Why Colored People in Philadelphia Are Excluded from the Street Cars

by Benjamin P. Hunt

Another class indication of public feeling on this subject must not be passed by in silence. At a late series of large and excited meetings of our clergy and laity convened to remonstrate against the running of the street cars on Sunday, not a word was said by the remonstrants, though their attention was called to the matter, against the exclusion of colored people from these cars on week-days. Like the grand juries, they ignored the subject. Further, it is believed that only three of the white clergy of this city have spoken, either from pulpit or platform, in reprobation of this gross wrong; and if there are cases in which saying nothing is committing sin, this would seem to be one of them. But fair and reasonable men are tired of hearing clergymen berated for not doing that which, if they would still remain clergymen, they cannot do. It is easy and safe for a pastor to lay before his people a certain set of what may be called sins by common consent, such as over-worldliness, inattention to religion and the like. One portion of his hearers meekly bows to this reproof, and the remainder tacitly accepts it without argument. But when he earnestly calls on them to give up some darling sin, which they hug to their bosoms because they do not admit that it is such, his relations to them are apt, at once, to become such as were those of St. Paul to the beasts of Ephesus. And to expect a pastor fiercely to throttle each living, vigorous, but unconfessed, if not unconscious sin of his people, as it comes up, for $400 a year, (the average clerical pay, it is said, of the wealthiest sect in this State,) and then to lose this small stipend, which he is likely to do by dismissal, as the result of the conflict, is asking more than a fair day's work for less than a fair day's wages. Here and there may be found a man who can afford to enter into this fight. One, rich in natural gifts, holds his hearers, by the power of personal magnetism, while he pours into their ears a torrent of unwelcome truths, to which they listen, like the Wedding Guest, because they "cannot choose but hear," and then, not a few go away, like an awakened medium, uninfluenced by them. Another, whose voice neither denouncement nor desertion can silence, or make falter, because its words are but the imperative utterances of a great heart ever flowing in full tide, with good will to man, simply as man, always finds fit audience though few. But these are exceptions, and though courage might add to them, the great body of our clergymen must preach what their people are not unwilling to hear, or cease to earn bread for their families as clergymen. And here is the true reason of their silence, or hesitating speech, on such proposed subjects of reform as, at the time, have found but small acceptance; and as men and things go, this reason is sufficient. Their grave fault is that they keep it shut up in that dark, back cell of the heart, to which men never admit each other, and rarely themselves, and put forward such phrases as "secular subjects," "politics in the pulpit," and (a profanation of the Holy Word) "my kingdom is not of this world," in the place of it. Hence the chronic false position in which they stand to society. For from the very nature of their relations either to their people, an aristocracy, or their own order, the clergy are everywhere conservative and not progressive. When Luther began to be a reformer he ceased to be a monk. All that can reasonably be expected of them is not to break new soil, but to refrain from upholding old abuses, and (a most important trust) carefully to keep in order in the old way, but with a readiness to accept new principles and improved methods, the ground already fenced in. Their true type of reform is that of Mr. Lincoln. He never professed to move except at the word of the people, but he always watched for and joyfully obeyed the first sure signal to advance. But there are cases in which clergymen are called on to make a direct attack on a social abuse, and in which the practical good sense of all classes will uphold them in so doing, whether that abuse has general countenance or not; and that is where the defence of their own order demands it. Such a supposed demand was the true cause of their late loud and unwise protest against the running of the cars on Sunday. They mistakenly believed this movement to be an invasion of their special domain, which it was their duty to repel; whereas, if permitted, it would unquestionably here, as it has done elsewhere, not only benefit the poor, but increase church-going. And yet, notwithstanding this readiness to rally in general self-defence, it appears that when the Rev. Mr. Allston, rector of St. Thomas' (Colored Episcopal) Church, was expelled from a Lombard and South Street car, and in such a manner that the strength of his hands alone kept his head from being dashed on the pavement, some of his brethren simply offered to see that any expense which he might incur in case he chose to prosecute, should be made up to him. One feels inclined to ask these gentlemen if they would have contented themselves with this, as sufficient action in the case, had the rector of Christ Church, or of St. Luke's, or even so young a man as the rector of Holy Trinity, been subjected to such an outrage as this,—one at any time likely to be repeated, and which is, in fact, regularly kept up by continued exclusion. There can hardly be a doubt that, had this been the case of a white clergyman, a meeting would have been called, a protest made, and a deputation, lay and clerical, appointed to wait on Mr. Dropsie, the President of the company, or some other vigorous measures taken, to exact redress for present, and guarantees against future injuries. This would be due, not only to the outraged brother, but to themselves, outraged in him. The preservation of their influence with, and the respect in which it is necessary they should be held by, society, would imperatively demand such a course; and the only conceivable reason why it was not pursued in the case of the Rev. Mr. Allston is, that except by a sort of ecclesiastical fiction, the Episcopal clergy of Philadelphia do not consider him of their order, nor feel that, in the eyes of this community, their reputation is in any manner identified with his; and therefore it was not necessary to their common interests that they should pursue it.

