The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-05-30
The Color Line.
What Frederick Douglass Has to Say.

Aside from the curious contrast to himself
the white child feels nothing on the first sight
OF colored man. Curiosity is the only feel
ing. The Office o; color in the color line is
very plain and substantial one. # simply adj
vertises the objects oppression of insult and per-
secuton. IL is not the mldienng liquor, but
the black letters on the sign telling the world
where 1t may be had 1t is not tho hated
Quaker, but the broad brn and the plain
coat. 1t is not the hateful Cain, but the mark
by which he is known. The color is innocent
enough, but things with which it is coupled
makes it hated. Slavery, ignorance, stupidity,
servility, poverty, dependence, arc undesira-
BILE conditions. When these shall cease to b.
coupled with color there will be no color line
drawn. 1t may help in this direction to OBJ
serve few Of tho inconsistencies of tho color
line feeling, for it is neither uniform in its op-
erations nor consistent in its principles. Its
contradictions in tho latter respect would
be amusing if the feeling itself Were not so de-
serving of unqualified abhorrence. Oar Cali
fornia brothers, of Hibernian descent, hate
the Chinaman. and kill him, and when asked
why they do so, their answer is that China
man is 50 industrious that ho will do all the
people would starye.. When the same people
and others are asked why they hate the col
ored people, the answer is that they are indo-
lent and wasteful, and cannot take care Of
themselves. Statesmen of the South will tell
you that the negro is too ignorant and stupid
properly to exercise the elective franchise, aud
yet his greatest offense is that he acts with the
only party intelligent enough in the. eyes OF
the nation TO legislate for the country. In
one breath they tell US that the negro is so
weak in intellect and so destitute of man
hood that he is but the echo OF designing
white men, and yet in another they will vir
tually tell You that the negro is so clear in his
moral perceptions, 50 firm in purpose, so stead
fast in his convictions. that he cannot be per-
suaded by arguments or intimidated by
threats, and that nothing but the shotgun can
restrain him from voting for the men and
measures he approves. They shrink back in
horror from contaei,w.th the negro as a man and
gentleman, but like him very well as q bar
Der, waiter, coaciman or cook. AS slave he
could ride anywhere, side by side with his
white master, but a freeman, lie must be
thrust into the smoking car. As a slave he
could go into the first cabin; as a freeman, no
was not allowed abaft the wheel. Formerly il
was said he was incapable of learning, and at
the same time it was crime against the State
for any man to teach him to read. To-day he
is said to be originally and permanently infe-
rlor to the white race, and yet wild appre-
tensions are expressed lest 6,000, 600 OF this in
feror race will somehow or other manage to
consistency can prove the hollowness of any
thing certainly the emptiness of this pretense
thatcolor has any tarrors is easily shown The
trouble is that mo t men, and especially mean
men, want to have something under them.
The rich man would have the poor man, the
white would have the black, the irish would
have the negro, and the negro must have a
dog il he can get nothing higher in the scale
OF intelligence to dominate This feeling is
one of the vanities which enlightenment will
dispel. A good but simple-minded Abolition
ist said to me that he was not ashamed 10
walk with me down Broadway arm-in-arm in
open daylight, and evidently thought he was
saying something that must be very pleasing
to my sef-importance, but it occurred to me,
at the moment this man does not dream of
any reason why L might be ashamed TO walk
arm-in-a,m with him through Broadway in
open daylight. Riding in stage-coach from
Concord, N. H., to Vergennes, VT, many
years ago. found myself on very pleasant
terms with all the passengers through the
night, bat the morning light came to me as it
comes to the stars; was az DIR. Beecher says
he was at the first fire he witnessed, when a
bucket OF cold water was poured down his
back-"the fire was not put out, but he was"
The fact is, the higher the coored man rises
in the scale of society, the less prejudice will
he meet-Frederick Douglass. in North Amer
ican Review.