causes, which do not appear to have been felt in England in former ages, when her inhabitants were composed of freemen and slaves, or when national distinctions among people living in the same country formed a political barrier between Britons and Romans, or Saxons and Normans." 1 Moreover a young Haytian, named Moyse, about thirty years ago, complained of the attention which Toussaint Louverture paid to the interests of the Europeans, and declared that he should never like the whites till they should restore to him the eye which he had lost in battle with them! This last important anecdote the Major prints in italics, as quite decisive. The poor Haytian must have been best acquainted with the origin of his own feelings; and, as he ascribed them to a cause which might well account for them, it is difficult to divine why any other should be assigned. The liberality of Toussaint, also, is at least as strong an ar gument against the hypothesis of Major Moody, as the animosity of Moyse can be in its favour. From the law which declares white men incapable of be coming proprietors in Hayti, nothing can be inferred. Such prohibitions are exceedingly foolish; but they have existed, as every person knows who knows any thing of history, in cases where no natural antipathy can be supposed to have produced them. We need not refer to the measures which the Kings of Spain adopted against their Moorish subjects to that tyranny of nation over nation which has, in every age, been the curse of Asia-or to the jealous policy which excludes strangers, of all races, from the interior of China and Japan. Our own country will furnish an example strictly in point. By the common law of England, no alien whatever can hold land, even as a tenant. The natives of Scotland remained under this incapacity, till the two divisions of the island were united under James the First and even then, the national prejudice was strong against the removal of the disability. The House of Commons was decidedly averse to it. The Court, in consequence, had recourse to a measure grossly unconstitutional. The Judges were persuaded to declare that to be law which the Parliament could not be persuaded to make law; and even thus it was found impossible to remove the restriction from Scotchmen born before the Union of the Crowns. 1 Major Moody's Second Report, p 29. 2 an argument! What mirth What unsavoury similitudes With what confusion would The Major ought to be well acquainted with these proceedings. For Lord Bacon, of whom he professes himself a disciple, appeared as counsel for the post-nati. It is amusing to consider what the feelings of that illustrious man would have been, if some half-taught smatterer of his philosophy had risen to oppose him with such arguments as these. "The English can never amalgamate with any for eign nation. The existence and the popularity of such a law as this sufficiently prove that some powerful cause operates upon our countrymen, which does not act elsewhere. Our ancestors always felt that, although in other countries foreigners may be permitted and even encouraged by the natives to settle among them, no such mixture could take place here. I have been credibly informed also, that a Scotchman whose eye was struck out in a fray forty years back, swore that he never could bear the sight of a Southern after." With what a look would Sir Francis have risen to annihilate such would have shone in his eyes! would have risen to his lips! the dabbler in experimental science have shrunk from a conflict with that all-embracing and all-penetrating mind, which fancy had elevated but not inebriated, which professional study had rendered subtle, but could not render narrow. As the Major seems very willing to be an experimental philosopher, if he knew how to set about it, we will give him one general rule, of which he seems never to have heard. It is this. When the phenomena can be explained by circumstances which, on grounds distinct from those phenomena, we know to exist, we must not resort to hypothetical solutions. We are not entitled to attribute the hatred which the Haytian Blacks may have felt towards the Whites to any latent physical cause, till we have shown that the ordinary principles of human nature will not explain it. Is it not natural, then, that men should hate those by whom they have been held in slavery, and to whom they have subse quently been opposed in a war of peculiar ferocity? Is it ot also perfectly agreeable to that law of association, from which so large a portion of our pains and pleasures is derived, that what we have long regarded as a distinguishing badge of those whom we hate should itself become hateful to s? If these questions be answered in the affirmative, the version which the Haytian Negroes are said to entertain to wards the Whites is at once explained. The same remark applies to all that the Major has said respecting the state of public feeling in North America. The facts of the case he has stated quite correctly. It is true that, even in those States of the Union which have abolished slavery, the free Blacks are still regarded with disgust and contempt. The most benevolent inhabitants of New Eng land and New York, conceive that liberty itself will scarcely be a blessing to the African, unless measures be taken for removing him to some country where he may not be reminded of his inferiority by daily insults and privations. Hence Major Moody thought himself, as he tells us, “justified in the inference, that some powerful causes must be in action, and that those of a physical nature had not been overcome by mere legal exactments." 