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

by John H. Van Evrie

The Polar or Esquimaux race has been least known of all, and prior to the explorations of that true hero and true son of science, the late Dr. Kane, was scarcely known except in name. It is both Asiatic and American, but which continent is its birth-place is matter of doubt. The facilities for passing from one continent to the other were doubtless much greater at some former period than at present, and not only men but animals may have done so with ease. Except a few well-known species of animals and vegetables, which are essential to the well-being of the Caucasian, and which have accompanied him in all his migrations, each species has its own centre of existence, beyond or outside of which it is limited to a determinate existence. The Arctic animals are quite numerous, and differ widely from all others, but they are absolutely the same in Asia as in America, and therefore must have passed from one to the other, and man, however subordinate or inferior to other races endowed by nature with ample powers of locomotion and migration, could meet with only trifling obstacles in passing from one continent to the other. This race, though thus far of little or no importance, is doubtless superior to the Negro, for the necessities of its existence, the terrible struggle for very life in those bleak and desolate regions, infer the possession of powers superior to those of a race whose centre of life is in the fertile and luxuriant tropics, where nature produces spontaneously, and where the idle and sensual Negro only needs to gather these products to exist and multiply his kind.

Finally, we have the Negro—last and least, the lowest in the scale but possibly the first in the order of Creation, for there are many reasons in the nature and structure of things that indicate, if they do not altogether warrant, the inference that the Negro was first and the Caucasian latest in the programme or order of Creation. The typical, woolly-haired Negro may have been created in tropical Asia, and carried thence to Africa, as in modern times he has been carried to tropical America. Like other subordinate races, it never migrates, but the extensive traces of its former existence in Asia show beyond doubt that that was either its primal home, or that it had been carried there by the Caucasian long anterior to the historic era. But it is now found in its pure state or specific form in Africa alone, and even here large portions of it have undergone extensive adulteration. Our knowledge of Africa is very limited and consequently very imperfect. African travelers, explorers, missionaries, etc., ignorant of the ethnology, of the physiology, of the true nature of the Negro, and moreover, bitten by modern philanthropy, a disease more loathsome and fatal to the moral than small-pox or plague to the physical nature, have been bewildered, and perverted, and rendered unfit for truthful observation or useful discovery before they set foot on its soil or felt a single flush of its burning sun. With the monstrous conception that the Negro was a being like themselves, with the same instincts, wants, etc., and the same (latent) mental capacities, all they saw, felt, or reasoned upon in Africa was seen through this false medium, and therefore of little or no value. Thus Barth and Livingston encountering a mongrel tribe or community, with, of course, a certain degree or extent of civilization—the result of Caucasian innervation, or perhaps the remains of a former pure white population, note it down and spread it before the world as evidence of Negro capacity, and an indication of the future progress of the race! Myriads and countless myriads of white men have lived and died on the soil of Africa; vast populations and entire nations have emigrated to that continent. At one time there were half a million of Christians (white) and forty thousand inmates of religious houses in the valley of the Nile alone, while three hundred Christian Bishops assembled at Carthage, and it will be a reasonable assumption to say that since the Christian era, there have been five hundred millions of whites in Africa. What has become of them? They have not emigrated—have not been slaughtered in battle, nor destroyed by pestilence, nor devoured by famine, and yet these countless hosts, these innumerable millions, these Christian devotees and holy bishops have all disappeared, as utterly perished as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up. With the downfall of the Roman empire, civilization receded from Africa, and the white population were gradually swallowed up by mongrelism. The Negro, being the predominant element, absorbed, or rather annihilated, the lesser one, and the result is now seen in numerous, almost countless, mixed hybrid or mongrel tribes and populations spread all over that continent. It is certainly possible, indeed probable, that there are two or three, or more species of men, closely approximating, it is true, nevertheless specifically different from the woolly-haired or typical Negro. One of these (the Hottentots or Bushmen) with the true negro features but of dirty yellow color, it would seem almost certain must be a separate species; but until some one better qualified to judge, than those hitherto relied on, has investigated this subject, it is only safe to assume but a single species, and that the other and numerous populations of Africa, however resembling or approximating to the typical Negro, are hybrids and mongrels, the effete and expiring remains of the mighty populations and imposing civilizations that once flourished upon its soil. There may be also other species besides the Mongol in Asia, and beside the Malay in Oceanica, and it is quite probable that some species have totally perished. But it is certain that those thus briefly discussed now exist; that their location, their history, as far as they can be said to have a history, their physical qualities and mental condition, in short, their specific characters, are plainly marked and well understood. Nevertheless, and though all this belongs to the domain of fact, and it is as absurd to question it as it would be to question the existence of diverse species in any of the genera or families of the animal creation, the “world” generally holds to the notion of a single human race. It is not designed to expressly argue this point, for, to the American mind, it is so obvious, if not self-evident, that the Human Creation is composed of diverse species, that argument is misplaced if not absolutely absurd. The European people rarely see the Negro or other species of men, and therefore the notion of a single human race or species (with them) is natural enough, indeed a mental necessity. Ethnologists—men of vast erudition, of noble intellect and honest and conscientious intentions—have devoted their powers to this subject, and volume upon volume has been published to demonstrate the assumption of a single race. Buffon, Blumenbach, Tiedemann, Prichard, even Cuvier