But there is a symptom of public opinion on this subject worse than the foregoing. The very Committee appointed for the special purpose of securing to the colored people their rights, failed to be true to their trust when tried by the test of party politics. At a meeting of the said Committee, held not long before the last municipal election, a resolution was offered, the purport of which was, to ask of the present Mayor, when a candidate, a statement in writing as to the course he intended to pursue in regard to this question, if elected. But the Committee deprecated the very thought of jeopardizing the success of the Republican candidate, by a committal on such a question as this. The resolution was voted down by a majority of more than ten to one of the members present. This action is to be regretted, not only on account of its immediate effect on the work in hand,—for it was of course reported to the Board of Presidents, who naturally concluded that the Committee was not in earnest,—but because it established the fact of weakness in that part of society in which, of late, we have most looked for strength; and that is in the part which consists of our able and leading private men of business. If it is true of clergymen that they cannot be our leaders in reform, it is no less so of politicians, even of the best class, in or out of office, and of professional philanthropists, and of managers of the various bodies of benevolent men and women permanently organized for particular purposes relating to the public good. All these are, or in time will be, biassed, either consciously or unconsciously, by private interests, or party ties, or special objects in connection with these Associations, whose plans they will seek to shape with a view to their own purposes. But there is another disqualification common to them all. They are not independent. They have somebody to consult besides themselves. They do not act directly from their own convictions, but are constantly striving to ascertain the average conviction of the public, or of their constituents, in order to act from that; and as each of their constituents, to a degree, is independent, and therefore gives fair play to his convictions, they are very apt to under-estimate this average, and fall short of it in action: Or, as Wendell Phillips tersely states it, "representatives are timid, principals are bold." Successful private men of business are free from these entanglements and temptations; they alone, as a class, can afford to disregard them, and therefore they and no others are fitted to take the lead in, or be the chief promoters of, new movements for the good of society. The best of this class are earnest, liberal, intelligent, brief in discussion, practical and direct in operation, regardless of official honors and the gains connected therewith, and, above all, they know how to master and use wealth, without being in turn mastered by it. The danger of such men is not in imprudence; the difficulty is to find quite enough of them who are not too prudent; and if there are some working with them who are earnest even to bitterness, and have nothing which they greatly fear to lose, or hope to gain,—not even reputation,—so that uses are performed, truths told and justice satisfied, it will be all the better. Not the least valuable effect of the late war was the discovery which it made for us of the great wealth of the country in this kind of men. A few such men, in spite of the covert contempt and inert opposition of President, Cabinet, congressmen, generals, and army surgeons, made the Sanitary Commission an institution, whose great and business-like work of patriotic charity and mercy became the admiration of the civilized world. They first made the necessity and practicability of their plan clear to the people, and then, with them at their back, forced an unwilling government to recognize and accept the Commission as a power to do good. Similar in character and results was the Christian Commission, in the President of which is found the most eminent single example that the war afforded, in support of this position; such, also, but more limited in their operations, because less popular, are the Freedmen's Associations; and such, in its original conception and working during the war, was the Union League.