1 It cannot be doubted that some powerful cause has been in action. But that it is a physical cause, is not quite so clear. The old laws have no doubt produced a state of public feeling, which their repeal cannot at once correct. In all the States the Negro colour has been the livery of servitude. In some it still is so. The connexion between the different commonwealths of the confederation is so close, that the state of feeling in one place must be influenced by the state of the laws in another. This consideration is surely sufficient to explain all the circumstances to which the Major refers. It is for him to show, that an aversion for which slavery alone will sufficiently account is really the effect of blackness. He would, we believe, find it as easy to prove that there is something naturally and universally loathsome in the cut and colour of a prison uniform. That the complexion of the free African renders his condition more unfortunate, we acknowledge. But why does it produce this effect? Not, surely, because it is the degrading circumstance, but because it is clear, instantaneous, and irrefragable evidence of the degrading circumstance. It is the only brand which cannot be counterfeited, and which cannot be effaced. It is borne by slaves and their descendants; and it is borne by no others. Let the Major prove, that, in any society where personal bondage has never existed, the 1 Second Part of Major Moody's Report, p. 27. whites and blacks have felt this mutual dislike. Till he can. show this, he does nothing. But, it seems, an anonymous writer in South America, some years ago, declared, that the blacks never could amal gamate with the whites. That a man who had passed his life among negro slaves should transfer to their colour the feelings of contempt with which he regarded their condition, and the mean vices to which that condition necessarily gave birth, was perfectly natural. That he should suppose a feeling, of which he could not remember the origin, to be instinctive, was also natural. The most profound thinkers have fallen into similar errors. But that a man in England should believe all this, only because a man at Bogota chose to write it, argues a strange degree of credulity. Such vague authority is not sufficient to establish a fact. To quote it in support of a general proposition, is an insult to common The expressions of this Columbian prove only, what the refusal of the Major to let a negro sit in his presence proves as satisfactorily, that there are very weak and very prejudiced people in the world. sense. The Feelings exactly similar to those which are unhappily so common among the whites of the United States, have often existed in cases where it is impossible to attribute them to physical causes. From a time beyond the researches of historians, an impassable gulf has separated the Brahmin from the Paria. The Jews were long regarded by the Spaniards and Portuguese with as much contempt and hatred as the white North American feels for the man of colour. cases, indeed, are strikingly similar. The national features and rites of the Hebrews, like the black skin and woolly hair of the Africans, visibly distinguished them from the rest of the community. Every individual of the race bore about him the badges of the synagogue. Baptism itself could not wash away the distinction. Conversion might save him from the flames; but the stigma was indelible- - he bore it to the grave he bequeathed it to his children his descendants, s long as their genealogy could be traced, were objects of corn to the poorest Castilian peasant, who gloried in the name of an old Christian. But we will not multiply examples in a case so plain. We hasten to another argument, on which Major Moody Second l'art of Major Moody's Report, p. 28. dwells with peculiar complacency. At this, indeed, we de not much wonder. It is entirely his own. He is the first writer who ever used it, and we venture to prophesy that he will be the last. We speak of his remarks on the influence of the sexual passion. We will give his own words: — "In such committees as I have referred to, an observer will no fail to discover the want of a certain class of sympathies, which are «aily seen in action when men of the same race live together, even in repub lics, like the United States of America, although a portion of the com munity consisted of men of different nations and habits, but yet resembling each other in external form, colour, features, &c. "I allade to the extraordinary rarity of virt tous unions having taken place between the males and females of the pure Negroes and the pure Whites in America. I certainly have heard of such unions as in certain classes of society are seen in London; but in America, they were considered rather as very extraordinary occurrences, particu larly if the male should be a pure negro, and the female a pure white. On the other hand, when the female is an African, lust, aided by fear o avarice, has often led to an illicit union between the sexes... "In the New World of America, virtuous unions between the extreme colours of black and white are always considered something in violation of the ordinary sympathies which spring from a pure affection, and therefore derogatory to the feelings of caste; for even the free coloured females, I understand, would have a reluctance, if advanced in civilization, to form a virtuous union with a pure negro. "Some of the intelligent free negroes of the United States, with whom I often conversed, for the express purpose of personal observation, felt the ban under which they were put, by the influence of preju dice, as they considered it, after the laws of the country had declared them free, and equal to any other citizen of the State; and, in the confidence inspired by my inquiries about their situation, I was often asked if, in England, white women did not marry black men? And, with apparent simplicity, it was inquired why the American white women were so prejudiced against black men?. "Those who inerely refer the degraded state of the free Africans or blacks to their having been formerly slaves, and leave out of their consideration the consequences arising from physical differences in form, colour, feature, and smell, influencing those general ideas of beauty, creating that passion of love that most commonly leads to a virtuous union of the sexes of different nations, must be considered as having taken a very narrow view of the question, from the prevalent custom of merely referring to moral causes alone, and omitting all references to those of a physical nature, though still more powerful in their effect.” 1 This extraordinary argument is concluded by a touching representation of the refinement which modesty gives to pleasure, and of the happiness of being cherished and be loved, which, we hope, will edify the young gentlemen of the 1 Second Part of Major Moody's Report, pages 19 and 20. |