A few years since a “slave” woman escaping from Kentucky to Ohio was recognized and taken back to her home, but on the way down the river cut the throat of her child, whom she had carried off in her flight. The Abolitionists, of course, admired and praised this bloody deed, and declared that, rather than her child should live a slave, she, with Roman sternness and French exaltation, herself destroyed its life. If they had said that the mother had killed her child because it was not permitted to have a white skin, or straight hair, or to have any other specialty of white people, it would have been quite as rational and as near the truth as to say that she killed it because it was not to grow up with the freedom of the white man. The woman was doubtless a mulatto or mongrel, who in revenge possibly for the supposed wrong, inflicted this punishment on those whom she had been taught to believe had wronged her. But while this unnatural crime was quite possible, as indeed any unnatural vice or crime is always possible to the mixed element, it is scarcely possible to the negress, whose imperative maternal instinct, as has been observed, shields her from such atrocity. The negro mother has always control and direction of her offspring at the South so long as that is needed by the latter. The master, of course, is the supreme ruler—the guide, director, the common father, the very providence of these simple and subordinate people, but while his is the directing power that sees to all their wants, and protects them in all their rights, the relations of mother and child are rarely interfered with, for both the interests of the master and the happiness of the mother demand that she should have the care and enjoy the affection of her own offspring. This, however, is confined to a limited sphere when contrasted with the instinctive habitudes and enlarged intellectualism of our own race. The negro child, in some respects, at the same age, is more intelligent than the white child. This same fact is manifested by our domestic animals. The dog or calf of six months is vastly less dependent on the mother than the human creature. The negro child, with its vastly greater approximation to the animal, is also less dependent at a certain age than the white child. As frequently stated in this work, the negro has absolutely nothing in common with animals that our own race has not.
There is an impassable chasm, wide as it is deep and everlasting, between the human and animal creation. But while the negro has nothing whatever in common with animals that we ourselves have not, in all those things or qualities in a sense common to both men and animals, the negro has a vastly larger approximation to the latter. As the intelligence or the capacity of providing for itself, therefore, is more rapidly developed in the animal, so, too, in the case of the negro child, at a certain age it is less dependent on the care and affection of the mother than is that of white people. Those ignorant and perverse persons who stifle the impulses and sympathies with which God has endowed them for their kind, and engage in teaching, as they suppose, negro children, have been so impressed by this fact, that in their utter ignorance of the negro nature, they have inferred that the latter was really the superior race; they have often found a negro boy or girl of ten years, for example, whose perceptions, memory, etc., seemed to them, and, doubtless, sometimes were, more clear, prompt, and decided, than those of white children of the same age, and therefore they were quite convinced of the superiority of the negro and of the sublimity and immensity of their own labors in thus helping on the intellectual development of a wronged and down-trodden but really superior race.
But if they could have followed out the future of these children for a few years, and were persons of sufficient understanding to analyze facts at all, they would have made a still more startling discovery than that of the fancied superiority of the negro. The negro mind reaches its maturity, its complete development, at from twelve to fifteen years, and though there may be vastly more knowledge or experience, the negro of fifty has no more actual mental capacity than he had at fifteen. The faculties directly dependent on the senses are actively and rapidly developed in the negro child, but the reflective faculties, the faculties in regard to which the senses are mere avenues through which external influences are conveyed to the brain, are absent, of course, in the negro, for there is an absence of brain itself, and therefore it is just as absurd to imagine him possessing them as to suppose the sense of sight in any creature without eyes or without an organism for that faculty. The white boy, on the contrary, only begins at this age to manifest the reflective faculties, which, constantly expanding, doubtless reach their maturity from twenty to twenty-five. Of course the mind may continue to expand in a sense for many years, for a life-time, but the actual mental capabilities, like those of the body, doubtless reach their normal standard from twenty to twenty-five. Thus, a white boy and negro of ten, with the faculties directly dependent on the senses possibly most active in the latter, begin a year or two later to diverge from each other. The negro at fifteen, with scarcely perceptible reflective faculties, remains stationary, while the Caucasian, with constantly increasing powers, with imagination, comparison, and reflection, superadded to the mere perceptive faculties, requires several years more for the development of his complete intellectual nature. It is not merely that the negro mind becomes stationary at twelve to fifteen, for to them it is complete development, but if we can suppose a white boy of twelve to fourteen remaining thus—mentally considered—through life, then we can form a pretty accurate conception of the mental differences between white men and negroes, for the latter are intellectually boys for ever. This is a common and familiar expression at the South, which originates in the nature and necessities of things, and the term boy expresses the intellectual existence of the negro as truthfully as the term man expresses the physical condition of the white man.
