A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem / The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4

by Charles C. Cook

Such conditions favor the strong, and, like the body of soldiers which, while advancing over the smooth road, keeps its line unbroken, but when obliged to cross a muddy, ploughed field, breaks up into a straggling file, the commonwealth of ancient Germany, with its wonderful equality and community, had so changed its form under pressure of the conditions attending the conquest of the Britons, that monarchy and slavery, and the accumulation by individuals of wealth and power, had, even before the Norman invasion, become permanent features of the society. All had possessed some share of power and wealth in the early time, and it followed that the acquisition of them was little esteemed; but now these gifts, when the Normans usurped them, grew to splendor in the eyes of those from whose presence they were being ever farther and farther withdrawn. The race for money and power had begun, and though the gaps between the contestants widened, all pressed onwards: England had entered upon her progressive stage. Now, after eight hundred years, while the rich harvest is being reaped, let us look back at the sowers, in the time of its sowing.

England was, before the rise of Japan, the only island power, and to her consequent isolation may be traced many important differences between her development and that of the continental powers. Prominent among these was an early consciousness of national existence, which gave some purpose to three centuries of otherwise meaningless bloodshed.

As the insulation of England was the most striking among the favorable circumstances, so love of independence became the distinguishing feature of the English character, belonging alike to the Saxon of the time of Tacitus and the Englishman of to-day. The effect of this instinct has been to invigorate all of the members of the society; and to it is due the succession of glorious victories won by the English yeomanry over the French army at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt; the ranks of the English army being so far superior, individually, to the ranks of the French, that superiority in the numbers of the French was unavailing.

But, on the other hand, it was the same spirit which caused the Saxon freeman to stay away from the tribal assembly for several days, in order to show that he acknowledged no duty to obey: and this spirit, again which spent the English by more than three hundred years of domestic wars and left them helpless before sixty thousand Norman and French invaders.

The very different period of peace and prosperity, which followed upon Norman tyranny, taught the English to distinguish between a just and an exaggerated sense of the freedom to which each individual was entitled, and in Burke’s attitude towards the French revolution, we have the residuum of the struggle between Saxon independence and Norman discipline.

The church of England also expresses the English spirit of liberty. It stands not for dissent, but for national self-control; it is an independent, not a protestant church. To realize this, we must remember, that the desire for separation from the church of Rome showed itself in the eleventh century; and from then on continuously, until Henry VIII slit the thin thread which bound England to Rome, the cause of ecclesiastical and of civil liberty advanced side by side.

It is a noteworthy characteristic of the Saxon, as described by implication in the Germania of Tacitus, that, while he barely tolerated a king, he cheerfully obeyed a captain, or war leader. When, therefore, Angles and Saxons entered upon a period of conquest in England, which lasted a hundred and fifty years, it became quite easy for the captain, imperceptibly, and, to a certain extent involuntarily, to add to his proper office that of law giver and administrator. In this way, especially after the exchange of Saxon for Norman administrators, the still rebellious Saxon freeman became hopelessly entangled in a network of machinery, local and national, which kept him for many years an obedient, unresisting subject.

So, being deprived for centuries of any considerable weight in the English counsels, the commoner turned his attention to the increasing of his material well-being. In this he was favored by the stern enforcement, by the Norman kings, of law and order, and an enduring peace; for, though English soldiers have often fought on the continent, it may be said with almost literal truth that not since the Norman Conquest has English soil felt the footsteps of a foreign foe. For this blessing, England is indebted to her insular position, which has also pointed so unmistakably to her destiny as a sea-faring power, carrying the world’s trade in her merchant ships and scattering colonies over every continent.

Summing up then, the conditions favoring English progress at its beginning: we have a people, instinct with the love of freedom and power, subjected to law by desire for victory in war, and kept obedient by bewilderment of machinery. Forced to reconcile themselves to Norman usurpation of all power in church and state, they devote themselves to the acquisition of wealth, and, because of their insular position and small territory, end in commercial supremacy and colonial expansion.

The English people are, through their American descendants, our teachers in everything, and their lessons we eagerly and unquestioningly learn and practice. But we ought now, fairly and candidly to consider how far we may realize with our dispositions and our circumstances, the greatness which England has achieved. Could we colonize Cuba, our environing conditions would be favorable to political and economic development. Cuba is an island, fertile and, for commerce, almost ideal in its situation. Or, can we not, remaining here, share in the management of this splendid country, exercising the powers and fulfilling the duties of government in those states where we are in the majority, and influencing the government of other states where our numbers are not so great? If either career is open to us, the study and imitation of the English model will abundantly repay us. But do we believe that it is so? No, we cannot hope that either path will be ours. The white races have to-day the power and the determination to rule the world.