“Never was there a more telling rebuke administered to the pride, prejudice, and hypocrisy of a nation. It was saying, ‘Mr. Dallas, we make members of the International Statistical Congress out of the sort of men you make merchandise of in America. Delany in Washington is a thing; Delany in London is a man. You despise and degrade him as a beast; we esteem and honor him as a gentleman. Truth is of no color, Mr. Dallas, and to the eye of science, a man is not a man because of his color, but because he is a man, and nothing else.’ To our thinking, there was no truth more important and significant brought before the Statistical Congress. Delany’s presence in that meeting was, however, more than a rebuke to American prejudice. It was an answer to a thousand humiliating inquiries respecting the character and qualifications of the colored race. Lord Brougham, in calling attention to him, performed a most noble act, worthy of his life-long advocacy of the claims of our hated and slandered people. There was, doubtless, something of his sarcastic temper shown in the manner of his announcement of Delany; but we doubt not there was the same genuine philanthropic motive at the bottom of his action, which has distinguished him through life. A man covered with honor, associated with the history of his country for more than a half century, conspicuous in many of the mightiest transactions of the greatest nation of modern times, between eighty and ninety years old, is not the man to indulge a low propensity to insult. He had a better motive than the humiliation of Dallas. The cause of an outraged and much despised race came up before him, and he was not deterred from serving it, though it should give offence.
“But why should Americans regard the calling attention to their characteristic prejudice against the colored race as an insult? Why do they go into a rage when the subject is brought up in England? The black man is no blacker in England than in America. They are not strangers to the negro here; why should they make strange of him there? They meet him on every corner here; he is in their cornfields, on their plantations, in their houses; he waits on their tables, rides in their carriages, and accompanies them in a thousand other relations, some of them very intimate. To point out a negro here is no offence to anybody. Indeed, we often offer large rewards to any who will point them out. We are so in love with them that we will hunt them; and of all men, our southern brethren are most miserable when deprived of their negro associates. Why, then, should we be offended by being asked to look at a negro in London? We look at him in New York, and Mr. Dallas has often been called to look at the negro in Philadelphia.
“The answer to these questions may be this: In America the white man sees the negro in that condition to which the white man’s prejudice and injustice assign him. He sees him a proscribed man, the victim of insult and social degradation. In that condition he has nothing against him. It is only when the negro is seen without these limitations that his presence raises the wrath of your genuine American Christian. When poor, ignorant, hopeless, and thoughtless, he is rather an amusement to his white fellow-citizens; but when he bears himself like a man, conscious of the godlike characteristics of manhood, determined to maintain in himself the dignity of his species, he becomes an insufferable offence. This explains Mr. Dallas, and explains the American people. It explains also the negroes themselves. It is often asked why the negroes do not rise above the generally low vocations in which they are found? Why do they consent to spend their lives in menial occupations? The answer is, that it is only here that they are not opposed by the fierce and bitter prejudice which pierces them to the quick, the moment they attempt anything higher than is considered their place in American society. Americans thus degrade us, and are only pleased with us when so degraded. They tempt us on every side to live in ignorance, stupidity, and social worthlessness, by the negative advantage of their smiles; and they drive us from all honorable exertion by meeting us with hatred and scorn the instant we attempt anything else.
“Had Mr. Delany been a mean, poor, dirty, ignorant negro, incapable of taking an honorable place among gentlemen and scholars, Mr. Dallas would have turned the specimen to the account of his country. But the article before him was a direct contradiction to his country’s estimate of negro manhood. He had no use for him, and was offended when his attention was called to him.
“There was still another bitter ingredient in the cup of the American minister. Men can indulge in very mean things when among mean men, and do so without a blush. They can even boast of their meanness, glory in their shame, when among their own class, but who, when among better men, will hang their heads like sheep-stealing dogs, the moment their true character is made known. To hate a negro in America is an American boast, and is a part of American religion. Men glory in it. But to turn up your nose against the negro in Europe is not quite so easy as in America, especially in the case of a negro morally and intellectually the equal of the American minister.”
Before leaving London, Delany read, by special request, a paper on his researches in Africa, before the Royal Geographical Society, and as a traveller and explorer, received the privileges extended by that body, and as such was received with due courtesy in many of the noted places dedicated to art and science, both in England and Scotland; among them, the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Hospitals, Geological and Anatomical University, Museums, and Libraries.
From a general invitation extended to the members of the Congress, and a special one to himself, by the Right Hon. Lord Brougham and Vaux, ex-lord high chancellor of England, he received his membership, and attended the Congress of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science at Glasgow, Scotland, the September following. Here a distinguished recognition of his worth awaited him. While at this Congress he elicited expressions of a most complimentary character from Lord Brougham, who presided here with the usual dignity ascribed to him at the International Congress in the absence of his royal highness.
The following is extracted from the Report of the First Section on Judicial Statistics, by the president (Lord Brougham) and Dr. Asher:—
“I think I am authorized, not only on the part of the council of the society, but on the part of the authorities in Scotland, strongly to recommend and to invite all persons to attend that Congress. The authorities take the greatest interest in it, both at Edinburgh and at Glasgow. The magistrates of both countries, and the judges, take the greatest interest in the Congress; and I hope they will not be disappointed in having the attendance of many foreign gentlemen from different parts of the continent; and I also hope that our friend Dr. Delany will attend upon that occasion, for he will then be in the country which first laid down the maxim and the principle of law: That the moment a slave (which Dr. Delany is not, but which his ancestors were) touches British ground, his fetters fall off. That was said when that decision, which does immortal honor to the Scottish courts, was pronounced. It was a remark made in one of the arguments—‘Quamvis ille niger, quamvis ne candidus esses.’ That remark was made by a very celebrated judge, the son of a very great mathematician, one of the greatest mathematicians that ever appeared in this country, the son of the celebrated McLaurin. I hope Dr. Delany is here. In the sanitary section, as my noble friend Lord Shaftesbury informed me before he left the room, he was of very great use, indeed, in the information which he conveyed to them, and that he made a most able speech, as Sir Roderick Murchison informs me, at the Royal Geographical Society, which he lately attended. I hope therefore, that we shall have the advantage of his attendance upon that occasion.”
After the close of the Congress, he was invited to lecture on the subject of his explorations, in many parts of England and Scotland, meeting everywhere with marked success, for nearly seven months. At these lectures an appreciative audience greeted him: among them many of the élite of the kingdom convened, as was manifested at his reception lecture at Brighton, on the seaside, during the watering season, given in the pavilion of the Marine Palace of William IV.