The affections harmonize, of course, with the mental nature, and the love of the negro mother corresponds with the wants of the offspring. She has a boundless affection for her infant; it grows feebler as the capacities of the child are developed; at twelve to fifteen she is relatively indifferent to it; at forty she scarcely recognizes it; and all of these phases in the maternal instinct or domestic affections of the race are in accord with its specific nature and the purposes assigned it by the Almighty Creator. Without the enlarged brain and reasoning power of the white mother, nature has made amends to the negress, and provided for the wants of her offspring by giving her a more imperative maternal instinct, that shall insure its safety and welfare. When the negro reaches maturity, at twelve to fifteen, nature has accomplished her purposes. The offspring no longer needs her care, and the mother becomes indifferent to it, and it cares little for the mother. A few years later, and she forgets it altogether, for her affections corresponding with her intellectual nature, there is no basis, or material, or space for such things. Of course, living in juxtaposition with the superior race, and the imitative faculty of the negro constantly brought into action, there is a seeming resemblance to white people in these respects. But one only needs to remember the mental qualities of the negro—the small and widely different brain, and consequently feeble, and, as compared with us, limited sphere of intellectualism, to see the absurdity of endowing the negro with domestic affections corresponding with ours. At twelve to fifteen, as has been said, the purposes of nature are accomplished. The offspring no longer needs the care of the mother—the affections with which nature endowed her are no longer needed. Why should they exist, then? Isolated in Africa, they perhaps rarely feel any interest in their offspring after the latter reach maturity, and, separated a few years, would not know them, would have no recollection of them, for there is no civilization, no social development, nothing whatever of that which we call society, and in which with us the domestic affections—the family relationship—the love of mother, wife, sisters, brothers, and offspring constitute so large and essential a part. The limited intelligence of the negro, the small brain and feeble (scarcely perceptible) reasoning faculties, it will be evident to the reader, must be accompanied by corresponding domestic affections and an emotional nature that accords with this limited intellectualism. And this is manifested in the habits, wants, and condition of the negro at the South, in his feeble and capricious love for his wife and indifference to his offspring, redeemed only in the potent and instinctive affection of the mother in its earlier years for her child. The strongest affection the negro nature is capable of feeling is love of his master, his guide, protector, friend, and indeed Providence, who takes care of him in sickness and shelters and provides for him in old age and helplessness. God has adapted all His creatures for the wisest and most beneficent purposes, has endowed the negro with affections harmonizing with his wants, has given the negro mother imperative maternal instincts that shall secure the safety and welfare of her offspring, but little more, for little more is needed; for society or civilization neither does nor can belong to negro existence, while affection for his master, love and devotion to him who protects and provides for him through life, is both a necessity and an enjoyment, and therefore God has made it the strongest and most enduring feeling of the negro nature. Of the four or five millions in our midst, great numbers are the children or grandchildren of African parents, a few even are of African birth, but probably not one has any distinct memory, recollection, or tradition of their forefathers[[3]]—not one that cherishes any past family sentiment or affection of any kind whatever, indeed not one that even preserves an African name! We trace back not alone the general but the family histories, the loves and affections, the hopes and fears, and sacrifices and sufferings of our pilgrim forefathers of two or three centuries ago, because all this accords with the large brain and expanded intellectualism, and the corresponding strength and breadth of the affections, which may be said to be the motive forces which impel the whole social phenomena in question. But the negro neither has nor can have any thing in common with this. He has no capacities of the kind, no civilization or social development, and therefore no wants of the kind, no affections even resembling our own, though at the same time God has endowed him with all that is necessary to his happiness and to the mutual welfare of both races when in juxtaposition.
[3]. These facts, and some others mentioned in this chapter, were referred to in a previous one, but they need to be repeated in this connection to fix them fully on the mind of the reader, as well as to explain the subject here under discussion.
The affection of the mother for her child, and the husband for the wife, though widely different from that which we witness in our own race, is abundantly sufficient for the purposes that nature has in view, and with the accomplishment of these purposes they subside. The affection for the master, which is necessary to their welfare through life, remains—the sole enduring affection of the negro nature, as it is obviously the sole permanent want of the negro existence. The laws and legislation of the Southern States generally accord with these facts of the negro nature, for though those who have made these laws were unable to explain them even to themselves, their every-day experience and practical knowledge of the negro enable them to legislate for the wants and welfare of these people as well and justly as for themselves. Probably all, or nearly all of the States forbid the separation of the mother and child, so long as the maternal instinct remains, or her care of her offspring is needed by the latter; and even if there be no law of this kind on the statute-book of some States, it is in the hearts and instincts of the dominant race, and is equally potent in the form of public sentiment to prevent such an outrage on nature as the forced separation of mother and child.
