New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-10-08
From ArkauS1s.

an article entitled 1.-The Negroes of the Gul
States" which is the production of E. T
Winkler, ID. d., Of Georgia, and is charac
teristic treatment of such a subject by such
n writer. 1t asserts that for series of years
the negro has been under the paternal care
of the Government. and the cherished OBJ
iect OF philanthropy; that he has been pro
vided with schools and churches, votes and
offices, courts and garrisons and legislatures,
all manner of privileges and safeguards, yet
in the face of all these means of improve
ment, so meager has been his progress and
so pronounced his vices that it is already
demonstrated that the barbarism of the race
cannot be concealed; that it is not likely
that he can be made a homogeneous element
in American society, and that his transfer to
a separate colony would prove of the greatest
advantage, both to the Republic and himself
The result of all the attempts to elevate the
condition OF the negro is, in Mr.. Winkler's
opinion, a lamentablc failure, for which he
assigns the following reason:
1.-The dsappontments we have encoun-
tered in dealing with this subject are due,
for the most part, to one radical error. 1t
has been taken for granted that the negroes
were depressed and demoralzed by their SER
vile condition only, and needed nothing more
than emancipation, with its concomitant
rights and safeguards. to prepare them for
the duties of citizenship. Their past history
has not been consulted. Their distinctive
race qualities have been wholly ignored.
Thus they have come to be regarded as Il
class of Americans who differ from their fell
low-citizens in no other particular than the
darkness of skin. And most OF the meas
ures which either public policy or private
philanthropy have devised for their benefit
proceed from this point Of departure. That
the position, however, is untenable, would
seem scarcely to call for proof
"The circumstance of a permanent race-dis-
tinction between whites and blacks has been
quite overlooked by those who have had the
freedmen in CHARGE Having thus described
the negro, Winkler proceeds to impute to his
agency all the evils that have, as he claims,
existed in the South since reconstruction,
heavy taxation, increase of public debt, cor
ruptiUn of courts, fraud in elections, and in
crease Of crime. The negro, Mr.. Wink
Ter declares regards Office not as trust, but as
an opportunity; he recognizes no restraint
upon the power of taxation, elections are
declared or annulled atjpleasure; the Official
desk is a booth n a market place. Moreover,
the negro is addicted to murttrr, witchcrarI,
theft, perjury, adultery: he is an adept at
stealing, without discretion, lazy, shiftless,
aud improvident. These are his race-qual-
ties, according to Winkler. do not propose
10 refute the argument of Mr.. Winkler, nor
DENY his allegations /; not even to attempt to
weaken the one or eXtenu,te the force OF the
other. l wish merely to point out t" the
learned divine missing link in the chain
which connects his premises with his con-
clusions. without which the whole elaborate
production of his brain, like the Deacon's
one horse play, goes to nothing:
IAN at once and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst
That missing link is Winkler's failure to
show by history that the same evils in gov
eminent and the same crimes among the peo-
ple have not existed among white races at
which the negroes are just entering. Ii they
have not, Mr. Winkler may sing to triumph {;
if they have. away goes the elaborate theory
of permanent race distinction as clean as
the tail of Tom O'Shanter's mare. And this
as. indeed, the very spot where the redoubt-
able politico-theologian falls. and his weapons
of warfare perish for it is simply school
BOYS holiday task to prove from history that
all these evils in government, and all these
crimes among the people have been the rule
among white races just emerging from SER
vile condition, and that the theory of a per-
manent acedistineton is the offspring OF
unrefiecting ignorance and credulous con-
ceit. The people of England emerged from
yillenare. their servile condition, at about
the beginning Of the seventeenth century
the wear 1874 being, according to llallam, the
last that furnishes unequvocal historical evil
dence of its existence. According to Wink
ler's theory, these people should have been
without high taxation, without an increase
of public debt. free frem the bribery, cor
ruption, crimes and vice, which Mr.. Winkler
traces back to the negro's Inequalities and
permanent race distinction" But, unfOr-
tunetely for the theory, the facts are that ali
and single the evils, vices and crimes Of
which Mr.. Winkler complains, are the very
ones the historians dwell upon. 1t would
not be difficult to fill volumes with extracts
illustrative and confirming these assertions,
but shall ccnfine myself to few taken at
random from Hallam's Middle Ages, Macau-
ley's History of England, and Buckles His
tory of Civilization. three standard works to
lie found in almost any good library. MIR.
Winkler says, sneeringly, the appearance
of the negro in the historic movement of the
New World was due, as every one knows, to
a revolution effected by the arms of the Re-
public, and not to any effort for freedom put
forth by the race" Hallam says, ut is
common indeed TO assert that the liberties OF
England were bought with the blood of our
forefathers. This is a very magnanimous
boast, and in some degree is consonani
enough 10 the truth. But it isl far more gen.
orally accurate to say that they were pur
chased by money. A great proportion o.
our best laws, including Magma Charta, as il
now stands confirmed by Henry III, were
in the most literal sense, obtained by pc
cuniary bargain with the CROWN" After the