The men who led in these movements did not go to politicians and ask if their plans were expedient, party interests considered. But with the desire to do good for their motive and their own native energies for their power, success soon brought the politicians to them. And if private men, or associations of private men, will, this may always be the case. To this end they have but to accept, and act up to these propositions: That this country, with such a people in it as carried through the late war, can never be ruined, politicians to the contrary notwithstanding; that its nearest approach to ruin will come from temporizing; that party management never saved a country nor advanced a just cause; that a country is saved and a just cause advanced only by doing justice and cultivating a right public opinion; that power on any other basis is better lost than kept, even when the party that gains is worse than the party that loses it; that when legitimate means fail, or have not been used, to form this basis by a party in power, then the misdeeds of evil men in power are the only resource left to the country for creating a public opinion against their own evil policy and in favor of justice, which they will do by causing reaction; that this is the chief use of, and necessity for, a second party in the State, and that these propositions are good at all times and in every crisis, not excepting the present. By taking a firm stand on this ground, and refusing absolutely to support for office candidates of inadequate ability, bad personal character, or doubtful firmness of principle, private men may become a power in the State, instead of remaining the mere voting machines which they are at present in the hands of cunning, short-sighted and selfish politicians. The chief political value of such private men, in their associated capacity, and the special advantage they possess over all other bodies convened for consultation with a view to the public good, consist in their being free to discuss and advocate just measures, with simple directness and without side issues, and in their ability to enlighten, advance and fortify public opinion in respect to these measures. When they do this, they furnish to representative bodies—what they most need—firm and well cleared ground to stand and work upon. But they never can do this as mere appendages of State Central Committees, nor if, while they are free from the representative responsibilities of congressmen, they are more timid than Congress and speak only in echo of it, and long after it. And whether they act as political or social reformers, there must be no distrust of justice, as always a safe guide, and no putting her aside for the lead of party hacks, as was unfortunately the case with the aforesaid Car Committee; and the colored people, when they saw their chosen champions thus postpone justice, in their case, to party expediency, might well ask where they were to look for any real support in this demand for their simple rights.

Aside then from the action of official and conventional bodies, it has been shown that large numbers of the laboring classes are opposed to the unreserved use of the cars by the colored people; and it must be inferred from the foregoing facts that but a small number of any class earnestly and actively advocate it. Between these extremes is the great body of the respectable, intelligent and influential portion of the community, the members of which are generally self-restraining and above violence in speech or act, and who, at first sight, one might suppose to be indifferent on the question, or perhaps torpidly in favor of admission. A little friction, however, brings to the surface unmistakable evidence that this body also is permeated with latent prejudice sufficient to carry it, imperceptibly perhaps and by dead weight only, but still to carry it against the colored people. Many belong to this class who would take offence if told so. It is not hard to find old hereditary abolitionists—Orthodox and other Friends, and members of the late Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments, who coldly decline all overtures for coöperation in this work. The abolition of Slavery away in the South was all very well, but here is a matter of personal contact. They are not opposed, themselves, to riding with colored people—certainly not. The colored people may get into the cars if they can; they will not hinder it. But they do wish there were baths furnished at the public expense, for the use of these friends, in order that they might be made thereby less offensive to ladies. And from these ladies, no doubt, comes an opposition—indirect and partially concealed—apparent perhaps only through the manner and tone of the father, husband or brother, but still most obstinate. It is often curious to observe how the discussion of this subject will set in motion two opposing moral currents in the same religious and cultivated female mind; that of conscience, which calls for the admission of the colored people, and that of prejudice, which hopes they will not get it. And thus the moral nature of many men and women, who in general are friendly to equal rights, on this question is divided. The sense of justice not being quickened by sympathy, their movements in respect to it are like those of a man palsied on one side—hindering rather than helpful. And it is this great, respectable and intelligent portion of the community that is really responsible for these wrongs and disturbances.