There are, doubtless, instances where wrong is done at the South, as well as elsewhere, to the subordinate negro as well as to our own kind, but with the same political and social system as that of the North, and with vastly more political intelligence and faithfulness to the principles of that system, it is only reasonable to conclude that, in regard to the negro element, the same enlightened spirit of justice and fair dealing generally pervades Southern society. And when it is remembered that the social adaptation is in harmony with the natural relations of the races, and not only that there is no social conflict, but, on the contrary, that it is the utmost interest of the master to treat his negroes kindly, then whatever the temporary exceptions, the general result must be in favor of the happiness and welfare of these people.
CHAPTER XIX.
MARRIAGE.
Nothing, perhaps, is so repugnant to the northern mind as the notion that marriage does not exist among the “slaves” of the South, and the Abolition lecturers have given this subject the most prominent place in their terrible bill of indictment against their southern brethren. The spectacle, or the seeming spectacle, of four millions of human beings living without marriage, without family, without children, with nothing but offspring, shut out, like the brutes that perish, from all the household charities, and doomed to live in universal concubinage, as it has been termed, was, to the northern and European mind, such a stupendous outrage on “humanity,” that we need not wonder at their fierce indignation, or at the wild and unsparing denunciation heaped upon the authors of such boundless and unparalleled iniquity. Especially were northern women shocked and indignant, and above all others, the women of New England were excited at times to a “Divine fury” when contemplating this mighty “wickedness.” Our fair countrywomen are believed to be equally virtuous and lovely, but the domestic education of those of New England, in some respects, is more admirable than that of others or any other country. They are taught to labor, to be their own housekeepers, to regard life, and the duties of life, as a solemn mission to be faithfully and conscientiously fulfilled, and though it imparts a certain materialism bordering on hardness, perhaps, to the New England woman, it is associated with such simple and transparent love of truth, and such an earnest and abiding sense of duty, that the harsher features of the character are lost in these gentler and more exalted qualities. Hence they are taught to regard a violation of the family relation as the one most heinous and unpardonable sin. To women thus educated, with the utmost abhorrence of any violation of marital obligations, the seeming universal disregard of this relation, and the duties embraced in it, among the “slaves” of the South, was probably the most transcendent wrong that the mind could conceive of, and the “anti-slavery” delusion of the North has doubtless been increased to a considerable extent by this strictness or severity of female education. And if the facts were what they suppose, then indeed would their indignation and abhorrence be just enough, but strange that they should never have doubted or mistrusted these facts. Many of the most intelligent have known their sisters of the South, known them to be as virtuous, refined and womanly as themselves, and yet living every day of their lives in the shadow of this mighty wrong, and in the midst of this supposititious iniquity. Could that be possible? Could woman retain her purity, her womanly delicacy, or expand into the full stature of a true womanhood with such surroundings, in an atmosphere thus corrupt and corrupting, in a social condition where four millions of people were living without marriage, in open and utter disregard of the fundamental principle of morality as well as of social order? No, indeed, it could not be possible, and, as remarked, it is strange that the women of the North have not had misgivings of this kind, or have not mistrusted the assumed facts of “negro slavery” in this respect. But before the actual facts involved are presented to the reader, it is necessary to clearly understand what marriage itself is. It may be defined as the pledge of two persons of different sex to live together for life—pledged to each other and to society, for the presence of witnesses to a marriage contract or a marriage ceremony has simply this meaning, and none other. With us marriage is a mere civil or legal contract. It is the same in France, and, to a certain extent, in England, but in other countries it is combined with religious considerations, and the Catholic church makes it a sacrament. This is marriage, as ordinarily understood, as the necessities of the social order compel us to accept and regard it. Nevertheless, every one’s instincts will assure him that marriage consists in reality of vastly more than this description of it. A man and woman may pledge themselves to each other and to society—all the legal and customary forms may be complete, and yet we know, or may know that there is no true marriage, for these parties may be entirely indifferent, or even objects of actual dislike to each other. The obligations or duty to society may be fulfilled, the interests of families provided for, the legal rights of the parties themselves properly protected, even the welfare of offspring appropriately guarded, nevertheless, if the parties are not united by affection, by those mysterious affinities with which God Himself has endowed them, and for this precise purpose, then there is no true marriage, and, abstractly considered, they are as entirely separate as if they stood on different sides of the Atlantic instead