The first great principle, then, which the Major professes to have discovered is this, that there exists between the White and Black races an instinctive and unconquerable aversion, which must forever frustrate all hopes of seeing them unite in one society on equal terms. We shall consider in succession the facts from which he draws this bold conclusion.
By the constitution of Hayti, it seems, no white man of any nation can be a master or proprietor in that island. From this circumstance the Major deduces the following inferences.
“It seems as if each party, when in power, acts as if it was mutually thought the two races could not exist together, in the same community, with equal political powers, from the operation of some powerful causes, which do not appear to have been felt in England in former ages, when lier inhabitants were composed of freemen and slaves, or when national distinctions among people living in the same country formed a political barrier between Britons and Romans, or Saxons and Normans.”(1)
Moreover a young Haytian, named Moyse, about thirty years ago, complained of the attention which Toussaint Louvertu re paid to the interests of the Europeans, and declared that he should never like the whites till they should restore to him the eye which he had lost in battle, with them! This last important anecdote, the Major prints in italics, as quite decisive. (2) The poor Haytian must have been best acquainted with the origin of his own feelings; and, as he ascribed them to a cause which might well account for them, it is difficult to divine why any other should be assigned. The liberality of Toussaint, also, is at least as strong an argument against the hypothesis of Major Moody, as the animosity of Moyse can be in its favour.
From the law which declares white men incapable of becoming proprietors in Hayti, nothing can be inferred. Such prohibitions are exceedingly foolish; but they have existed, as every person knows who knows any thing of history, in cases where no natural antipathy can be supposed to have produced them. We need not refer to the measures which the Kings of Spain adopted against their Moorish subjects—to that tyranny of nation over nation which has, in every age, been the curse of Asia—or to the jealous policy which excludes strangers, of all races, from the interior of China and Japan. Our own country will furnish an example strictly in point. By the common law of England, no alien whatever can hold land, even as a tenant. The natives of Scotland remained under this incapacity, till the two divisions of the island were united under James the First: and even then, the national prejudice was strong against the removal of the disability. The House of Commons was decidedly averse to it. The Court, in consequence, had recourse to a measure grossly unconstitutional. The Judges were persuaded to declare that to be law which the Parliament could not be persuaded to make law; and even thus it was found impossible to remove the restriction from Scotchmen born before the Union of the Crowns.
(1) Major Moody’s Second Report, p. 29.
(2) Ibid. p. 45.
The Major ought to be well acquainted with these proceedings. For Lord Bacon, of whom he professes himself a disciple, appeared as counsel for the post-nati. It is amusing to consider what the feelings of that illustrious man would have been, if some half-taught smatterer of his philosophy had risen to oppose him with such arguments as these. “The English can never amalgamate with any foreign nation. The existence and the popularity of such a law as this sufficiently prove that some powerful cause operates upon our countrymen, which does not act elsewhere. Our ancestors always felt that, although in other countries foreigners may be permitted and even encouraged by the natives to settle among them, no such mixture could take place here. I have been credibly informed also, that a Scotchman whose eye was struck out in a fray forty years back, swore that he never could bear the sight of a Southern after.” With what a look would Sir Francis have risen to annihilate such an argument! What mirth would have shone in his eyes! What unsavoury similitudes would have risen to his lips! With what confusion would the dabbler in experimental science have shrunk from a conflict with that all-embracing and all-penetrating mind, which fancy had elevated but not inebriated, which professional study had rendered subtle, but could not render narrow. As the Major seems very willing to be an experimental philosopher, if he knew how to set about it, we will give him one general rule, of which he seems never to have heard. It is this. When the phenomena can be explained by circumstances which, on grounds distinct from those phenomena, we know to exist, we must not resort to hypothetical solutions. We are not entitled to attribute the hatred which the Haytian Blacks may have felt towards the Whites to any latent physical cause, till we have shown that the ordinary principles of human nature will not explain it. Is it not natural, then, that men should hate those by whom they have been held in slavery, and to whom they have subsequently been opposed in a war of peculiar ferocity? Is it not also perfectly agreeable to that law of association, from which so large a portion of our pains and pleasures is derived, that what we have long regarded as a distinguishing badge of those whom we hate should itself become hateful to us? If these questions be answered in the affirmative, the aversion which the Haytian Negroes are said to entertain towards the Whites is at once explained.
The same remark applies to all that the Major has said respecting the state of public feeling in North America. The facts of the case he has stated quite correctly. It is true that, even in those States of the Union which have abolished slavery, the free Blacks are still regarded with disgust and contempt. The most benevolent inhabitants of New England and New York, conceive that liberty itself will scarcely be a blessing to the African, unless measures be taken for removing him to some country where he may not be reminded of his inferiority by daily insults and privations. Hence Major Moody thought himself, as he tells us,—“justified in the inference, that some powerful causes must be in action, and that those of a physical nature had not been overcome by mere legal exactments.” (1)
It cannot be doubted that some powerful cause has been in action. But that it is a physical cause, is not quite so clear. The old laws have no doubt produced a state of public feeling, which their repeal cannot at once correct. In all the States the Negro colour has been the livery of servitude. In some it still is so. The connexion between the different commonwealths of the confederation is so close, that the state of feeling in one place must be influenced by the state of the laws in another. This consideration is surely sufficient to explain all the circumstances to which the Major refers. It is for him to show, that an aversion for which slavery alone will sufficiently account is really the effect of blackness. He would, we believe, find it as easy to prove that there is something naturally and universally loathsome in the cut and colour of a prison uniform.
That the complexion of the free African renders his condition more unfortunate, we acknowledge. But why does it produce this effect? Not, surely, because it is the degrading circumstance, but because it is clear, instantaneous, and irrefragable evidence of the degrading circumstance. It is the only brand which cannot be counterfeited, and which cannot be effaced. It is borne by slaves and their descendants; and it is borne by no others. Let the Major prove, that, in any society where personal bondage has never existed, the