ascribe his unamiable characteristics of mind and temper, if not of
body, to the centuries of enslavement, debasement, and even persecution
that he has passed on this continent. Now we have no apology whatever
to offer for the "institution" of African slavery. We recoiled from it
instinctively at the dawn of consciousness, and we regard it now as an
unmitigated curse to the people that practise it. But we must not leave
unexposed the gross error in the defence just mentioned. These
centuries have indeed been centuries of enslavement, but certainly not
of debasement nor any form of retrogression. For slavery is and has
been, from time immemorial, practically universal in the fatherland of
the Negro--slavery more cruel and degrading and inhuman than is known
elsewhere on the globe. We enter into no details, unwilling to make our
pages needlessly repulsive. In fact, the training of servitude in the
South has worked mightily for the Negro's advancement--not unlike the
domestication of the lower animals. Any who will read the descriptions
of travellers, or the pages of Lombroso--_L'Uomo Bianco e L'Uomo di
Colore_--must admit that the humanizing of the African in the South has
proceeded surprisingly far. However elementary and contradictory may be
his notion and his practice of morality now, on his native heath he has
practically no morality at all. "It is more correct to say of the Negro
that he is non-moral than immoral. All the social institutions are at
the same low level, and throughout the historic period seem to have
made no perceptible advance, except under the stimulus of foreign (in
recent times notably of Mohammedan) influences.... Slavery continues
everywhere to prevail ... cannibalism is practiced ... human flesh
appears to be sold in the open marketplace" (Keane). All this talk,
then, of the Negro's degradation, wrought by his American slavery, is
the absolute inversion of the truth.
But if the Black man has advanced so remarkably in Southern slavery,
may we not expect him to advance still more remarkably, especially now
that he is a free man? At first blush, this expectation may seem
plausible; but a very little reflection and observation must show its
vanity. The first sharp breath of winter lends a keen edge to the
appetite; the continued cold does not make it keener and keener. The
fagged-out man of business or leader of society retires to some cool
and quiet health resort and reacts almost instantly. In a week he gains
ten pounds, in two weeks fifteen, in a month twenty; but it would be a
great mistake to suppose that this rate of gain could be maintained for
any considerable time. The natural effect of the changed and improved
conditions is soon exhausted, the limits set in the constitution of the
subject are soon reached. So, too, in the domestication of plants and
animals. A marvellous superficial alteration may be speedily brought
about, but the bound is close at hand and is approached with rapidly
decreasing velocity that soon becomes hardly perceptible. By no such
means is any steady progress possible.
Precisely so in the domestication, education, civilization of the lower
races. These latter do undoubtedly possess undeveloped potentialities;
they are capable of better things. The immediate result of subjecting
them to new conditions that stimulate their powers may often be highly
gratifying. But herein lies no promise whatever of any progressive
amelioration. The boundaries are near by; nor can they be overstepped
by any such extra-organic agencies. Moreover, it must not be forgotten
that, in perhaps every such case, there is some sacrifice--it may be a
fatal sacrifice--of the native vigour of the primitive stock.
This reflection is completely confirmed by the actual example of the
Negro in a state of freedom. Unless all the statistical indications be
grossly misleading, the movement of the Afro-American average in the
last generation has been down and not up, backward and not forward.[12]
Especially the physical decline has been measurable and ominous. In
Haiti the same experiment has been carried much further, and with
results proportionately more disastrous. A hundred years of internecine
strife have witnessed nothing but a slow reversion to barbarism. The
interest on the public debt remains unpaid, agriculture is most
primitive, manufactures languish, the industries for which the island
was once famous are dead or dying, the beautiful French language is
Africanized into a structureless patois.[13]
[12] See _infra_, Chapter Six.
[13] Thus, the proverb: Un sac qui est vide ne peut pas rester
debout, becomes: Sac qui vide pas connait ete debout.
Here, too, is the natural place for one of the most plausible and at
the same time most sophistical arguments yet advanced for the essential
comparability, if not the perfect equality, of the White and the
Black--an argument frequent on the lips of the most conspicuous leader
of his people, namely: that the Negro, and only the Negro, has been
able to maintain himself against or in presence of the aggressive
Anglo-Saxon (we do not pretend to reproduce his words, not having them
at hand, but we do not misrepresent his idea). However, the Negro has
not maintained himself _against_, but only with and _for_, the
Anglo-Saxon. A century long the Blacks did greatly flourish, because
they were greatly cherished, in the South, despite occasional cruelty,
which rarely or never hindered development. Fatuously enough, the
Whites fancied it to their own interest to warm up the Blacks into
the most vigorous life. The ante-bellum slaves were, perhaps, the
best-nurtured labouring population to be found anywhere in the history
of mankind. Moreover, their stock was actually strengthened by
artificial selection. No wonder, then, that the Black man more than
maintained himself under conditions that were racially so extremely
favourable. Of course, little credit or none at all goes to the
humanity of the slaveholder. The best that could be said would be that
he displayed a semi-enlightened selfishness. He considered his slaves
_Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse._
It is, indeed, a wide-spread paradox of civilization, that the
possessors exhibit far deeper wisdom in the treatment of their
possessions than in the treatment of themselves. They choose food for
their children less rationally than for their cows. A royal weakling
was gazing admiringly at a lordly bull, and exclaimed: "What a
magnificent specimen he is!" "Yes," replied the bull, "if your
ancestors had been selected as carefully as mine, you would be a
magnificent specimen, too."
There are yet other considerations, as the linguistic, of much weight,
but of subtile or else of delicate nature, into which at present we
forbear to enter. However, one further reflection of a very general
nature must not be omitted. The diversities of type found even among
Europeans, still more among other Caucasians, are remarkable and
universally recognized. Norwegian and Italian, Russian and Spaniard,
Cretan and Scot, can hardly be confounded, not to contrast Dane and
Hindu, