines of Egypt, we find him at
this day precisely the animal represented on
tbe monuments-the same savage that ne
was in the days of the PHARAoHs.
Yet these barbarians had the same chance
# becoming civilized that other nations have
had from iuxtapostion with neighbors whose
ny;lization was of higher type than their
avn In Europe, up to the last four hundred
roars even, in certain districts, the people had
cached but low point of refinement; they
we're hardly better than wild Indians Yet
those very regions are now as enlightened as
any, in the world, and all this has been effect
adbv contact with civilized communities con-
tprmjnous with themselves.
Of all the tribes of antiquity, the negroes
oround Egypt should have been the most civ
lived for they bad all the advantages of
proximity to Egypt, and, save from Egypt.
they had nothing to dread in the matter OF
war-that bloody parent Of barbarism.
While all other peoples under like crcum-
stances would have been civilized long ago,
fine negro continues in his primal state OF
sayaoeness in Africa; and wherever on this
continent he has been left to himself, he has,
in the majority of cases, relapsed into the con-
dtion of his ancestors; as in Central America
and the West Indies.
There is reason for this, it is: that they
we're never created for civilization indepen-
dent of the control Of the white man.
We do not say this from any friendship for
the defunct institution of slavery. We ac
cent its abolition, and have no dream of its
restoration in name, or fact. Indeed, SO far
from believing it blessing, the general be-
lief now seems to be, that it was only so to
the slave but not to his master, and AN injury
to the non-slavebolder.
The destiny OF the race here, may be some
what different from that of their fellows in the
West Indies, where they are to very great
extent by themselves; the consequences Of
whch is, that in Hayti and jamaica they
lave taken up their old African customs
again, and many of them are to-day no more
civilized than are their relatives on the Upper
Nj or Congo.
Here the larger number of the whites will
produce a modification of the fate of the
sons of Ham. 1t must do so;-yet-what will
he that modification We fear that it will
In Int +l,a hot hos alu- f,,l1 ,vod
competition with the white man, viz: the
incubation of the inferior with all the evil
propensities and vices Of the superior, and
the end Of the whole will be the wasting
away of the negro and his final extinction.
Before the war the blacks were exempt
from most of the diseases OF civilization to a
most wonderful degree. Yet, since their lib
Grafton they have sadly deteriorated in health
and morals. The negro must meet the fate
OF the Indian, and as a hundred years will
see the last of the Aborigines, so it will take
hut little more to sweep the negro from
America. But while we see the hand writing
on the wall which proclaims bis doom, still
every suggestion of hu,nanity and sell-nter-
est calls upon us to endeavor to avert his mel
anchoy fate This can only be done by sub
shutting in place of the wholesome restraint
Of the individual master of the old system,
who was magistrate in his own household,
the salutary influence of wise laws impartial
lyapplied.
In addition to the restraint Of law, we
should add the influence Of education. The
operations of the Bureau must, in the nature
OF things, come to an end, and we have in the
interim ample time to familiarize ourselves
With this idea and mature some plan for the
attainment Of this end As we have said be-
lore, this is work which bslongs peculiarly
to the clergy