But Political Equality Is Not What Such Men
Want, Nor Indeed Is It Social Equality.
It is social tolerance and
social sympathy, and these are denied to the negro.
An American
abolitionist would not sit at table with a negro. He might do so in
England at the house of an English duchess, but in his own country
the proposal of such a companion would be an insult to him. He will
not sit with him in a public carriage, if he can avoid it. In New
York I have seen special street cars for colored people. The
abolitionist is struck with horror when he thinks that a man and a
brother should be a slave; but when the man and the brother has been
made free, he is regarded with loathing and contempt. All this I
cannot see with equanimity. There is falsehood in it from the
beginning to the end. The slave, as a rule, is well treated - gets
all he wants and almost all he desires. The free negro, as a rule,
is ill treated, and does not get that consideration which alone
might put him in the worldly position for which his advocate
declares him to be fit. It is false throughout, this preaching.
The negro is not the white man's equal by nature. But to the free
negro in the Northern States this inequality is increased by the
white man's hardness to him.
In a former book which I wrote some few years since, I expressed an
opinion as to the probable destiny of this race in the West Indies.
I will not now go over that question again.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 100 of 531
Words from 26540 to 26813
of 142339