himself, have given in their adherence to this dogma, or rather it should be said have set out with the assumption of a single race and collected a vast amount of material—of fact or presumed fact—to demonstrate its supposed truth. Nor is it an easy matter to explode their sophistries or to disprove their assumptions. With great and admitted claims to scientific acquirement and powers of reasoning, they combine undoubted honesty of intention and seemingly careful and patient investigation, and the amount or extent of evidence adduced, the elaborate and mighty array of fact, of learned and imposing authority appealed to, and the fatiguing if not unwarrantable argument put forward, made it, and still make it difficult to reply to them or to disprove their assumptions. Any question, no matter what its nature, or however deficient in the elements of truth, still admits of argument, and falsehood may often lead astray the reason even when the judgment itself is convinced to the contrary. And these European advocates of the dogma of a single race have such a boundless field for discussion, can so bewilder and fatigue the reason as well as pervert the imagination by their plausible arguments, drawn from the analysis of animal life, that it is not wonderful they should lead astray the popular mind; nor is it surprising that those among us claiming to be men of science should bow to their authority, for though common sense rejects their arguments, there are few of sufficient mental independence to withstand that authority, when backed up by such an imposing array of distinguished names. But the strong common sense that distinguishes our people will not be, indeed, cannot be, deceived on this subject. The American or the Southern knows that the Negro is a Negro, and is not a Caucasian, just as clearly, absolutely and unmistakably as he knows that black is black and is not white, that a man is a man and is not a woman—that a pigeon is a pigeon and is not a robin—or a shad a shad and not a salmon. He sees negro parents have negro offspring; that Indians have Indian offspring; and that whites have white offspring, “each after its kind,” with the same regularity, uniformity and perfect certainty that is witnessed in all other forms of existence. There is not a white man or woman in the Union who, if told of such a thing as white parents with negro offspring, or negroes with white offspring, would believe it, even if sworn to by a million of witnesses. Such a belief or such a conception would be as monstrous, and indeed impossible, as to suppose that robins had begotten pigeons or horses asses. And the constant witnessing of this—this undeviating and perpetual order in the economy of animal life, demonstrates the specific character of the Negro beyond doubt or possible mistake. Irishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, etc., come here, settle down, become citizens, and their offspring born and raised on American soil differ in no appreciable or perceptible manner from other Americans. But Negroes may have been brought here three centuries ago, and their offspring of to-day is exactly as it was then, as absolutely and specifically unlike the American as when the race first touched the soil and first breathed the air of the New World. It is not intended, as already observed, to argue this matter, for it is a palpable and unavoidable fact that Negroes are a separate species; and though in succeeding chapters of this work the specific qualities are examined in detail, these detailed demonstrations are merely designed to present the physical differences in order to determine the moral relations, and not by any means to demonstrate a fact always palpable to the senses. Even those foolish people, disposed to pervert terms or play upon words—to admit the fact, thus palpable, but ready to confound and distort the reason by the application or use of false terms, cannot avoid the inevitable conclusion of distinct species. To conceal or keep out of sight this truth, some have thus admitted these every day seen and unmistakable specific differences in dividing races, but a silly as strange perversity has prompted them to use the term “permanent varieties” instead of “species,” as if white and black were variations and not specialties. It is a fact, an existing, unalterable, demonstrable, and unmistakable fact, that the Negro is specifically different from ourselves—a fact uniform and invariable, which has accompanied each generation, and under every condition of circumstances, of climate, social condition, education, time and accident, from the landing at Jamestown to the present day. The Naturalist, reasoning alone on this basis of fact, says, that which has been uniform and undeviating for three hundred years, in all kinds of climate and under all kinds of circumstances, in a state of “freedom” or condition of “slavery,” under the burning Equator and amid the snows of Canada, without change or symptom of change, must have been thus three thousand years ago. And he reasons truly, for the excavations of Champolion and others demonstrate the specific character of this race four thousand years ago, with as absolute and unmistakable certainty as it is now actually demonstrated to the external sense of the present generation. And the Naturalist, reasoning still further on this basis of fact, says, “that which has existed four thousand years, without the slightest change or modification, which in all kinds of climate and under every condition of circumstances preserves its integrity and transmits, in the regular and normal order, to each succeeding generation the exact and complete type of itself, must have been thus at the beginning, and when the existing order was first called into being by the Almighty Creator.” And contemplating the subject from this stand-point, and reasoning from analogy, or exactly as we do in respect to other and all other forms of existence, the conclusion is irresistible and unavoidable that the several human races or species originally came into being exactly as they now exist, as we know they have existed through all human experience, and without a re-creation, must continue to exist so long as the world itself lasts, or the existing order remains. But a large portion of the “world” believe that the Bible teaches the descent of all mankind from a single pair, and consequently that there must have been a supernatural interposition at some subsequent period, which changed the human creation into its actual and existing form of being. And if there has been, at any time a special revelation made to man, and supernatural interposition in regard to other things, then this alteration or re-creation of separate species is no more irrational or improbable than other things pertaining to that revelation, and which are universally assented to by the religious world. A revelation is necessarily supernatural—that is, in direct contradiction to the normal order; but it may be said that the Creator is not the slave of His own laws, and in His immaculate