Negroes and Negro "Slavery:" the first an inferior race: the latter its normal condition.

by John H. Van Evrie

In speaking of negro education, of course no such meaning as that applied to white people is intended. Reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., have no relation or connection with the development of the negro powers. He simply needs to be in a position where the imitative capacity with which God has so beneficently endowed him is most completely called into action, and, as has been observed, he then becomes an industrious, moral, and well-behaved creature, or he is idle, sensual, vicious and worthless, just as the master or overseer pleases to make him. There are doubtless exceptional instances, but with all the wide-spread and boundless effort of the ignorant and deluded people in England and America to seduce them from their homes, there are probably but few negroes—real negroes—who ever abandoned their masters, unless their education had been neglected. The instinct of the negro is obedience to his master, and the strongest affection of his nature—far above that for his wife or offspring—is for the master who feeds, guides, and cares for him, indeed is his Providence; and his utter horror of migration, unless it be with his master, these qualities, so dominant in the negro, would be or might be made a barrier of protection against outside seductions, were they properly understood and appreciated by those having them in charge. This negro education, civilization, progress in fact, which the negro is capable of when in his normal condition, and his imitative capacities are permitted a healthy development, of course is rapidly lost when isolated from the white man. If the four millions now in our midst were suddenly left to themselves, but a few years—probably within fifty—everything that now distinguishes them—that is, all that they have imitated from the superior race—would become extinct.

Leaving out of the consideration mulattoes and mongrels, and taking into view simply the negro—the four millions of negroes of untainted blood which now exist in our midst—it is reasonable to say that, fifty years hence, there would not be one that would speak his present language, that would be a Christian, that would retain his name, or any other thing whatever which he now possesses and has imitated from his masters. This may seem a startling declaration to many who live in daily contact with these people, while by those ignorant and deplorably deluded parties who fancy that they are engaged in a work of humanity when seeking to undo the work of the Almighty Creator, by turning black into white and the negro into a Caucasian, it will scarcely be understood; but it involves a truth that may be easily and plainly illustrated. A very large portion of our negroes are the children and grandchildren of those brought from Africa, and not a few, perhaps, were themselves brought in by the “slave trade,” which it will be remembered was continued down to 1808.

Now of all these there probably is not one that can speak the language of his progenitors, not one that retains his African religion or the slightest relic of African history or tradition, not one with even an African name, and if they have thus rapidly lost all that they possessed of their own, that was original and specific, of course, if isolated from their masters, they would still more rapidly lose that which they have imitated from a superior race.

Such, then, is the negro—the lowest in the scale as the Caucasian is the most elevated in the human creation—a creature not degraded—for none of God’s creatures are degraded—but that is widely different and vastly subordinate to the elaborately organized and highly endowed white man. The specific qualities are not matters of opinion but of fact, that appeal to our senses at every step, but the specific differences and actual intervals that separate races, though often susceptible of successful illustrations, must to a great extent be determined by experience. The author has attempted to define these differences in some essential respects, and believes he has succeeded with sufficient exactitude to warrant correct conclusions in respect to the almost innumerable things that could not be discussed nor even alluded to in a work of this kind. We have this race among us—they or their descendants must remain an element of our population forever. It is doubtless the design of the Almighty that the Caucasian and negro, under certain circumstances which will be considered elsewhere, should exist in juxtaposition, and therefore a specific knowledge of this race, and its true relations to our own, is the most vital and indeed transcendent question or consideration that was ever presented to a civilized and Christian people. Nor can this be delayed or pushed aside, for even now the nation is rapidly drifting into serious difficulties and possibly terrible calamities, in consequence of that wide-spread ignorance and misconception prevalent in regard to the negro’s nature and his true relations to the white man. The blind and stupid warfare waged so long upon the domestic institutions of the South, has doubtless thus far injured the negro most, and it may be demonstrated with ease that the worst and most brutal master ever known could not inflict so much misery on the negro as the so-called friend of freedom, who, in utter ignorance of the negro nature, would force him to live out the life of a widely different being. But the time has come when this ignorance and delusion threatens to involve the whole framework of American society, and nothing but the simple truth—the recognition of the actual and unchangeable facts fixed eternally by the hand of God, can save the nation from dire calamities.

PART II.

CHAPTER XIII.
MULATTOISM AND MONGRELISM.

