There is another phase of the question, less difficult of solution than
the preceding, perhaps, but by no means less important. It is the case
of the free negro, and especially the free negro of the North. Here
again we need not stop to discuss abstract questions of equality, nor
declare our adherence to the philosophy of Miscegenation. We need not
stop to consider the nature, or justice, of the prejudice which prevails
against the negro at the North. It is undeniable that there is such a
prejudice. Accepting the undoubted fact, we see that it shuts nearly
every avenue of honest industry against the man with a black skin,
restricting him to the most menial offices; and that it is fostered in
many ways by the conventions and usages of our society, so as
practically to put him in a worse condition than his bonded brother at
the South--always except as to his God-given right to his liberty and
labor. Experience has shown that even this is not always fully assured
to the negro; and the July riots of New York indicate the uncertain
tenure of his liberty and life, even under the protection of equal laws.
What then? Shall we remand him to the servitude of the South? Shall we
enact for him a sort of Napoleonic law of general safety, to deprive him
of the poor liberty he has--however profitless the boon may seem to us
to be? Certainly not. Every instinct of humanity rises up against so
monstrous a suggestion. Yet something very like it has a place in the
legislation of some States in the American Union.
Then what a Providential solution of the question is offered in the
employment of the negro as a soldier! There cannot surely be any
well-founded objection to it. Such opposition as the plan has
encountered seems to spring from the same unreasoning prejudice that
keeps the black man out of all decent industries in our free North. It
is that very prejudice which this plan will overcome. For the first
thing to be done is to raise the negro from his degradation; and to do
this we must obviously begin with teaching him a proper self-respect.
This will bear its fruit in making him respected by others. No one will
say that it is well to foster a feeling which outlaws any single class
in the community from the respect of all. This would be to glorify the
slave system of the South, and lay a basis for possible revolutions.
Thus the employment of the negro as a soldier, while it must inspire the
bondman of the South with a truer sense of his worth and capacity, and
thus tend to weaken the foundation of the whole rebel fabric, will also
correct the unquestioned evil of a growing class of outlaws in the midst
of our society. And if we clothe the negro in the uniform of a soldier
of the United States, the respect of the nation for its brave defenders
will teach him self-respect; at the same time that it will teach the
nation to put a new value upon its idea of loyalty.
The epitaph commemorative of the Spartan valor that has made Thermopylæ
a name forever, serves to show the conclusion of our whole discussion:
'Go, stranger, and at Lacedæmon tell,
That here, obedient to her laws, we fell.'
For the man who is loyal to his flag will not quarrel with the color of
a comrade in arms who has shed blood, red like his own, in defending
that flag from dishonor; just as the man who is loyal to the altar feels
a fellowship for every one, however humble, who bears the name of their
common Master, and is made in the image of their common Father.