wisdom and boundless power might see fit to change the order of the human creation; and certainly the same Almighty power which took the Hebrews over the Red Sea on dry land, that saved a pair of all living things in the ark of Noah, or dispersed the builders of Babel, could, with equal ease, reform, or re-create human life, and in future ordain that instead of one there should be several species of men. This is a matter, however, in regard to which the author does not assume to decide, to question, to venture an opinion, or even to hazard a conjecture. It is clearly and absolutely beyond the reach of human intelligence, and therefore not within the province of legitimate enquiry. The Almighty has, in His infinite wisdom and boundless beneficence, hidden from us many things, a knowledge of which would doubtless injure us, and the origin of the human races belongs to this catalogue. Men may labor to investigate it, to tear aside the veil the Creator has drawn about it, to unlock the mystery in which He has shrouded it, and after millions of years thus appropriated, come back to the starting-point, the simple, palpable, unavoidable truth. They exist, but why or wherefore, whither they came or whence they go, is beyond the range of human intelligence. We only know, and are only permitted to know, that the several species now known to exist have been exactly as at present in their physical natures and intellectual capacities, through all human experience and without a supernatural interposition or re-creation, must continue thus through countless ages, and as long as the existing order of creation itself continues. This we know beyond doubt or possible mistake, while, whether it was thus at the beginning, or changed by a supernatural interposition at some subsequent period, is now, and always must be, left to conjecture. Those who interpret the Book of Genesis, or who believe that the Book of Genesis teaches the origin of the human family from a single pair, will, of course believe that the Creator subsequently changed them into their present form, while those who do not thus interpret the Bible will believe, with equal confidence perhaps, that they were created thus at the beginning. It is not, nor could it be of the slightest benefit to us to really and truly know the truth of this matter. All that is essential to our welfare we already know, or may know, if we properly apply the faculties with which the Creator has so beneficently endowed us. We only need to apply these faculties—to investigate the question—to study the differences existing among the general species of men, and compare their natures and capabilities with our own, to understand our true relations with them, and thus to secure our own happiness as well as their well-being, when placed in juxtaposition with them. All this is so obvious, and the remote and abstract question of origin so hypothetical and entirely non-essential, that it seems impossible that intelligent and conscientious men would ever seek to raise an issue on it, or that they would overlook the great practical duties involved in the question and engage in a visionary and unprofitable discussion about that of which they neither do nor can know anything whatever. Nevertheless, some few persons seem to be especially desirous to provoke an issue on this matter, not only with science but with common sense, and a certain reverend and rather distinguished gentleman has publicly and repeatedly declared “that the doctrine of a single human race underlies the whole fabric of religious belief, and if it is rejected, Christianity will be lost to mankind!” What miserable folly, if nothing worse, is this! It is a virtual declaration that we must believe or pretend to believe, what we know to be a lie, in order to preserve what we believe to be a truth. The existence of different species of men belongs to the category of physical fact—a thing subject to the decision of the senses, and belief neither has nor can have anything to do with the matter. It is true, the reverend gentleman in question may shut his eyes and remain in utter ignorance of the fact, or rather of the laws governing the fact, and while thus ignorant, may believe, or pretend to believe, that widely different things constitute the same thing—that white and black are identical—that white parents had at some remote time and in some strange and unaccountable manner given birth to Negro offspring; but what right has he to say, to those who are conscious of the fact of different species, and who know, moreover, that negroes could no more originate from white parentage than they could from dogs or cats, that they shall stultify themselves and dishonestly pretend to believe otherwise, on pain of eternal reprobation, or what he doubtless considers such, the loss of Christianity to the world? It is not the desire of the writer to either reconcile the merits of science with those peculiar interpretations of the Bible, or to exhibit any contradictions with those interpretations. An undoubting believer himself in the great doctrines of Christianity, he finds no difficulty whatever in this respect, and would desire to simply state the facts or what he knows to be truth, and leave the reader to form his own conclusions. But the seemingly predetermined design of some to make an issue on this matter, to appeal to a supposed popular bigotry and fanaticism in order to conceal the most vital and most stupendous truth of modern times—a truth underlying all our sectional difficulties, and which, truly apprehended by the mind of the masses, will instantly explode those difficulties—renders it an imperative duty to expose the folly and sophistry of those who strive to keep it out of sight. They assume that the Bible teaches the origin of all mankind from a single pair—that the Mongol, Indian, Negro, etc., with the same origin, have the same nature as the white man, and consequently have the same natural rights, and that we owe to them the same duties that we owe to ourselves or to our own race. And, moreover, they proclaim a belief in this assumption as essential to salvation, or, in other words, that if it be rejected Christianity will disappear from the world. It need not be repeated that the writer will not condescend to argue a self-evident, actually existing, every-day palpable and unavoidable physical fact, or insult the reader’s understanding by presenting proofs to show that the Negro is specifically different from himself—that is a matter beyond the province of rational discussion, and entirely within the domain of the senses; yet, as already observed, in the subsequent chapters of this work the extent of these differences separating whites and blacks will be demonstrated, their physical differences and approximations shown, in order to determine their moral relations and social adaptations. But the assumption that belief in the dogma of a single human race or species is vital to the preservation of Christianity needs to be exposed, as it is in reality as monstrous in morals as stupid and