The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-05-03
The Co-Education of the White anl
Colored Races.
From Scribntr for May

poles of all magnets to attract each Other
would not be whit more absurd than on
requiring education to be conducted on
race-mixture in the late slave States. vii
politicians never learn that social laws ar
laws Of nature, and hence inyariable an'
inhexible, as well as physical laws CIV
Rights" in any proper sense OF the phrase
being conventional, may be made or IN
made by arbitrary power; but natula
laws being inherent and divine, can be
controlled only by being obeyed. Power
NAV destroy slavery, but it cannot destroy
the social inequality which attended slav
ery and which was founded not only upon
an inequality Of condition but upon sub,
iectve differences equally great. These
subjective differences are not simply the
class differences in moral, intellectual, and
social culture, which are commonly seen
where slavesy exists, and which are very
serious, as will presently be shown. Masters
and slaves might be equal in those respects
indeed the slaves might possibly be snpe-
riOr, and yet great psychological differ
ence would still exist, which would place
the two classes widely apart. The respect
i've pecularities of the two classes form a
curious subject of study. But whether one
studies the philosophy of the facts, or the
facts without their philosophy, he is forced
to see that the widest social abyss known
among men is that created by slavery, that
this abyss yawns for generations after the
repelling force has ceased to act and that it
can be filled only by the disintegrating work
Of time.
difference of races widens the chasm,
but il is by no means essential to it.
Ishmael and Isaac were of the same race,
yet their posterity have been mutually
estranged for 1000 years. "The son Of
ha.h on shall Ia. h..ir with Ia
son Of the free woman is natural law
divinely announced, and it covers every
form of inheritance. Could any possible
circumstance enable society to forget the
chains or disregard the collar-marks OF
servitude. the circumstances OF various pc
RODS and particularly of the post-Augus-
tan age Of Rome would have sutficed
For while the masters gave themselves to
sensuality, they turned over education,
business, and even the fine arts to their
slaves. With an eye to profit, the special
talents of slaves were cultivated to the
highest degree, and often brought their
masters very large hire Cassagnac tells
us that Lucins Appulus, an eminent gram
marian, brought his owner 10000 sestcrces
per aRnunl-about sixteen hundred dollars
Many of the most eminent poets, lhilolo
gists, authors, orators, rhetoricians, must
clans, artists and teachers, were slaves.
Plutarch and XenOphon testify that
throughout Greece and Italy education
was entirely in the hands of slaves And
MOmmsen tells us that the leading branches
OF business, even custom-houses. banks and
counting houses, were largely carried on by
slaves.
With this moral and intellectual superb
Ority of the slaves over their masters, exist
cd in most cases identity of race, and pre-
uoi1a1 t1,a laval inn Il trip NJ Ttr,t
Philemon, the master, and Onesimus, the
slave, became brothers in Christ. The rights
Of man were boldly asserted, and 50 gen
orally accepted as TO occasion an
amount of voluntary manumissiOn snch
rs has never been known in any other age
and as really to destroy the prevalence of
slavery. Never, never in all history were
circumstances so favorable as then for the
extinguishment Of the odum of slavery,
and for the social recognition of freedmen.
But was it SOP Far from it. While in
slavery, and as long as the fact Of an en-
shaved ancestry was remembered, the slaves
and their posterity were denied social
equality, whatever eminence individuals
might have reached. Although Esop was
called the preceptor of Greece, Terence the
most elegant writer of Italy, Plato the pro-
foundest of philosophers, Plautus, Phrdras
and Horace immortal poets, yet all being
slaves or the sons of slaves, they felt The
brand deeply. Plato himself flung at his
own brethren those verses of Homer which
declare that ga slave has but half II human
sOul;" and Horace cast into the face of his
fellow sufferers the sneer: Money cannot
change the race!" Long after the slaves
had slipped their collars their necks re-
manned with the hair rubbed off, like the
dog in the fable Diocletian became En-
peror, but his contemporaries hurled in his
teeth: You were a slave!" and SO to En-
perOr Pertinax they said: "Your father was
u freedman"
While a few freedmen, by their superiority
and success, enforced a Limited social recop-
milton in the higher circles, the great mass
Of them were denied any standing whatso-
ever, and if Cassagnac is to be believed. |
they were at all periods forced, like l.pers.
to live apart from the rest of mankind, and |
became the great feeders, as they had been |
the founders, of the detested proIetaliat. /
whose filthy stream has detiled aud bur
iened European society ever since.
Undoubtedly this treatment of ancient
freedmen was a bunder and wrong. from
the effects of which European nations have
been suffering ever since, and are suffering
to-day, III the forms Of pauperisni. crime
and cOmmunistic rebellion And n similar
course toward the freedman of America
would produce similar results But these
lacts are mentioned not to be adiudged. but
10 be considered as illustrations Of the
deep, inherent and universal social repuu-
nance existing between the free born and |
ree-made classes of society: and similar
might be drawn from every
nation where these two classes have eN-
sted.
And the fact should be noted that III our
lay there are circumstances calculated to
ggravate tins repugnance. Prominent
mong these is the difference in race With
ONE small exceptions, the Africans are
owest in the scale Of races, while the
white Americans rank with the highest
md these Africans are everywhere thought
4 as the great slave-race of the earth.
heresoever they are found away from
africa, they are either slaves or the chill
rem of slaves, and i'll their own land they
nslave and sell one another. as a promi-
ent occupation. So that in this country
he freedman carries in his face the history
t his family, and the fact of his connection
ifh q whose hiSfarN far .Dpln ,-,,., il.