All the generic and specific forms of life are governed by their own peculiar laws of interunion, and hybridism or hybridity is therefore a phenomenon of varying character, having, it is true, certain resemblances in those instances which approach each other, but absolutely different in all cases. Naturalists have sometimes made great blunders in this respect, for they have assumed that hybridism was governed by the same laws in all cases, and therefore sought its application or inferred its presence in instances the most remote and contradictory. The most extraordinary, and, indeed, inexcusable instance of the kind has been seen in the efforts made to confound the distinctions of race, and to pervert truth into the most shameful and what would seem to be the most palpable falsehoods. It has been assumed by naturalists of high character that different genera never produce offspring, that the offspring of different species are incapable of reproduction, and that varieties are unlimited in their powers of virility. If, therefore, there were doubt in respect to the character of certain (supposed) genera, and it was found that offspring followed a conjunction of sexes, in this particular instance, it was inferred that they were merely different species. And if the product or progeny of these species were found to be equally virile, then it was inferred that they were all originally of the same species, and nothing but varieties. This test, so simple that it can hardly be mistaken, serves with sufficient accuracy to determine the real character, and when the naturalist properly applies the laws of hybridity, that is, admits a modification of these laws in all cases or in all the different genera subjected to his examination, then he is armed with sufficient data to render his labors accurate and effective. But however pains-taking or correct in other particulars, when he assumes that hybridity is a unit, and rigidly applies this in all cases, or to families widely remote in other respects, his labors, from this defect, must be comparatively valueless.

The instance already referred to, where hybridity was thus presented, was as follows:—The mule, as is well-known, is the offspring of the horse and ass. It does not, in its turn, reproduce itself, therefore the horse and ass were different species. Prichard and others applied this test, or marked this test, in the case of human beings, of whites and negroes, and proved by it that they were of the same species. It was seen that white men cohabited with negro women, and the offspring in turn, reproduced itself, and consequently that the parents were of the same species. Or, as this has passed as current coin hitherto, and seemed perfectly satisfactory, indeed wholly unanswerable to naturalists and men of science as well as others, it is best, perhaps, to place it in distinct and categorical terms before the reader. 1st. It is universally admitted by naturalists that incapacity in the offspring to reproduce itself demonstrates the different species of the progenitors, while, on the contrary, a capacity in the offspring to beget offspring in its turn demonstrates similarity of species in the progenitors. 2d. The mule, or the offspring of the horse and ass, does not reproduce itself, therefore the horse and ass are different species. 3d. The mulatto offspring of the white man and negro woman does beget offspring, therefore the white man and negro woman are of the same species.

This was the assumption and the reasoning of Prichard and other European ethnologists, and if hybridity were a unit, or principle of rigid and uniform character in all cases, in human beings as in animals and vegetables, in the case of the white man and negress, exactly as in that of the horse and ass—then, indeed, would the inference seem unavoidable that whites and negroes constituted in fact a single species. But they were guilty of two fundamental errors in this matter—an error of fact, and an error of reasoning, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that both were errors of fact. At all events, facts that demonstrate difference of species in whites and negroes beyond possibility of doubt were distorted into proofs which seemed to demonstrate sameness or similarity of species with equal certainty.

Hybridity, as has been said, is not a unit, is not a fixed, uniform law or principle. A moment’s consideration is sufficient to convince any intelligent mind of this truth. Each form of life has necessarily its own character, its own specific qualities, and the laws governing its reproductive powers must be in correspondence, and just as differently manifested as any of its specific qualities. To suppose that the laws of the phenomena governing the reproductive functions of the horse and ass are exactly similar to those manifested in the case of human beings, is as absurd as to suppose that the term of gestation, the length of life, the mode of their locomotion, or any other qualities—should be exactly the same in both cases. But nothing more need be said. It is perfectly obvious that the laws of reproduction must be radically different in the human creatures, and therefore the inference of Pritchard and others, that whites and negroes were of the same species, because the mulatto, unlike the mule, did reproduce itself, is simply absurd. But they were still further and still more vitally mistaken in respect to their assumptions of fact. The mulatto, literally speaking, or in the ordinary sense, does beget offspring, but mulattoism is as positively sterile as muleism. The phenomenon of hybridity is manifested, as has been stated, in conformity with the nature of the beings concerned, and as the human creatures are separated by an almost measureless as well as impassable distance from the horse and ass, the laws of hybridity are, of course, correspondingly different. Instead of a single generation, as in the animals referred to, sterility in the human creatures is embraced within four generations, where a boundary is arrived at as absolutely fixed and impassable as the single generation in the case of the former.