absurd in fact. We cannot believe that which we know to be untrue, and to affect such belief, however good the motive may seem, must necessarily debauch and demoralize the whole moral structure. There are many things—such as the belief in the doctrine of election, original sin, of justification by faith, that admit of belief—honest, earnest, undoubting belief—for they are abstractions and purely matters of faith that can never be brought to the test of physical demonstration, or to the standard of material fact, but the question of race—the fact of distinct races or rather the existence of species of Caucasian, Mongols, Negroes, etc., are physical facts, subject to the senses, and it is beyond the control of the will to refuse assent to their actual presence. Can a man, by taking thought, add a cubit to his stature? Can he believe himself something else—a woman, a dog, or that he does not exist—that black is white, or that red is yellow, or that the Negro is a white man? It is possible to deceive and delude ourselves, and believe or think that we believe many things which our interest, our prejudices, and our caprices prompt us to believe, but they must be things of an abstract nature, where there are no physical tests to embarrass us or to compel the will to bow to that fixed and immutable standard of truth which the Eternal has planted in the very heart of things, and which otherwise the laws of the mental organism absolutely force us to recognize. But the existence of distinct species of men does not belong to this category. It is fact, a palpable, immediate, demonstrable and unescapable fact. We know, and we cannot avoid knowing, that the negro is a negro and is not a white man, and therefore we cannot believe, however much we may strive to do so, that he is the same being that we are, or in other words, that all mankind constitute a single race or species. All that is possible or permissible is to make liars and hypocrites of ourselves—to pretend to believe in a thing that we do not and cannot believe in—to force this hypocrisy and pretended belief on others who may happen to have confidence in our honesty and respect for our ability; and finally, as a salve for our outraged conscience, to deceive ourselves with the notion that our motives are good, and the end justifies the means.

But the advocates of the European theory of a single race are faced by other difficulties, which are quite as unavoidable as those thus briefly glanced at. They demand that the world shall believe in the dogma of a single race, but not one among them will act upon it in practice, or convince others of their sincerity by living up to their avowed belief. If the Negro had descended from the same parentage, or, except in color merely, was the same being as ourselves, then there could be no reason for refusing to amalgamate with him as with the several branches of our race. But on the contrary, the reverend and distinguished gentleman who has ventured to declare that the belief that the Negro is a being like ourselves, is essential to Christianity, would infinitely prefer the death of his daughter to that of marriage with the most accomplished and most pious Negro in existence! If he believed in his own assertions in regard to this matter, then it would be his first and most imperative duty, as a Christian minister, to set an example to others, to labor night and day to elevate this (in that case) wronged and outraged race—indeed, to suffer every personal inconvenience, even martyrdom itself, in the performance of a duty so obvious and necessary. And when this theory was at last reduced to practice, and all the existing distinctions and “prejudices” against the Negro were obliterated, and the four millions of Negroes amalgamated with the whites, society would be rewarded by the increased morality and purity that would follow an act of such transcendent justice. But will any one believe in such a result—that, reducing to practice the belief, or pretended belief of a single race, will or would benefit American society? No, indeed; on the contrary, every one knows—even the wildest and most perverted abolitionist knows—that to reduce this dogma to practice, to honestly live out this pretended belief, to affiliate with these negroes, would result in the absolute destruction of American society. Nothing, therefore, can be more certain than the hypocrisy of those who pretend to believe in this single-race doctrine, for it need not be repeated, that they do not and cannot believe in it in reality. But why should they deem this absurd doctrine essential to their interpretation of the Bible? That the Almighty Creator subsequently changed the order of the human creation is in entire harmony with the universally received history of the Christian Revelation. All the Christian sects of the day admit the doctrine of miracles, or supernatural interposition, down to the time of the Apostles, and the largest of all (the Roman Catholics) credit this interposition at the present day, and therefore those ready to recognize it in such numerous instances, many, too, of relatively trifling importance, but, determined to reject it in this matter of races, are only imitating their brethren of old, and straining at gnats while swallowing camels with the greatest ease. To many persons the great doctrines of the Christian faith carry with them innate and irresistible proof of their divine origin, but the professional teachers of theology depend mainly upon supernatural interposition to convince the world of its truth, and yet by a strange and unaccountable perversity, some of them would reject it in the most important, or, at all events one of the most important instances in which it ever did or ever could occur. But will the sensible and really conscientious Christian priest or layman venture to persist in forcing this assumption, this palpable, demonstrable, unmistakable falsehood, that the single-race dogma is essential to the preservation of Christianity, upon the public? If he does, and if it is accepted by those who look upon him as a teacher, then it is certain that he will inflict infinite mischief on the cause of Christianity. To assume that all mankind have white skins, or straight hair, or any other specific feature of our own race, involves no greater absurdity, indeed, involves the exact absurdity, that the assumption of a single human species does. If it were assumed that we must stultify ourselves, and believe, or pretend to believe, that all mankind have white skins, or Christianity would be lost to the world, there is not a single man in this Republic that would not reject such an assumption with scorn and contempt. White and black are, of course, specialties, but no more so than (as will hereafter be shown) all the other things that constitute the negro being, and therefore the assumption put forward substantially and indeed exactly, is thus: We must believe that whites, Indians, Negroes, etc., have the same color, or the whole fabric of Christianity will be overthrown and lost to mankind!

