"In Egypt or India or one knows not where, accident or natural development quickened into life our moral and intellectual faculties; and these faculties have grown into what we now experience, not in the freedom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp rule of the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise."
Our author, as we see, begins his above quoted deliverance quite at a loss with regard to the agency to which the incipience, growth, and fructification of man's faculties should be attributed. "Accident," "natural development," he suggests, quickened the human faculties into the progressive achievements which they have accomplished. But then, wherefore is this writer so forcible, so confident in his prophecies regarding Negroes and their future temporal condition [132] and proceedings, since it is "accident," and "accident" only, that must determine their fulfilment? Has he so securely bound the fickle divinity to his service as to be certain of its agency in the realization of his forecasts? And if so, where then would be the fortuitousness that is the very essence of occurrences that glide, undesigned, unexpected, unforeseen, into the domain of Fact, and become material for History? So far as we feel capable of intelligently meditating on questions of this inscrutable nature, we are forced to conclude that since "natural development" could be so regular, so continuous, and withal so efficient, in the production of the marvellous results that we daily contemplate, there must be existent and in operation—as, for instance, in the case of the uniformity characterizing for ages successive generations of mankind, as above adduced by our philosopher himself—some controlling LAW, according and subject to which no check has marred the harmonious progression, or prevented the consummations that have crowned the normal exercise of human energy, intellectual as well as physical.
The sharp rule of the strong over the [133] weak, is the first clause of the Carlylean-sounding phrase which embodies the requisite conditions for satisfactory human development. The terms expressive of these conditions, however, while certainly suggesting and embracing the beneficent, elevating influence and discipline of European civilization, such as we know and appreciate it, do not by any means exclude the domination of Mr. Legree or any other typical man-monster, whose power over his fellow-creatures is at once a calamity to the victims and a disgrace to the community tolerating not only its exercise, but the very possibility of its existence. The sharp rule of "the wise over the unwise," is the closing section of the recommendation to ensure man's effective development. Not even savages hesitate to defer in all their important designs to the sought-for guidance of superior judgments. But in the case of us West Indian Blacks, to whom Mr. Froude's doctrine here has a special reference, is it suggested by him that the bidders for predominance over us on the purely epidermal, the white skin, ground, are ipso facto the monopolists of directing wisdom? It surely cannot be so; for Mr. Froude's own chapters regarding both the [134] nomination by Downing Street of future Colonial office-holders and the disorganized mental and moral condition of the indigenous representatives—as he calls them!—of his country in these climes, preclude the possibility that the reference regarding the wise can be to them. Now since this is so, we really cannot see why the pains should have been taken to indite the above truism, to the truth whereof, under every normal or legitimate circumstance, the veriest barbarian, by spontaneously resorting to and cheerfully abiding by it, is among the first to secure practical effect.
"Our own Anglo-Saxon race," continues our author, "has been capable of self-government only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual authority. European government, European instruction, continued steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by higher instincts, may shorten the probation period of the negro. Individual blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick Douglass in America, or the Chief Justice of Barbados, will avail themselves of opportunities to rise, and the freest opportunity OUGHT TO BE offered them." Here we are reminded of the dogma laid down by a certain [135] class of ethnologists, to the effect that intellectuality, when displayed by a person of mixed European and African blood, must always be assigned to the European side of the parentage; and in the foregoing citation our author speaks of two personages undoubtedly belonging to the class embraced in the above dogma. Three specific objections may, therefore, be urged against the statements which we have indicated in the above quotation. First and foremost, neither Judge Reeves nor Mr. Fred Douglass is a black man, as Mr. Froude inaccurately represents each of them to be. The former is of mixed blood, to what degree we are not adepts enough to determine; and the latter, if his portrait and those who have personally seen him mislead us not, is a decidedly fair man.
We, of course, do not for a moment imagine that either of those eminent descendants of Ham cares a jot about the settlement of this question, which doubtless would appear very trivial to both. But as our author's crusade is against the Negro—by which we understand the undiluted African descendant, the pure Negro, as he singularly describes Chief Justice Reeves—our anxiety is to show that there exist, both [136] in the West Indies and in the United States, scores of genuine black men to whom neither of these two distinguished patriots would, for one instant, hesitate to concede any claim to equality in intellectual and social excellence. The second exception which we take is, as we have already shown in a previous page, to the persistent lugging in of America by Mr. Froude, doubtless to keep his political countrymen in countenance with regard to the Negro question. We have already pointed out the futility of this proceeding on our author's part, and suggested how damaging it might prove to the cause he is striving to uphold. "Blacks of exceptional quality," like the two gentlemen he has specially mentioned, "will avail themselves of opportunities to rise." Most certainly they will, Mr. Froude—but, for the present, only in America, where those opportunities are really free and open to all. There no parasitical non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, but in the sweat of other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; no importunate bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government there would regard it as their duty "to provide for"—by quartering them on the revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the British Crown—or rather "Anglo-West Indian"—governed Colonies, has it ever been, can it ever be, thus ordered? Our author's description of the exigencies that compel injustice to be done in order to requite, or perhaps to secure, Parliamentary support, coupled with his account of the bitter animus against the coloured race that rankles in the bosom of his "Englishmen in the West Indies," sufficiently proves the utter hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both.
Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he wrote his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement to the Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone. His use of "should be offered," instead of "are offered," betrays his consciousness that, at the time he was writing, the offering of any opportunities of the kind he suggests was a thing still to be desired under British jurisdiction. The third objection [138] which we shall take to Mr. Froude's bracketing of the cases of Mr. Fred Douglass and of Judge Reeves together, is that, when closely examined, the two cases can be distinctly seen to be not in any way parallel. The applause which our author indirectly bids for on behalf of British Colonial liberality in the instance of Mr. Reeves would be the grossest mockery, if accorded in any sense other than we shall proceed to show. Fred Douglass was born and bred a slave in one of the Southern States of the Union, and regained his freedom by flight from bondage, a grown man, and, of course, under the circumstances, solitary and destitute. He reached the North at a period when the prejudice of the Whites against men of his race was so rampant as to constitute a positive mania.
The stern and cruelly logical doctrine, that a Negro had no rights which white men were bound to respect, was in full blast and practical exemplification. Yet amidst it all, and despite of it all, this gifted fugitive conquered his way into the Temple of Knowledge, and became eminent as an orator, a writer, and a lecturer on political and general subjects. Hailed abroad [139] as a prodigy, and received with acclamation into the brotherhood of intelligence, abstract justice and moral congruity demanded that such a man should no longer be subject to the shame and abasement of social, legal, and political proscription. The land of his birth proved herself equal to this imperative call of civilized Duty, regardless of customs and the laws, written as well as unwritten, which had doomed to life-long degradation every member of the progeny of Ham. Recognizing in the erewhile bondman a born leader of men, America, with the unflinching directness that has marked her course, whether in good or in evil, responded with spontaneous loyalty to the inspiration of her highest instincts. Shamed into compunction and remorse at the solid fame and general sympathy secured for himself by a son of her soil, whom, in the wantonness of pride and power, she had denied all fostering care (not, indeed, for any conscious offending on his part, but by reason of a natural peculiarity which she had decreed penal), America, like a repentant mother, stooped from her august seat, and giving with enthusiasm both hands to the outcast, she helped him to stand forward and erect, [140] in the dignity of untrammeled manhood, making him, at the same time, welcome to a place of honour amongst the most gifted, the worthiest and most favoured of her children.
Chief Justice Reeves, on the other hand, did not enter the world, as Douglass had done, heir to a lot of intellectual darkness and legalized social and political proscription. Associated from adolescence with S. J. Prescod, the greatest leader of popular opinion whom Barbados has yet produced, Mr. Reeves possessed in his nature the material to assimilate and reflect in his own principles and conduct the salient characteristics of his distinguished Mentor. Arrived in England to study law, he had there the privilege of the personal acquaintance of Lord Brougham, then one of the Nestors of the great Emancipation conflict. On returning to his native island, which he did immediately after his call to the bar, Mr. Reeves sprung at once into the foremost place, and retained his precedence till his labours and aspirations were crowned by his obtaining the highest judicial post in that Colony. For long years before becoming Chief Justice, Mr. Reeves had conquered for himself the respect and confidence [141] of all Barbadians—even including the ultra exclusive "Anglo-West-Indians" of Mr. Froude—by the manful constitutional stand which, sacrificing official place, he had successfully made against the threatened abrogation of the Charter of the Colony, which every class and colour of natives cherish and revere as a most precious, almost sacred, inheritance. The successful champion of their menaced liberties found clustering around him the grateful hearts of all his countrymen, who, in their hour of dread at the danger of their time-honoured constitution, had clung in despair to him as the only leader capable of heading the struggle and leading the people, by wise and constitutional guidance, to the victory which they desired but could not achieve for themselves.
Sir William Robinson, who was sent out as pacificator, saw and took in at a glance the whole significance of the condition of affairs, especially in their relation to Mr. Reeves, and vice versâ. With the unrivalled pre-eminence and predominant personal influence of the latter, the Colonial Office had possessed more than ample means of being perfectly familiar. What, then, could be more natural and consonant with [142] sound policy than that the then acknowledged, but officially unattached, head of the people (being an eminent lawyer), should, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the highest juridical post, be appointed to co-operate with the supreme head of the Executive? Mr. Reeves was already the chief of the legal body of the Colony; his appointment, therefore, as Chief Justice amounted to nothing more than an official ratification of an accomplished and unalterable fact. Of course, it was no fault of England's that the eminent culture, political influence, and unapproached legal status of Mr. Reeves should have coincided exactly with her political requirements at that crisis, nor yet that she should have utilized a coincidence which had the double advantage of securing the permanent services, whilst realizing at the same time the life's aspiration, of a distinguished British subject. But that Mr. Froude should be dinning in our ears this case of benefited self-interest, gaining the amplest reciprocity, both as to service and serviceableness, with the disinterested spontaneity of America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is but another proof of the obliquity of the moral medium through [143] which he is wont to survey mankind and their concerns.
The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal merit of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass absolutely nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript that he was, with public opinion generally on the side of the laws and usages against him. The very little countries of the world are proverbial for the production of very great men. But, on the other hand, narrowness of space favours the concentration and coherence of the adverse forces that might impede, if they fail of utterly thwarting, the success which may happen to be grudged by those possessing the will and the power for its obstruction. In Barbados, so far as we have heard, read, and seen ourselves of the social ins and outs of that little sister-colony, the operation of the above mentioned [144] influences has been, may still be, to a certain extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English jurisprudence there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground of race or colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the "Anglo-West Indians"—who, our author has dared to say, represent the higher type of Englishmen—have, throughout successive generations, effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral, mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in intelligence below contempt, but, in prosperity and accepted pretension, formidable indeed to fight against and overcome. We shudder to think of the petty cabals, the underbred indignities, direct and indirect, which the present eminent Judge had to watch against, to brush aside, to smile at, in course of his epic strides towards the highest local pinnacle of his profession. But [145] with him, as Time has shown, it was all sure and safe.