Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1867-08-27
The Negro-His Past and Future.

No philanthropist can philosophize upon the
past, present and future of the Negro, without
feelings of anxiety as to his fate. While the
negro was in a state Of slavery, interest, If no
higher motive, prompted his owner to care tor
his health and we-being. Waving here the
abstract question of the right to hold him in
this condition, we assert that the negro, while
held in slavery, was a careless and happy being
He had no thought or care for the future. His
master fed and clothed him; nursed him when
he was sick and looked after his welfare gener-
ally. While in this condition, the increase of
the black population was in greater ratio than
the white.
Gen. Howard Chief of the Freedmen's Bu-
reau, who ought to know the facts, has recent
ly published a statement, in which he says, that
since the commencement of the war, the ne
groes have decreased in numbers one million
three hundred thousand. This may seem a
startling fact, and no doubt the war, and the
peculiar position of the negro, may have con-
tributed in some degree to this result. But
without either of these agencies, that the ne
groes, in their present condition, should dlmln-
ish in numbers, is only in accordance with all
history in reference to that subject. All the
facts we have in the premises go concluslvely
to show, that tUo different races cannot liue to-
gether upon terms of equality One or the 9TH
er will fade away and become extinct.
When white settlements were first planted
upon our Northern shores, it was estimated
that in New England there were three hundred
thousand Indians. All that are now left OF
them are about two hundred of the Penobseot
tribe at Old Town in Maine, and a small rem
nant of the Stockbridge tribe in Massachusetts.
What has become of them? They have not
emigrated Neither war, pestilence nor famine
has done the work. Nor were the Indians re,
duced to slavery.
On the contrary, the noble and pious Elliott
spent his life in the attempt to ChrlstianiZe and
civilize them But with all the fostering care
Of the whites, and their efforts to elevate the
Indian to social equality with themselves by
an inevitable law, inherent in the nature OF
things, they have faded away before the prog
ress of civilization like dew before the rising
sum- Their fate in New England is but a pre-
sage Of their fate all over the continent. AL
ready have they passed away from the Great
Valley of the Mississippi, and are found only
beyond the pale of civilization in our Western
wilds, and soon they will be known only in his
tory.
Less than hundred years ago Capt. Cook
discovered the Sandwich Islands. At that time
he estimated the number Of inhabitants at four
hundred thousand. A recent estimation makes
their number at this time less than eighty thou
tractable that it was supposed they could cas-
lily be Christianized, civilized and elevated to a
point Of social equality with the whites who
settled amongst them, and determination is the
result-in few years not native will be found
upon those islands. In both these cases the
people that have become extinct were the ma
tives of the soil, while the negro is but an ex-
otic on this continent We do not mention this
latter fact to prove that the whites will become
extinct and the negroes remain. On the con-
trary, it is always the inferior race that passes
away before the superior; and certainly the
facts and history both show that the negro is
the inferior race, and consequently must become
extinct; for, if the Indian and Sandwich
Islander could not sustain themselves on their
native soil against the superior race who inva-
ded them, can the negro sustain himself in a
country which is his only by adoption? Most
certainly he cannot Then the fate of the ne
gro is surely read in the history of the races
which we have cited. Slowly and gradually he
must fade away, and become extinct on this
continent.
Between the African and the Caucasian, the
Creator has, for some wise purpose, erected q
barrier as impassableNas the gulf between the
righteous and the wicked, and all the puerile
efforts Of puny men can no more overcome the
former than the latter. Until they can change
the color Of the Africans skin, and make a
white man out OF negro, they cannot elevate
the negro to a moral, social and political equal
ity of the whites The attempt to do SO has
always failed and always will fail and not only
will it prove failure, but it will result in the
determination of the negro. To attempt to give
him this equality dooms him to death.-DOre,
| (N III Gazette.