John Swift, a hard, shrewd man, now gone to his place, but in 1838 Mayor of this city, told a committee of Friends who called on him, on the 17th of May of that year, for protection against men who threatened violence, that "public opinion makes mobs;" and on the same night a mob, so made, after a short, mild speech from the said Mayor, counselling order and stating that the military would not be called out, burnt down Pennsylvania Hall. And every mob that the country has seen, during the last century, has had a similar origin and support, from that of the Paxton Boys against harmless Indians, in 1763, encouraged up to the threshold of murder, and then only opposed, when too late, by the Rev. Mr. Elder and his colleagues, to that of the New York Irish rioters against the negroes and the draft, in 1863, that was addressed as "my friends" by Gov. Seymour, the representative of a great party. And, to bring this subject up to date, may be added the late rebel mob at New Orleans, hissed on, in its wholesale work of murder, by the President of the United States through the telegraph. The brain does not more surely impel or restrain the hand, than do the more educated and influential classes, however imperceptibly, those that are less so, in all cases in which premeditated violence is forseen. And had there really existed any considerable degree of this moral restraining power in our community, these outrages against the people of color would long since have ceased.

We are forced then to the conclusion that this community, as a body, by long indulgence in the wicked habit of wronging and maltreating colored people, has become, like a moral lunatic, utterly powerless, by the exercise of its own will, to resist or control the propensity. And unless it finds an authoritative and sane guardian and controller in the Supreme Court—unless this Court has itself, by chance, escaped this widely spread moral imbecility of vicious type, there seems to be no cure for the disease, nor end to its wickedness. And Philadelphia must still continue to stand, as she now does, alone, among all the cities of the old free States, in the exercise of this most infamous system of class persecution.

When Lear cries out "Let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart," we are made to perceive that his mind was not so wholly absorbed in his wrongs as to prevent it from speculating, in a wild way, on their cause: a touch of nature suggesting that any statement of wrongs which does not enter into the causes and conditions that made their commission possible, is imperfect. And to the question constantly recurring: What is it that has caused the people of Philadelphia thus to stand apart from other northern and western free cities, in the disposition to persecute negroes? the true answer seems to be this: Philadelphia once owned more slaves than any other northern city, with the possible exception of New York; she retains a greater number of colored people now, in proportion to her white population, than any other such city, with the accidental exception of New Bedford,[1] when emancipation took place the process was left incomplete, and of all cities, north or south, she most fears amalgamation.

The evils of slavery are in proportion to its density. In South Carolina, which is the part of the United States where it was most dense, these evils, especially in their effect on the Whites, were more distinct and apparent than in any other State. The South Carolinians were the most despotic of our slave owners, and they were the first to secede in order to remain such undisturbed. But great as were these evils in our slave States, where the Whites always outnumbered the Blacks, they were infinitely greater in the West Indies, and especially in St. Domingo, where the Blacks, in a much greater degree, outnumbered the Whites. The most comprehensive evidence of this is to be found in the fact that, in the United States there was a natural increase in the slave population, while in the West Indies the reverse was the case, to a remarkable degree. A slave, when landed in the United States, always found here at least two Whites to one Black; for before the introduction of the cotton gin, which was not until after the abolition of the slave trade, the temptation was not great to drive plantation work, or to increase the number of slaves. He came at once into such multiplied contact with Whites that, though he was taught nothing, he learnt much. His African superstitions soon died out, or became greatly diluted; camp meeting exercises took their place; his games and dances were assimilated to those of white people, and his spontaneous songs, unlike those of the St. Domingo negroes, which mostly relate to eating, satire and venery, early became emotional and religious.[2] The first tincture of Christianity which West India slaves received, was communicated to them by slaves from the United States. When Dr. Coke landed in St. Eustatia, in 1788, he found, as his Journal says, that "the Lord had raised up lately a negro slave named Harry, brought here from the continent to prepare our way." The Baptists, now the great sect of Jamaica, owe their origin there to George Lisle, a slave preacher, who was taken thither from Georgia, by his tory master, at the evacuation of Savannah by the British in 1782.

