Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1890-01-10
A Southern Champion in England.

In the London Acddemy of December
21st Professor A. II. KEANE. of the Uni
yersity of London. takes up the cudgels
for the South. In previous number OF
the same publication Dir. Waite LEVIN
eyiewed the life Of civilian Lloyd Gar
rison-The Story Of His Life as Told by His
Children" Mr.. LEVIN is evidently ne
grophilist of a pronounced type, but he
demonstrates his ignorance of the his
tory and intentions of the aboli-
ton party in America. He sees the
South through glasses darkenod by
northern misrepresentation Of our peo-
pie. and seems not TO have recognized
that it would have been well to have wiped
those glasses with page or two torn from
history. Hadthis latter course occurred to
him he would have found that the real OBJ
ject of the abolition party was TO break up
this Union, and that the instigation of the
JOIN Brown raid sounded the keynote OF
the naturalization of that object In the
course Of his review Mr.. LKwIE says;
"While the North treat the negro with
contempt land that Is truel the South treat
ullu WIFI iIAdiuOuN VI ~ ny W
the spirit of hatred against him fasehoods
are circulated of his licentiousness and
general deprayity, until it Is haif-belleyed
that virtue cannot exist within a black
skin. Then, partly in fear and partly IN
hate. false charges are brought against m
dividuals, who are forthwith. without trial,
put to death with Dameless horrors;
CLEARLY in America the declaration that all
men are equal still means all white men,"
Where is Mr.. LEwIS's authority for the
American declaration that all men are
equal?
In answer to Mr.. LEVIN Professor KEANE
says:
ALLOW me to protest against a statement
made in the last issue of the AcIdeny by
Mr.. Walter Levin in his review OF the LJe
If William Lioyd Garrison. He says: Here
Professor Kcane quotes Mr.. Lewin's Ian
guage as abOve.l Most travellers who have
visited the southern States viii feel in
clined to pronounce this shameful libel
on the whites. who 50 far from treating
tho negro with infamous brutality, treat
him on the whole with great fOrbearance
and with all possible consideration Tor his
constitutional shortcomings. They GER
taInly have no occasion 10 circulate false
hoods against him for his hcontiousness
and general deprayity' III order to keep uP
the spirit of hatred against him. and this
for two reasons: In the first place they as
rule entertain no feelings Of hatred
against him; in the second, no falsehoOds
could very we'll exceed the reality, AZ Is
patent to all observers OF the negro social
relations. Here and there the whites turn
with fury on the blacks. but probably in
all cases the blacks have been the aggres-
sOrs, bringing vengeance upon their hcads
by nameless Outrages on the white wO-
men"
IF Mr.. Levin challenges these state
ments | shall be happy TO supply HIM with
overwhelming proofs of their strict accu-
racy."
The South could not have an ADLER de-
fender before the English people, orindeed
before the learned men of the world, than
Professor KEANE. No man has made a
closer study Of the negro and no man
is accepted as higher authority on the
subject. He has dissected the negro histo-
really, anthropologically ethnologically,
philologically morally, and socially, as wit
ness his article on The Negro" in the En-
cycipadia britannica. his Africa" in Cham
bers's. and various Others of his writings
on the man and the brother and cognate
topics. Not only that: but he has visited
the South and investigated the relations Of
the whites here to the negroes most care
fully. While in Virginia in the course Of a
public lecture he made a happy hit in re-
marking that the negro was non-moral
being. His language IS worth reproducing.
Here it Is:
Again, how much truth lies in the con-
tention that the African is essentially not
so much an immoral asanOn-mOral being
"A being with no clear sense of justice as
between man aud man, a being with a soul
dark as his body-ilumined by no spark
of poetry. destitute Of the finer sentiments
bv which other branches OF the human
family are SO richly endowed"
We shall watch the further discussion
between Professor KEANE and Mr.. LEVIN
with interest. Professor KrANE made no
idle boast when he invited Mr.. LEVIN to
break another lance.