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

by John H. Van Evrie

But while our writers and men of science have been, and quite generally are even now, wholly ignorant of these relations, indeed, worse still, in slavish subserviency to European dictation, have accepted the absurd theories of the former in explanation of the phenomena constantly presented to their view, our people have practically solved their natural relations to the inferior race, and placed or rather retained the negro in his normal condition.

There are eight millions of white people and four millions of negroes in juxtaposition. The latter are, in domestic subordination and social adaptation, corresponding with their wants, their instincts, their faculties, the nature with which God has endowed them. They are different and subordinate creatures, and they are in a different and subordinate social position, harmonizing with their natural relations to the superior race, and therefore they are in their normal condition. This, if not exactly a self-evident, is certainly an unavoidable truth—a truth that no amount or extent of sophistry, self-deception, authoritative dictum, or perverted reasoning can gainsay a moment, for it rests upon facts, fixed forever by the hand of the Creator. The negro is different from, and inferior to the white man. He is in a different and inferior position, and therefore, of necessity, is in a normal condition. That, as a general proposition, is true beyond doubt, for there is no place or material for doubt. God has made him different—widely different, as has been shown; that difference is as unchangeable as are any of the works of the Almighty. He has therefore designed him, of course, for different purposes—for a different and subordinate social position whenever and wherever the races are in juxtaposition. It needs no argument to prove this truth, great and startling as it must be to those who have never before contemplated it. The facts—the simple, palpable, unchangeable facts—only need to be stated, and the inference, the inductive fact, the absolute truth, is unavoidable. God has made the negro different from, and inferior to the white man. They are in juxtaposition—the human law corresponds with the higher law of the Almighty; the negro is in a different and subordinate position, and therefore in a normal condition. But it may be said by some that while this is so, or while the negro, in juxtaposition, must be subordinate, it does not follow that the actual condition of things at the South is essentially right, natural, and just. They would be mistaken, however, for the facts involved do not permit or admit of any such assertion. The white man is superior, the negro is inferior, and therefore the inference is unavoidable that the latter is in his normal condition whenever the social law or legal adaptation is in harmony with these natural relations of white men and negroes. It is true that a wide field for inquiry, for comparison, for arriving at relative truth, is here opened to our view, but the simple, precise, and unavoidable truth remains unaltered and unalterable—the different and inferior negro is in a different and inferior social position at the South, and therefore in harmony with the natural relations of the races, he is in a normal condition. If it were said that the existing condition were defective—that in some respects injustice were done the negro—that there was a wide field for improvement in the social habits of the South—in short, for the progress and improvement of Southern society, then there would be reason, perhaps, in such suggestions. But to say or to assert that the condition of the negro at the South was wrong or unjust in its essential character, would be altogether absurd, and an abuse of language that none but those wholly ignorant of the facts involved would ever, or could ever, indulge in. The simple statement of the facts lying at the base of Southern society, however false our perceptions of them, or whatever our ignorance of them, or whatever may be the perversity of those who will not seek to comprehend them, is sufficient, when clearly presented, to convince every rational mind that the negro is in his normal condition only when in social subordination to the white man.

But however obvious or irresistible this momentous truth, when it is thus forced upon the mind as an inductive fact, it is also demonstrable through processes of comparison, which, if not quite so direct or palpable, are equally certain and reliable. And the normal condition of the negro, or the social adaptation at the South, necessarily involves the protection as well as the subordination of the inferior race. The two things are in fact inseparable, as in the case of parents and children, or the relations of husband and wife, or indeed any condition of things resting on a basis of natural law.

Any one capable of reasoning at all must see that four millions of subordinate negroes in juxtaposition with eight millions of superior white men, must be in a subordinate social position—that the instinct of self-preservation, the primal law, obviously demands that the superior shall place the inferior in just such position as its own interests and safety may need—that it may and should even destroy it, utterly obliterate it from the earth, if its own safety requires it—though such instance never could happen unless some outside force or intermeddling brought it about—that the mode or manner, or special means are of secondary consideration, and to be determined or worked out according to circumstances, the habits, progress, and condition of the master race. Contemplating, therefore, the great existing fact—the juxtaposition of vast masses of widely different social elements at the South—the inference is unavoidable, that it is the right and the duty of the dominant race to provide for the wants of such a population, and that, for the common welfare and safety, they may and must place the negro element just where their own reason and experience assure them is proper and desirable. This has been done, and is done, but instead of the State or government providing directly for these things, individuals are left, to a great extent at least, to provide for the wants of the subordinate race. The motive of personal interest, therefore, is brought into action—a motive often, doubtless, stronger than affection, and though, like the latter, it will not always save the weak and dependent from wrong and cruelty, it usually serves as a sufficient protection. The father loves his child, the being so inferior, so weak and dependent on his affection. He has absolute control over the actions, the labor, the time, habits, etc., of his son, may compel him to labor for him, or hire out or sell his services to another, and it is only on rare occasions that this natural affection of the father is not sufficient protection for the offspring, and the State is compelled to interpose its power to save the latter from the parent’s cruelty. It is the utmost interest of the father to treat his offspring with kindness, and though affection is the dominant feeling, his real interests are always advanced by this treatment, so that it might be said that the man who loves his children most will have the most useful and the best children. And in the relation of husband and wife a similar result necessarily follows: the husband who loves his wife most tenderly will—other things being equal—always have the best wife, and the wife who loves her husband and children most devotedly will be rewarded by the greatest love and the greatest happiness in return.

In the case of the master and so-called slave, interest instead of affection is the dominant feeling; but even here they are inseparable as well as in the relations just referred to. It is the utmost interest of the master to treat his negro subject with the greatest kindness, and in exact proportion as he does so, he calls into action the affections of the latter. Every one who practically understands the negro, knows that the strongest affection his nature is capable of feeling is love for his master—that affection for wife, parents, or offspring, all sink into insignificance in comparison with the strong and devoted love he gives to the superior being who guides, cares, and provides for all his wants.

There is, then, this radical difference between parent and child, and master and “slave”—the first, prompted by affection, is rewarded by interest, while the latter, impelled by interest, is followed by affection; and the grand result in both cases is happiness, well-being, the mutual benefit and common welfare of all concerned—that universal reward which God bestows on all His creatures, when, recognizing their natural relations to each, they adapt their domestic habits and social regulations to those relations.

The popular mind of the North, so deplorably ignorant of all the facts of Southern society, has a general conception, perhaps, of negro subordination at the South, but none whatever of the reciprocities of the social condition. The negro—a different and inferior creature—must be in a social position harmonizing with this great, fundamental, and unchangeable fact; but while he owes obedience, natural, organic, and spontaneous, he also has the natural right of protection. Or, in other words, while he owes obedience to his master, the latter owes him protection, care, guidance, and provision for all his wants, and he can not relieve himself of this duty or these duties without damaging himself. For example: the master who overworked his people, or under-fed them, or treated them cruelly in any way, would necessarily compromise his interests to the precise extent that he practiced, or sought to practice, these cruelties. They would become feeble from over-exertion, or weak and prostrated from the want of healthy food; while indifference to the master’s interests, sullenness, perhaps sometimes fierce hate, would impel them to damage his property, and in any and every case their labor would be less valuable. Furthermore, God has so adapted the negro that he can not be overworked; and though the master or overseer may kill him in the effort, he can not, nor can any human power, force him beyond a given point, or compel him to that extreme exertion which the poor white laborer of Europe is often forced into. Subordination and protection, the obedience of the inferior and the care of the superior, the subjection of the negro and the guidance of the white man, are therefore inseparable, and when we outgrow and abandon the mental habits borrowed from Europe and designate the social condition where these elements exist, by a proper term or word, it should be a compound one that embodies both of these things.

Such, then, are the domestic habits and social adaptations at the South, or where widely different races are in juxtaposition, and which, in truth, spring from the necessities of social existence whenever they are found together. But, as already remarked, the truth, essential justice, beneficence, and necessity of this condition—this subordination on the one hand and protection on the other—while an obvious, and, indeed, unavoidable conclusion or inference from the great and unchangeable facts involved—are equally demonstrable by comparison with other conditions. Or, in other words, while the mere statement of existing facts, in their natural order and their true relations, irresistibly and unavoidably forces the mind to the conclusion that Southern society reposes on a basis of natural law and everlasting truth, its essential justice, naturalness, and beneficence may be made equally clear to the mind by comparing it with other conditions where these elements are found to exist. We absolutely know nothing of the negro of antiquity except that recently revealed on the Egyptian monuments, through the labors of Champolion and others, and possibly a glimpse occasionally of negro populations through Roman history. The ignorant Abolitionists, and the scarcely less ignorant European ethnologists, on this subject, fancy negro empires and grand civilizations long since extinct; and Livingstone and others, with the false and nonsensical notion that there should be found remains of these imaginary empires, of course succeeded in finding them occasionally, or the interests of the “friends of humanity” would languish, and perhaps subside altogether. But the author desires to say to the reader that while, as an anatomist, he knows that an isolated civilized negro is just as impossible as a straight-haired or white-skinned negro, he has also consulted history, ancient and modern, European and Oriental, Pagan and Christian, and in the tout ensemble of the experience of mankind there is nothing written—book, pamphlet, or manuscript—in the world that casts any light whatever on this matter, or that authorizes the notion that populations, where the negro element dominated, had a history. Since the great “anti-slavery” imposture of modern times began, there are many writers and lecturers who assume such things, as that negro empires had often existed and exercised vast influences on the progress of mankind—that the rich and powerful republic of Carthage was negro—that even Hannibal, the man who so long contested the empire of the world with the grand old Romans, was a negro—indeed, some of these ignorant and impious people have assumed that Christ was a negro; but it is repeated, there is no negro history, nothing whatever, except what we now see on the Egyptian monuments, that indicate the position of the negro or the condition of society when in juxtaposition with white men.