But a cargo of slaves, on being landed in French St. Domingo, found there, towards the last days of the colony, nearly twenty of their own to one of the white race. They were at once herded with the former. As their immediate overseers were mostly creole Blacks, many of them rarely, except at a distance, saw white people, of whom there were barely enough to conduct the business of the colony. The number of doctors was insufficient. The planters depended on importation rather than personal care to keep up their stock of slaves. This stock was often changed, in consequence of its being worked up. There was a constant renewal of the savage element by slave ships. The new slaves always found in St. Domingo the customs and superstitions they had left in Africa. They added freshness to them, and then all went on together, as nearly as possible, in the old African way. In fact, it might almost have seemed, had it been possible, as if parts of French St. Domingo had been covered with African sod, bearing with it its native life and growth, little disturbed by the transfer. Hence vaudouxism, or serpent-worship went on, in full vigor, in spite of law and the police, and, to some extent, cannibalism, up to the very moment when the colony was suddenly blown to atoms by the over-generation of its own wickedness,—the Whites, who worked it, being thereby destroyed, or scattered to distant lands, with all their means and appliances of civilization. And as the Blacks, who remained in possession, shut the door against the return of the Whites, from fear of returning slavery, and yet keep it shut, in consequence of a still remaining vague jealousy, thus barring out foreign improvements, it is not surprising that the superstitious and barbarous usages of St. Domingo at this day prevail, to no small degree, in Hayti. The towns around the coast, where a few white merchants and the educated mulattoes reside, may be considered as tufts of civilization, and the savage traits inseparable from dense slavery have been a good deal softened down among the country people. But we might as reasonably expect to find an advanced state of civilization in the neighborhood of the Portuguese trading settlements on the west coast of Africa as in the interior of Hayti. For want of a proper knowledge of these facts, the non-civilization of Hayti has always been a thorn in the side of abolitionists, and from the same cause, the North generally, during the first half of the late war, was constantly looking for a second edition of the "Horrors of St. Domingo" in the South. But the freedmen of the South have no more in common with the insurrectionary slaves of 1791, in St. Domingo, than any other humanized people have with savages. It is fair to admit that this superior moral and physical condition of our southern Blacks over those of St. Domingo is due, in some degree, to difference of race in the masters. The descendants of French Protestants, English Wesleyans and Baptists, and Austrian Salzburgers, and even those resulting from a cross between Cavaliers and convict-servants, were doubtless less inhuman slave-masters than the progeny of buccaneers and flibustiers. Still the main difference arose from different degrees of density in slavery. Our southern slaves had the best opportunities to learn by looking on. And the most valuable trait in the negro, and that which will most avail to his salvation as a race, is that, whenever he is within reach of civilization, he silently puts forth a tendril and clasps it.

On the Whites, the most curious effect of dense slavery is that of destroying, or greatly impairing the power of moral vision in all matters relating to Blacks. In this respect, the trial for murder of the Hon. Arthur Hodge, planter and member of His Majesty's Council in the island of Tortola, and there hanged, in 1811, is a psychological study. Along through the years including 1805 and 1808, this gentleman, by cart-whipping at "short quarters," by pouring boiling water down the throat, by burning with hot irons and by dipping in coppers of scalding water, murdered eight of his slaves and one freeman. Tortola is twelve miles long by four broad and at the time in question contained about 6000 inhabitants. These murders were well known to the slave population, when committed, and as testimony afterwards proved, to many of the Whites. But Hodge was not brought to trial till 1811, and then formal complaint against him only reached his brother magistrates through a family quarrel about property. John M'Donough declined to serve on the jury because "the case would make the negroes saucy." Stephen M'Keough, a planter and an important witness, who saw some of these cases of flogging which ended in death, described Mr. Hodge as "a good man, but comical, because he had bad slaves." Both the Attorney General and the presiding Judge, apparently functionaries from England, thought it necessary to go into a set argument to show that killing negro slaves was really murder, and the jury, under the charge, brought Hodge in guilty, but recommended him to mercy. Here was moral blindness produced by an atmosphere of slavery which can only find its physical counterpart in the eyeless fishes bred in the dark waters of the Kentucky cave. Probably no case could be found in our Southern States equal to this in enormity of crime and corresponding absence of moral vision in respect to it, though that of Mrs. Abrahams, of Virginia, with her four murders, and the alacrity with which "all the Richmond lawyers" volunteered in her defence may approach it.