of at the altar where the ceremony is being performed. It is clear, therefore, that marriage, truly considered, involves vastly more than the mere external ceremony or legal formularies, which the universal interest demands, however, as an essential accompaniment. “Increase and multiply” is an ordinance of nature as well as the command of holy writ. All the innumerable tribes of inferior beings obey this command with a regularity, order and completeness that admit of no exception or interruption. They are all governed by instinct, by a wise necessity which impels them to fulfill this Divine decree and in modes adapted to their specific nature. Birds choose their mates, are faithful to them, share together, in some instances, the care and nurture of the common offspring, and all other animals of the higher order exhibit a tendency to form these temporary unions. But in addition to the natural instinct impelling us, in common with all other creatures, to fulfill the universal command to “multiply and replenish the earth,” the Almighty Creator has given us reason and endowed us with capacities of affection which are designed to guide us in these respects. A youth and maiden are thrown into each other’s society, an acquaintance, an intimacy, a mutual affection and reciprocal love follow. They feel themselves united, not merely harmonized, but morally consolidated, as it were, into a single being, and they mutually pledge each other to be thus as long as they both shall live. They are united, not by their pledges to each other, their mutual declarations of affection, but by those beautiful and mysterious affinities that God has planted in the soul itself, and the pledges and promises are the mere outward expression of their actual existence.
It is thus sometimes said that marriages are made in Heaven, for there is an eternal fitness, a complete unity or oneness in these impalpable agencies which, whatever may be the seeming incongruities of character in some instances, thus link together for ever these human souls as well as persons. Alas! that it should so often be mistaken—that pride and vanity, or a groveling and sinful lust, should be imposed on the simple and loving heart of woman as the counterpart of her own glowing and beautiful affection; and the man guilty of this frightful sin, this “gallantry,” as the corrupt and rotten society of Europe designates the desecration of a woman’s soul, commits a crime infinitely more atrocious than murder or the mere destruction of the body of his victim. Unfortunately, too, accident, imperfect education, circumstances, a thousand things may and do lead both parties to mistake each other or themselves, and to rush into marriage only to discover a few months later, that they were deluded and deceived, and instead of that perfect unity of feeling, of affection, of soul, which they had believed in, there were contradictions and repugnances that no gentleness of temper or strength of reason or length of time could ever change, and therefore in sullen despair they settle down into hopeless apathy, or still worse, shock and scandalize society by a reckless violation of its laws as well as of the personal vows so sacredly pledged at the altar. But when the instincts of natural affection have been guided by reason and a true perception of the wants and nature of each other, and that perfect unity of feeling and of purpose exists which flows from this reciprocal adaptation of the parties, then there is marriage in its true sense, for then two relatively imperfect beings are united into one complete whole. And if we could suppose this husband and wife living for themselves alone, and isolated from all association with others, then nothing more would be needed. They were united by affection, by adaptation, by true perceptions of each other’s wants, by those mysterious affinities which we call love, in short, by an organic and eternal fitness, and their mutual pledges would be abundantly sufficient for themselves. But we are not permitted to suppose such a thing as isolation or separation from others, or from society. Our existence is necessarily complex, and our duties relative as well as personal, and therefore, marriage must be witnessed, and pledges given to society as well as made to each other, for the due fulfilment of the duties involved. A modern doctrine, if it may be called thus, has been set up that people who have mistaken their “affinities,” and only discovered their true ones after marriage, have a right to correct their mistakes and form a new marital union which they may suppose essential to their happiness. But they would disregard utterly their relations to others, their duties to society, their reciprocal obligations to their fellows, and trample on the fundamental principle of social order, indeed, society would itself be rendered utterly impossible could such individual caprice and selfishness prevail to any considerable extent. All their so-called arguments against the “institution” of marriage are, therefore, simply absurd, for while their conception of an essential portion of it may be correct enough as far as it goes, the assumption that the parties are alone responsible to each other, and are not called on to give pledges to society in the form of a civil contract or legal and indissoluble marriage, is founded on a total misconception or total disregard of their relations to others and of the duties necessarily involved. But enough on this point. Marriage is a natural relation that springs spontaneously from the necessities of human existence, and though a civil contract, it has a deeper and holier significance than the mere external ceremony or pledge which is thus given to the world as well as to each other.