“1. Let the general government refrain from all further legislation or interference on behalf of the negro as such. If riots arise that the State authorities cannot quell, the National Government, duly invoked, should interfere, to preserve the public peace; and also, if necessary, it should use the arm of power to sustain the courts in putting down injustice, outrage and wrong, by the arm of the law. But all this without making a point of caring for the negro in distinction from any other man; for the best way of caring for the negro is to cease to know him as a negro, and to treat him always and only as a man. Above all, should the government refrain from legislating upon social customs, instincts and prejudices. A legal injustice can be done away by law; a moral wrong, in the form of overt action, can be dealt with by law; but a taste, a sentiment, a feeling, an instinct, a prejudice—these pass the bounds of all legislation; and the attempt to rectify or regulate these by law serves only to irritate opposition. At these points human nature has much in common with the porcupine.
“2. The black race should be taught that they are to depend upon themselves. Having freedom, schools, the rights of citizens guaranteed by law, and the inducement to self-culture presented by opportunities of political action, they should be made to feel that their future is in their own hands; that, if they would rise to a position of respect and of responsibility as men, they must show themselves to be men. There is no other way for any race. If they cannot do this, they must go under. If they will not do this, they ought to go under. But no one who knows the negro race in America can doubt, that with time on their side, and patience and justice toward them on the part of others, they will rise to the full measure of their opportunities, and, with their capacity for work, their docility, their kindliness, their adaptivity, their mirthfulness, their religious faith, will form as good a part as any in the social system of the future. Time, patience, justice, will cause the friction of races to disappear in the working of the American system of harmonized humanity.”
EXTRACTS FROM DR. PATTON’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
As “there is no royal road to learning” to suit dullards of kingly birth, so no peculiar and accommodating pathway to wealth and power, to civilization and culture, opens before those of African descent. Their own expectations, and the efforts of those who would assist them, must be based simply on their manhood. It is only as this shall be developed and brought to bear upon life’s duties and opportunities, that progress can be made in outward condition and in the estimation of mankind. There are no sudden results to be secured by artificial means. Neither special legislation, nor military protection, nor favor extended by those in power, nor the peculiar regard and effort of philanthropists, will, of themselves, avail to procure the abolition of caste-feeling, and the elevation of the colored people to an entire equality with the whites. The effects of ages of slavery are not to be removed in a day, by a mere legislative vote. An amendment to the Constitution alters no fact of ignorance, of poverty, of moral debasement. The prejudices of the whites, descending through generations, imbibed by individuals in infancy, and strengthened by universal sentiment, practice, and association of ideas, cannot be easily and soon overcome, and are not, so far as feeling is concerned, wholly within the power of volition, so as to be annihilated at will. They will vanish gradually in the presence of increasing evidence of a noble manhood. Developed intellectual power, the higher education, success in industrial pursuits, the acquirement of wealth and culture and character, will cause them to disappear as the sun does the heavy, chilly, obscuring mists which night generates in the valleys. When I deposit a gold coin on the table, it commands a certain degree of respect. No one is obliged to argue in its behalf. It speaks for itself. Having intrinsic value and the added stamp of the national mint, it represents so many grains of precious metal and their equivalent in whatever money will buy. Hence everybody welcomes it, and looks upon it with regard. Will the result not be analogous, when the colored man shall be seen to have an intrinsic value equal to that of the white man? When one shall no longer associate with him the ideas of bondage, pauperism, and barbarism, but those of freedom, prosperity, intelligence, and culture; when he shall not only carry in his person the stamp of American citizenship, but shall come out from a university training a scholar and a gentleman, like a glittering coin from the die?
Every case which is at all parallel, confirms the validity of our reasoning. The classical scholar will, perhaps, remember that Cicero, in writing to one of his friends, advises him, when he has occasion to purchase a slave, not to buy one of those stupid Britons. Doubtless, after the Roman wars in Britain, thousands of captives had been sent to Italy and exposed for sale, according to ancient custom; and those who bought them had learned that they were intellectually inferior to slaves obtained from other sources. Why does a Briton no longer bear such a reputation? Because generations of favorable influences have brought him out of the barbaric condition in which he then was, and have educated him into the representative of civilization.
There can be no reasonable doubt that educational forces, rightly brought to bear upon the colored people, will in time work a change in the matter of prejudice; which is only partially an incident of difference of feature and complexion, and is principally a manifestation of caste-pride.