The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-05
rhe Negro,s claim to omee.

tartlng effects, must needs sometimes say
hings that it is not very easy to make good
m calm discussion. Mr.. Wade and Mr.. Phil
fins have of late both got into difficulty owing
TO their having, in their eagerness to be in the
advance ground of radicalism, taken up posi-
tions which il was easier to occupy than defend.
Mr.. Wade startled the world few weeks ago
by some rather confused talk about the duty
OF the Government towards the Iaoorlhg
classes and as his discoveries were not favor
ablv received by the public detachments of
,evSsnaner correspondents had to be sent to
bie resoue 10 disengage him from the unbe-
1iavers Mr.. Phillips also having secured all the
objects for which he labored for thirty years,
began TO find himself rather hard pressed for
ooneenial occupation, and has accordingly
begun to agitate for the election OF colored
man to the Vice Presidency. The public hav-
ing received his arguments on this subject
with irreverence, not to say with hilarity, and
there being some indications that he has
advanced too far, detachments of his friends
are also coming to his rescue. Hdrper'S
Weekly, accordingly, undertakes to show last
week that it is by no means ''absurd" to
claim the Vice-P Presidency for the colOred peo-
pie and that the election of a colored man to
Office will be the only sure sign that the caste
feeling has died out with regard to negroes,
and that therefore ''we should labor for their
election to Office both as a sign and as a help"
That is to say, by electing negroes to office,
we shall help to destroy the prejudice against
them, and at the same time furnish proof that
the prejudice has ceased to exist.
This view Of the case is, it seems to us,
based on false impression of the cause of the
prejudice against cOlored people, as well as of
the principle which should regulate the
bestowal of public Offices. This prejudice is
not confined to the United States; it exists in
greater or less degree all over the Western
world. 1t exists in almost as great degree
in aristocratic circles in England as in South
ern circles in this country; it is nowhere
stronger than in white circles in Jamaica,
where the negroes have been free for nearly
forty years and have filled almost all public
offices, and figured at the Governors levees
and dined at his table, though we admit it
RACES nowhere with such virulence as amongst
the Anglo-Saxon race. Nor is the African
race the only object of it, Hindoos and Chi
nese are exposed to it in almost the same
degree. The contempt with which the ave-
rage Englishman regards the Hindoo can hardly
be surpassed by anything which the negro has
in this country to undergo from the most besot-
ted Democrat and yet the Englishman has
seen the Hindoo in all the pomp and pride
and circumstance of royalty, and of every
other great office; he has seen him serve gal
lantly in war, and knows him to be acute,
refined, and descended from ancestors who,
if their glory differed from European glory,
were, nevertheless, glorious. Hindoos now
are admitted to every department of the Gov
ernment service, sit on the BENCH practise in
the courts, and yet nobody will say that their
official dignities have done much to raise them
in the estimation of Englishmen. What they
have done is to raise England and Englishmen
in the estimation of Hindoos
The dislike of Englishmen and Americans to
colored people, and their unwillngness to ad-
NIT their equality, is not due simply to differ
ence of feature, or color or race, but to differ
ence of feature, color, and race combined with
apparent want of mental moral, and physical
vigOr. People whom an Anglo-SaXon can
Click" easily he never respects, and cannot
readily be got to respect. The Indian is as
repulsive in appearance as the negro and less
capable of civilization, and yet, during all the
earlier period of American history, an admix-
ture of Indian blood in ones veins was con-
sidered as something to be proud of; and it
will be observed that this feeling has declined,
and the Indian has fallen into the contempt
which at present surrounds him, in the ratio of
the decline of his powers of mischief. When he
was capable of putting the scalps of whole
colony in danger, nobody greatly objected to
having squaw for grandmother, but since
he lost his power of taking scalps at all
nobody likes to acknowledge relationship with
him. Taking scalps, to be sure may not pei
Sc be a remarkable indication of anything but
ferocity and cunning; but the power of com
bining and carrying on destructive war doe;
indicate considerable power both of mind anC
body. Now the disability of the negro in the
ewes of American society is due to the fact tina
he has never done anything which was an evi
dence of great capacity. He has never achieved
wealth, which, in an Anglo-SaXon community
is the greatest evidence of power, and he ha
achieved neither literary, nor scientific, no
military distinction. That he has never had
chance to do so it may be easy to show; bu
society in judging people, does not take OPP
portunities or want of opportunities into ac
count. It's decisions are shaped simply b,
accomplished results. When a man talks Il
it of what he might do if he had chance, i
laughs and leaves him. The only field il
which the friends of the negro have been a
yet able to produce strong indications of capa
CITY superior to that of white men, is that o
art; but it is only very recently that Ameri
cans and Englishmen have begun to look OF
better than vagabond adventures of whom
the community would be well rid.
We hold therefore, as we have once before
said when discussing this same subject, tina
tbe removal of the white prejudice against thu
negro depends almost entirely on the negr
himself. You can work sufficiently on the re
ligious and moral feelings OF the white com
munity to secure for him justice and politica
equality, and fair chance in the race OF life
but as long as the great mass OF negroes
fact. the whole colored population as class
are in a lower state OF civilization than th
rest of the population, less learned, les
wealthy, less cultivated, less refined, less pre-
Lass IN nNrar