But enough—all Americans know—for they cannot avoid knowing—that negroes are negroes and specifically different from themselves; they know, moreover, that they differed just as widely when first brought to this continent, and all who understand the simplest laws of organization know that they must always remain thus different from ourselves, and therefore they know that they were made so by the act and will of the Almighty Creator, while when, or how, or why they are thus, is beyond the province of human enquiry, and of no manner of importance whatever.

CHAPTER IV.
HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

The white or Caucasian is the only historic race—the race which is alone capable of those mental manifestations which, written or unwritten, leave a permanent impression behind. What was its first or earliest condition upon the earth? This, except the meagre account given by Moses, is unknown, nor is it of much importance that it should be known, for though it never was nor could be savage or barbarous, as these terms are understood in modern times, still its intellectual acquisitions were doubtless so limited that if really known to us, they would be of little or no service. Moses scarcely attempts any description of social life before the time of Abraham, and that then presented does not differ very materially from what exists in the same locality at the present day. The pastoral habitudes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites by his brethren, his purchase in Egypt, and sudden exaltation at the court of the Egyptian Monarch, is an almost exact counterpart of scenes witnessed now, and with little varieties in the same lands, for the last four thousand years. The starting-point—the locality where the race first came into being, is equally hidden as the time or period of its creation. Biblical writers have usually supposed somewhere in Asia Minor, on the banks of the Euphrates, while ethnologists are inclined to believe that the high table-lands of Thibet and Hindoo Koosh may have been the cradle of the race. Nor is a knowledge of this material, or indeed of the slightest consequence, except as an aid in determining its true centre of existence—that is, its physical adaptation or specific affinities for a certain locality. But this is determined by experience; and it is demonstrated beyond doubt that while the elaborate and relatively perfect structure of the Caucasian Man enables him to resist all external agencies, and to exist in all climates capable of supporting animal life, he can only till the soil or perform manual labor in the temperate zones. It is, therefore, immaterial when or where he first came into being, or what was the starting-point of the race—its centre of existence is alike in all the great temperate latitudes of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. The history of the race may be said to be divided into three great cycles or distinct periods; all, however, connecting with each other, and doubtless mainly resembling each other in their essential nature, however widely different in their external manifestation. The first period, beginning with its actual existence on the earth, may be said to terminate in the era of authentic history. The second, or historic era, may be assumed as extending to the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the so-called northern barbarians, or, perhaps, to what is usually termed the dark ages. And finally, there is another grand cycle in human destiny, which, beginning with the restoration of learning, comes down to and includes our own times. In regard to the first, we actually know little of it, for, leaving out of view the Sacred Scriptures, we have only a few imperfect glimpses of the actual life of the countless millions that preceded the historic period. What little knowledge we have depends on tradition and mythology, sometimes, perhaps, true enough, but the greater portion thus transmitted to our times we know is false, because conditions are assumed that are in contradiction with the laws that govern our animal being. If the race, however, was created in Asia, we know that portions of it migrated to Africa, at a very remote period; indeed, leaving the Bible out of view, the first knowledge we have of its existence, or the earliest traces of its existence, is in Africa. Caucasian tribes or communities entered the valley of the Nile possibly before the delta of the lower country was sufficiently hardened to admit of cultivation, as they evidently occupied localities considerably removed from the outlet of that great river. These early adventurers conquered the aboriginal population, subjected them to their control, compelled them to labor for them, built magnificent cities, temples, palaces, founded a mighty Empire and advanced, to a certain extent, in civilization. But wealth and luxury, with their effeminate consequences, probably, too, injustice and crime in the rulers, and certainly, and worst of all, interunion and affiliation with the conquered races, tempted purer and hardier branches of the race to invade them, and indeed the delicious climate and fertile soil must have always tempted Caucasian tribes into the Valley of the Nile, from the earliest periods, and whenever they felt themselves strong enough to attack the existing community. Of course we can only deal in conjecture, in regard to this matter, but it is probable that numerous invasions took place, each passing through much the same course as its predecessors. First came conquest, then the erection of a mighty Empire, followed by a grand civilization; then came effeminacy, affiliation with the subject races, debauchment and debility inviting a new conquest by pure Caucasians, and they, in their turn, going through the same round of glory and decay, of conquest and degradation. Such seems to have been the condition of Egypt when the Romans invaded it, and made it a province of that great Empire. The effete remains of these Egyptian populations afterward, became known to the Roman writers, and, to a certain extent, may be said still to exist. The great Asiatic empires were doubtless similar to the Egyptian, except in respect to the debauchment of blood. The Assyrians, Persians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Hebrews, etc., each in their turn, were conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, but their downfall, in one essential respect, differed widely from those of Africa. They were pure, unmixed Caucasians, for at that time the Mongol element was unknown in that portion of Asia, and the Negro, except a few household servants, never existed on that continent. The Mongolian race was first known about five hundred years anterior to the Christian Era, and whether originally it existed in a more northern region, or had not reached a full development as regards numbers, can not be known, on account of our limited knowledge of the earth at that time. The old Caucasian populations of Asia knew nothing of it, and had no admixture of Mongolic blood. But all is conjecture, mystery, doubt and uncertainty, in regard to these ancient and extinct Empires. We know that they existed—that they were white men—beings like ourselves—our own ancestors, with the same wants, the same instincts, in short, the same nature that we have, and therefore, in the main, acted, as we do now. Of course we call them heathens, pagans, savages, barbarians, etc., but were they thus?