As depicted on the monuments, the negro was then as he is now at the South, in a position of subordination; while isolated, he was as he is now, a simple, unproductive, non-advancing savage. In this condition of isolation he multiplies himself, and therefore is in a natural condition. His acute and powerful senses make amends for his limited intelligence, and enable him to contend with the fiercer and more powerful creatures of the animal creation, while the fervid suns and luxuriant soils of the tropics, where the earth may be said to produce spontaneously, enable him to live with little more exertion than simply to gather their rich and nutritious products. It is a natural condition, so far as it goes, for, as has been said, he increases and multiplies his kind; but it can not have been designed as the permanent condition of the race, for that involves the anomaly of waste, uselessness, a broad blank in the economy of the universe. But as that aspect of the subject will be discussed in another place, it need not be entered on here.

The condition of savagism, or whatever we may term it, where the negro is isolated and without any thing to call his wonderful powers of imitation into action, where he is simply a useless, non-advancing heathen, surely no one, however perverted his mind may be on this subject, will venture to say is a preferable condition to that which he enjoys at the South. It might suffice to say that he increases with more than double rapidity, to demonstrate the fact of his superiority of condition in the latter; but there are moral considerations that show this with still greater distinctness. It is true that we must not take our own standard to test this matter, or we must not assume that that which would constitute our own happiness would also secure the greatest happiness of the negro. Of course the white man never did and never could live such a life as the isolated negro; but, contemplating the negro in the South as he now exists, in comparison with the condition of the isolated negro in Africa, will any one or can any one doubt for an instant the immense superiority of the former condition? He is cared for in his childhood by his master as well as his mother, taken care of when ill, always supplied with an abundance of food and clothing, given every chance for the development of his imitative faculties, permitted to marry generally as he pleases, to feel always that he has a guide and protector, and a constant, peaceful home; and in his old age will be cared for and decently buried with all the sanctions and comforts of the Christian religion. In Africa, a negro, isolated from the white man, rarely has a home, rarely knows his father, is left unprotected in his childhood to all the chances and uncertainties of savagism, sometimes nearly starved, at other times gorged with unwholesome food, without any possible chance for education or the development of his faculties, liable at any moment of his life, in some wild eruption of hostile tribes, to be carried off a slave, perhaps to be eaten by the victors, and after running the gauntlet of savagism, if he lives to old age, to be left to perish of hunger, if no longer able to seek food for himself. But it is quite unnecessary to multiply words on this point; the condition of the negro in America, under the broad glare of American civilization and the beneficent influences of Christianity, is so vastly and indeed immeasurably superior to that of the African or isolated negro, that we have no terms in our language that can truly or fully express it. We ourselves, under our beneficent democratic institutions, doubtless enjoy an extent of happiness or well-being, over that of the masses of our race in the Old World, somewhat difficult to measure or express in words, and it is reasonable to say that the negro population of the South, relatively or comparatively, enjoys even greater happiness, when contrasted with African savagism. There is, in fact, no other condition to compare with, for freedom, the imaginary state that the Abolitionists have labored for so long, is not a condition, and has an existence in their imaginations alone, and not in the actual breathing and living world about us. They have a theory, or rather an abstract idea, that the negro is a black-white man, a black Caucasian, a creature like ourselves except in color, and therefore that, placed under the same circumstances—that is, given the same rights and held to the same responsibilities—he will manifest the same qualities, etc. On this foolish assumption legislatures and individuals have acted, and both in the South and in the North considerable numbers of these people have been thrust from their normal condition into what? Why, into the condition of widely different beings.