The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1866-02-22

Poison more baneful YET than arsenic's worst
Like arsenic, too, it madly swells to BURST
And now, my friends, how is this thing witt
you,
Have you not had, at least, pinch or two
| am sorry there ever was such a wore
IS prejudice to be translated into the
English language, and I would not have
regretted it if Webster and Worcester
had entirely overlooked it. But it was
given to the world in those early days o.
ignorance and superstition, and it has
been handed down through SO many gen.
eFations, that it is uot only born in the
flesh but in the very bones of the human
family. It is an enemy to light and let
tiers, contesting every inch of ground from
which it has been compelled to fall back
whilst an unconditional surrender it new
e. makes.
Prejudice-or pref judgement as the
word explains itself without a dictionary
battles on the bread field OF religion,
politics, education, Invention, and what
ever else has for its object the elevation
of mankind and the promotion Of happi-
ness. Ignoraace, superstition and selfish
ness are its principal aids, and they are
powerful in counteracting the influence
Of reason, judgment and truth Preju-
dice assumes to divide off the family Of
mankind into different straits, or classes,
putting some up and kicking others down,
whilst it hisses on what the democrats
call 1.-The war Of races"
In our country there has been more
prejudice than wisdom or humanity exer-
cised towards the poor negro. but Provi-
dence has oyerruled the wickedness of
men and raised him up TO a point where
he can help himself. Four or five years
aso it were better TO be born a dog Or
horse than a negro-for you would have
more iriends-5ut it is different now.
Who so frenzicd, so insane, as to predict,
five years since, that the States Of South
Carolina, Georgia and Alabama would
have voted during this century for con-
stitutioDal amendment abolishing slavery!
Perhaps it was the force Of circumstances
which led those states to do this thing.
bat the prejudice against the negro, in
all the states not in rebellion, has been
most wonderfully lesseued since the war
began. 1t has been change far beyond
all human hope or widest anticipation.
The white American always gloried in
his rights whilst the poor negro had not
even the right Of life>he could call his
own or have respected. Held in bond
age and ignorance for generations, no
wonder he is stupid and next to idiotie
when those bonds are wrested off and he
IS told to act for himself What does
any human being know bat what he has
learned? Would a child ever learn to
walk if it never was permitted to stand
up? You, poor despised copperhead,
yoa were permitted to stand up, but your
dishonored legs have carried you TO .
standing Of infamy and disgrace. It had
been better for you and pOsterity if you
had never been born. Prejudice the seed,
a coPperhcad the fruit fruit bitter and
loathsome
1 said prejudice divided the human
family into a multitude Of classes. Kings
and emperors being the upper strata and
the negro the lower, if We consider the
thing from a geological point of view, we
must naturally conclude that the king is
quite shut out from the view Of the ne
gro, and the negro from the king, but,
remarkable as is the fact, although the
intervening statas are not particularly
transparent, and the negro rather opaque,
yet the king can see the negro just as cas-
ily as he can see the middle class Now
the copperhead, being somewhere on the
middle ground, found his character too
vividly reflected from the ebony below
and was willing to sacrifice country, hon
or, and everything else that goes to make
up true man, in order that he might fat
ter sort of Southern aristocracy and
thereby he lifted to that coveted strata.
Behold the purposes of Heaven I! A vol
cauo, long threatening but man could not
see it, burst under the horror stricken
feet of the slave master of the South and
their. aiding sycophants of the North and
their strata we're violently smashed up
ond knocked into no where