In the modern times there are no white barbarians or heathens. In all modern history, wherever found, white men are much the same; why, then, should it not have been so always? The fanatic Jew called all others gentiles, savages; the supercilious Greek called even their Roman conquerors barbarians; even the manly and liberal Roman did not rise above this foolish bigotry, and not only called the Gauls, Britons, Germans, etc., barbarians, but reduced them to slavery, as if they were inferior beings. We witness the same ignorance and folly in our own enlightened times. The Englishman believes that the English are alone truly Christian and civilized; the Frenchman honestly believes that La Belle France is at the head of modern civilization; even the advanced and liberal American Democrat thinks, and perhaps correctly, that the Americans alone are truly civilized; while some among us would exclude all from the privilege of citizenship who happen to be born elsewhere, as rigidly as the Jew did the uncircumcised Gentile or the Moslem the dog of a Christian. Is not this notion of “outside barbarians,” therefore, the result of ignorance, or foolish egotism, without sense or reason? Some nations or communities were doubtless advanced more than others in ancient times, as at present, but in the main the race must have approximated to the same common standard we witness now. If it is said that in early times the obstacles in the way of frequent intercourse prevented this general approximation to a common standard of enlightenment, it may be replied that the same obstacles would also prevent a wide departure, and when we know that they had the same wants, the same instincts, the same tendencies, etc., the conclusion seems unavoidable that no nation or community could at any time in history assume, with any justice, that others were barbarians, or that they alone were civilized. The traditions and imperfect knowledge which we have hitherto possessed in respect to these long-buried populations, may, perhaps, be replaced by that which is almost or quite as reliable as written history itself. Within a few years past a class of men have sprung up who, excavating the dead remains of long forgotten empires, promise revelations that will bring us face to face with the buried generations that we now only know through the dim perspective of uncertain tradition. Champolion, Belzoni, Rawlinson, Layard and their companions have already made discoveries in Egypt and Nineveh that open to our minds much of the social condition and daily life of those remote times, and future explorations, it is probable, will give us nearly as accurate a knowledge as we have of those embraced within the cycle of authentic history.

The next great period in the history of the race—the historic era—is supposed to be entirely within the province of real knowledge. It begins with the history of the Greeks—not the symbolic but the real—that grand and glowing intellectualism which, in many respects, may be said to equal the intellectual development of our own times. The history of Greece and Rome is in truth the history of the race, of the world, of mankind. There were cotemporary nations of great power, extent and cultivation, but the Greeks and Romans, and the subject or servile populations that acknowledged their supremacy, made up the larger portion of the race. It is true the Persians were then pure Caucasians, and, in respect to numbers, largely surpassed the Greeks, but while they did not differ much in their general character, they were on the decline before the Greeks had reached their full national development. The latter always referred to Egypt as the source of their civilization, but it is more probable that they borrowed from Asia most of those things supposed to be of foreign origin. It is, however, quite possible that the earliest civilization was developed in Africa, that it receded from thence to Asia, as we know it afterwards did from the latter to Europe, and as we now witness it, passing to America. But what is civilization? It is, or it may be defined as, the result of intellectual manifestation. A nation or people who have most deeply studied and understood the laws of nature or the nature of things, and applied their knowledge to their own welfare, are the most civilized or we might say, in a word, that the nation that has the most knowledge is the most civilized. The Greeks, certainly, surpassed all cotemporary nations in the most essential of all knowledge, yet even this seems to have been rather a thing of chance than otherwise. Political intelligence, or a knowledge of men’s social relations to each other, is the most vital they can possess. The Greeks may be said both to have possessed this knowledge and to have been entirely deficient in it. Athens, with thirty thousand citizens all recognized as political equals, was a Democracy, but this so-called Democracy, with, perhaps, a hundred thousand slaves, was a burlesque on a democratic government. The Helots of Greece, the servile and subject population of which history gives no account, except to refer to them, were white men—men with all the natural capacities of Socrates, Demosthenes, or Alcibiades, but the Greek orators and writers of the day never even seemed to imagine that they had any rights whatever. They had much the same relation to the Greeks that the Saxons had to the Normans, that the Irish have to the English, and yet with all their political enlightenment and high intellectual development, the Greeks gave them no rights, and treated them as different and subordinate beings. The notion, therefore, taught in our schools, that the Greeks were the authors of political liberty, is unsound—they neither practised nor understood liberty, and the external forms mistaken for democracy had no necessary connection with it. Aristotle could not form even a conception of a political system that did not rest upon slavery, and this was doubtless the general condition of the Greek mind. It was merely accidental that the Greek States assumed a democratic form, or rather approximated to a democratic form; but while they were utterly ignorant of individual relations they certainly had clear views of the relations of states and the duties that independent communities owe to each other. The Asiatic nations seem to have had no conception whatever of these duties—conquest or slavery were the only alternatives. A nation must conquer or be conquered—a dynasty must destroy all others, or expect to fall itself—and the Asiatic character still partakes largely of these habitudes. Except, therefore, in the mere externals or outward arrangements of political society, the Greeks can hardly be said to have done anything for political liberty or to advance political science. The Romans did more—vastly more—but they had little or no conception of democracy or of individual liberty. The proud boast, “I am a Roman citizen,” unlike the idea of the American democrat, partook of the spirit of a British aristocrat of our own days, claiming the privileges of his order. The men who founded the city of Rome, though doubtless fillibusters and adventurers, perhaps even outcasts of the neighboring populations, were assumed to be superior to the later