Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1868-08-05
The Capacity Of the Negro for Self
Government.

AS in this countrf the experiment is now
being made on large scale Of entrusting the
powers of government to the negro, it becomes
70 matter of interesting inquiry (says the
Charleston Nsrctvy) to know what capacity
he has for the task. To judge of this cor
rectly; we should not confne our inquiries to
the negroes Of the Southern States, who have
Tor years been under the compulsory training
of the whites. The superiority Of the South
ern freedman of to-day over the wild African
of hundred Years ago from whom he is de-
scended, only proves that the race may be
taught, not that it will learn of its own ac-
cord that it can be compelled to improve,
not that it has the elements of progress with
in ITSELF or~evcn that it would voluntarily fol-
low an exampleof improvement. This Could
only be proved by an instance of q progress
.sive country controlled by negroes. That
instance is wanting. History is all the other
way. The negroes of Hayti who became in
dependent fifty years ago with telerable
share of civilization acquired by training, and
the advantage Of a slight mixture of Circas-
sian blood, now have government scarcely
better than that of Dahome or Egba. Our
freedmen arr mostly the descendants of West
Africans. and the nations, or rather tribes of
that part of the world are now as barbarous
as when the first cargo of slaves was shipped
to America. If W, j. Whipper, the most
intelligent. pure -blooded negro in the Colum-
ba Legislature, were to visit Dahome at the
present time, he could easily find the coun-
terpart Of his g1eat, great grandfather, save
only perhaps that he would be armed with q
n,iskct instead of u bow and arrow, wear a
calico rag in place of a grass tie, and drink
blood fIom an earthenware tea cup rather
than from q skull. If negro rule is allowed
to become an established fact in South Caro-
lima, we have no reason to doubt that Whip
pers great, great grand child, will also he an
excellent counterpart of the venerable ances-
tor already mentioned.
In confirmation of these views we take the
following extract from "Routledge's Natural
History of Man, work prepared by Rev.
y. G. Wood, NJ. A. f. LIS, &C., &C..
y There is very ren arkable point about the
true negro of, Western Africa, namely. the
use which he has made of his, contact with
civilization. 1t might be imagined that he
would have raised himself in the social scale
by his frequent intercourse with men wiser
and more powerful than himself, and who, if
perhaps they may not have been much better
in a moral point of view, could not possibly
have been worse. But he has done nothing
of the kind, and, instead of giving up his old
bsrbarous customs, has only increased their
barbarity by the additional means which he
has obtained from the white man.
Exchanging the bow and arrows for the
gun, aud the club for the sword, he has en-
ployed his better weapons in increasing his
destructive powers, and has chiefly used them
in fighting ard selling into slavery those whom
he had previously fought, and who respected
him as long as the arms on both sides were
equal. Aud the strangest thing is that, even
considering his caplives as so much property,
the only excuse which could be found for the
savage cruelty with which he makes raids on
every town which he thinks he can conquer,
he has not yet learned to abolish the dread
fpl-a custom" of human sacrifices, although
each prisoner or criminal killed is dead loss
to him.