OBJECTIONS ANSWERED: PECULIARITIES OF SOUTHERN SENTIMENT. LACK OF
RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE.
But I now come to a grave objection to my theory of this violent
persecution. I shall be told by many of my Northern friends that my
argument, though plausible, is not conclusive. It will be said that
the charges against the Negro are specific and positive, and that
there must be some foundation for them, because, as they allege, men
in their normal condition do not shoot, hang and burn their fellow men
who are guiltless of crime. Well! This assumption is very just and
very charitable. I only wish that something like the same justice and
the same charity shall be shown to the Negro. All credit is due and
is accorded to our Northern friends for their humane judgment of the
South. Humane themselves, they are slow to believe that the mobocrats
are less humane than themselves. Their hearts are right but their heads
are wrong. They apply a general rule to a special case. They forget
that neither the mob nor its victims are in a normal condition. Both
are exceptions to the general rule. The force of the argument against
my version of the case is the assumption that the lynchers are like
other men and that the Negro has the same hold on the protection of
society that other men have. Neither assumption is true. The lynchers
and mobocrats are not like other men, nor is the Negro hedged about by
the same protection accorded other members of society.
The point I make, then, is this. That I am not, in this case, dealing
with men in their natural condition. I am dealing with men brought up
in the exercise of irresponsible power. I am dealing with men whose
ideas, habits and customs are entirely different from those of ordinary
men. It is, therefore, quite gratuitous to assume that the principles
that apply to other men, apply to the lynchers and murderers of the
Negro. The rules resting upon the justice and benevolence of human
nature do not apply to the mobocrats, or to those who were educated in
the habits and customs of a slave-holding community. What these habits
are I have a right to know, both in theory and practice. Whoever has
read the laws of the late slave states relating to the Negroes, will
see what I mean.
I repeat, the mistake made by those who, on this ground, object to
my theory of the charge against the Negro, is that they overlook the
natural influence of the life, education and habits of the lynchers.
We must remember that these people have not now and have never had any
such respect for human life as is common to other men. They have had
among them for centuries a peculiar institution, and that peculiar
institution has stamped them as a peculiar people. They were not before
the war, they were not during the war, and have not been since the war,
in their spirit or in their civilization, a people in common with the
people of the North, or the civilized world. I will not here harrow up
your feelings by detailing their treatment of Northern prisoners during
the war. Their institutions have taught them no respect for human life,
and especially the life of the Negro. It has, in fact, taught them
absolute contempt for his life. The sacredness of life which ordinary
men feel does not touch them anywhere. A dead Negro is with them now,
as before, a common jest.
They care no more for the Negro’s rights to live than they care for
his rights to liberty, or his right to the ballot or any other right.
Chief Justice Taney told the exact truth about these people when he
said: “They did not consider that the black man had any rights which
white men were bound to respect.” No man of the South ever called in
question that statement, and no man ever will. They could always shoot,
stab, hang and burn the Negro, without any such remorse or shame as
other men would feel after committing such a crime. Any Southern man,
who is honest and is frank enough to talk on the subject, will tell you
that he has no such idea as we have of the sacredness of human rights,
and especially, as I have said, of the life of the Negro. Hence it is
absurd to meet my arguments with the facts predicated of our common
human nature.
I know that I shall be charged with apologising for criminals.
Ex-Governor Chamberlain has already virtually done as much. But there
is no foundation for such charge. I affirm that neither I nor any other
coloured man of like standing with myself has ever raised a finger
or uttered a word in defence of any man, black or white, known to be
guilty of the dreadful crime now in question.
But what I contend for, and what every honest man, black or white, has
a right to contend for, is that when any man is accused of this or any
other crime, of whatever name, nature, degree or extent, he shall have
the benefit of a legal investigation; that he shall be confronted by
his accusers; and that he shall, through proper counsel, be allowed to
question his accusers in open court and in open daylight, so that his
guilt or his innocence may be duly proved and established.
If this is to make me liable to the charge of apologising for crime,
I am not ashamed to be so charged. I dare to contend for the coloured
people of the United States that they are a law-abiding people, and I
dare to insist upon it that they or any other people, black or white,
accused of crime, shall have a fair trial before they are punished.