emigrants, and their descendants especially claimed exclusive privileges. And when Rome expanded into a mighty empire and ruled the world, the senatorial order ruled the empire—at all events, until Cæsar crossed the Rubicon and seized the supreme power. The change from a republic to an empire had little or no bearing upon the question of liberty, for the condition of the great body of the people remained the same. Rome conquered all, or nearly all, the then known world, for, except the Persians, and perhaps some few populations in the far North, the whole Caucasian race recognized the Romans as their rulers. The Parthians, so often waging desperate war with the Romans, were doubtless a mixed people, something like the modern Turks, and very possibly their ancestors. Following the rude code of early times, the Romans enslaved the conquered populations. All the prisoners of war were deemed to have forfeited their lives, and were parceled out among the Roman conquerors, while the rural populations were compelled to pay tribute to the Roman civil officers. It is quite probable that the Romans conquered some of the inferior races, but except the Numidians, Lybians, Ethiopians, etc., of Africa, Roman writers are silent on the subject. It has been said that the history of the Romans was the history of the Caucasian race, and that was the history of the world. This is literally true, for though we cannot suppose that the conquered populations were the miserable barbarians that the Roman writers represent them to have been, Rome was the most advanced portion of the race, and therefore the embodiment of its civilization and intellectual life. At this moment Paris represents all France; and the city of Rome bore a somewhat similar relation to the populations that composed the empire, however distant they may have been from the capital. It was not an unusual thing for the same general that commanded in Britain or that had conquered in Gaul, to administer the government of the African provinces or to conduct a campaign against the Persians on the bank of the Euphrates. And however much the vanity of Roman authors may have been gratified by assuming that they alone were civilized, it is altogether irrational to suppose that the conquered populations, with the same nature and same capacities as themselves, and moreover, in frequent and often intimate intercourse with themselves, could have differed widely or remained barbarians, even if such when conquered. The Romans advanced far beyond the Greeks in political knowledge, but with them also the state was every thing and the individual nothing. As with the Greeks, the great majority were slaves; and Roman citizenship, or the rights claimed by a Roman citizen, was at best a special privilege; and prior to the advent of Christianity, the idea of individual rights, of equality, of democracy, seems never to have dawned upon the intellectual horizon of the race. Nor did the primitive Christians (even) accept it in theory, though they lived it out in practice. Their mental habits were formed under the old social order, and though the spirit of the new doctrine impelled them to live it out in practice, few, if any, ever adopted it in theory. Christ had said, “love each other,” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” that is, “grant to others the rights claimed for yourselves,” but while they often lived together, owning things in common like the modern communists and socialists, perhaps not one in a million ever thought of applying their doctrines to the state, or even supposing for a moment that the artificial distinctions which separated classes could ever be altered or modified. Even the forced and unnatural relation of master and slave, which necessarily violated the fundamental doctrine of their religion, was clung to and respected in theory, and it needed several centuries of practice and faithful obedience to the spirit of the new faith before this ancient barbarism was finally obliterated from the Roman world. The conquest of Rome, by the so-called northern barbarians, was followed by an eclipse of learning—by a mental darkness in Western Europe at least, that is fitly enough denominated the dark ages. Was this irruption of the northern nations into Italy the true cause of this darkness? For several centuries previous there had been an immense and almost continuous emigration from Asia, not of individuals, as we witness in the present day, to America, but of tribes, communities, whole nations. History is indeed imperfect, if not altogether silent, in respect to the cause of these mighty migrations which so long pressed upon Europe. But there can be little doubt that the Mongolian race about this time changed, to a considerable extent, its location, and pressing down on the old Caucasian populations of Asia, impelled those vast masses to seek shelter and safety, if not homes and happiness, in Europe. In the mighty invasions of Italy in the fifth century by Attila, the truth of this is certainly demonstrated. He himself was doubtless a white man, and so were his chiefs; but the mighty populations he ruled over, and which extended from the Danube to the frontiers of China, were mainly Mongolian. But no Mongolians settled permanently in Europe—none but Caucasians, and except the modern Turks, none but pure Caucasians—and, being the same men as the Romans themselves, why should they be barbarians? They were conquerors; a pretty good proof that, though not so refined perhaps, certainly not so effeminate as the Romans had become, they could not have been barbarians. Other things being equal, the nation that has made the greatest advance in knowledge will be able to conquer, because it has only to apply its knowledge to this object to succeed. There can be no doubt that we ourselves surpass all the nations of our times in knowledge, or in our capacity to apply our knowledge to the purposes of material existence. Our railroads, canals, public works, our ship-building, commerce, etc., prove this, and we have only to apply this knowledge to purposes of offence or defence, to invade others or to defend ourselves, to demonstrate our immense superiority. Nevertheless, if we should conquer Spain, or any other ancient and effete empire, doubtless their writers would take their revenge in calling us barbarians, as indeed the poor, feeble, and adulterated hybrids of Mexico actually did thus represent us when in possession of their capital. Nothing, therefore, can be more improbable than the theory of Gibbon and others, that the nations that conquered Rome were barbarians, and that the dark ages were the result of that conquest. But there was a cause for the subsequent darkness which so long spread over the European world much more palpable. Christianity had become generally accepted, and bad and ambitious men, in the then general ignorance of the masses of the populations, might wield it with stupendous effect in advancing their ambition and securing their own personal objects. The assumption that Christ had delegated a power on earth to interpret the will of Heaven, both as to temporal as well as religious interests, was enough; of course all human investigation and mental activity terminated, and was denounced as impiety.

The subordinate clergy were often, perhaps generally, faithful to the great truths transmitted by the primitive Christians, but, dependent on tradition, and subject to the rule of their sacerdotal superiors, they in vain resisted these influences, and these truths became in time so corrupted as scarcely to retain any resemblance to the original faith. It is believed that, except in these “dark ages,” the Caucasian mind has never retrograded or indeed remained stationary. Progress is the law, the instinct, the necessity of the Caucasian mind, and however much some branches or some nations may decline, there is always some portion, nationality, or community, that embodies the wants of the race, and that moves forward in pursuit of that indefinite perfectability which is its specific and distinguishing characteristic. But it is easily understood how this might have suffered an eclipse under the circumstances then existing. A great proportion of the so-called barbarian conquerors of Rome were ignorant of Christianity, and when they became the converts of the conquered Romans, they naturally exalted their teachers as beings almost superhuman in their superior knowledge; and the general ignorance of the times favored any pretension of the priests, however absurd it might be. In fact a body of men claiming to be, and universally believed to be, the interpreters of the will of the Almighty, necessarily interrupted all inquiry into the laws of nature (the real laws of God), and though some monks themselves, immured in their cells, continued to think, to experiment, to acquire knowledge, as well as in many instances to preserve that already acquired by others, the great mass of the people as well as the great body of the clergy looked upon everything of the kind as wicked, impious, and heretical. And we have only to suppose an intellectual activity and freedom corresponding with our own times throughout these dark centuries, to realize the stupendous evil inflicted on the world by this priestly arrogance and ambition.

The races, so-called, that figured most prominently during the period beginning with authentic history and terminating in the dark ages, are first, the Semitic, which included the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Persians, Syrians, Hebrews or Jews, Saracens, Arabians, etc., indeed under the term Semitic may be included all the Orientals, except the Parthians, who were doubtless a mixed people, and those northern tribes, historically known as Scythians, afterwards the conquerors of Egypt and the progenitors of that extraordinary military autocracy known in modern times by the name of Mamelukes. The second great branch was the Pelasgian, which included the Macedonians, the Romans, the Hellenic tribes, Dorians, Thracians, etc., and of which the Romans were for nearly two thousand years the main representatives. Between these great branches of the Caucasian—for they were both doubtless, typical Caucasians, though Agassiz thinks that the Semitic constituted a separate species—there was almost constant war, from the very beginning of history to the capture of Constantinople. The Greek and Trojan war was doubtless a collision of this kind—and so were the wars of the Greeks and Persians—the conquests of Alexander, which, for a time, almost annihilated the Persian empire—the terrible life-and-death struggle of the Romans and Carthaginians, and finally the invasion and conquest of Spain by the Arabians, with their ultimate defeat by the Franks under Charles Martel. Indeed, coming down to more modern times, we find the Crusades, when nearly all Europe, in a fit of uncontrollable phrensy, precipitated itself on Asia; and in the collapse which followed, Asiatic hordes, though not exactly Semitic, again seeking to penetrate into Europe, and actually conquering the remains of the old Roman empire, in the eastern capital of which they are now firmly established. Historians are wont to magnify the results of these contests, especially the defeat of Hannibal and the overthrow of the Carthaginians by the Romans, and the defeat of the Arabians by the Franks, as of vital importance to the world and the best interests of mankind; but it is quite possible that they over-estimate these things, especially the victory of the Romans over the Carthaginians. They were both of the same species of men, both branches of the Caucasian, with the same nature, the same tendencies, and, under the same circumstances, the same beings. The Carthaginians were, for the time, highly civilized. They were the heirs of the Egyptian and Asiatic civilizations, as Rome was of that of the Greeks. They were a great commercial people, with boundless wealth, science, arts, manufactures, everything but a warlike spirit; while Rome, at the time without commerce, poor and torn by factions, was a mere military aristocracy, and the capital itself little more than a military encampment. Why, then, should the defeat of the former have been beneficial to the progress of the race, or to the general interests of mankind?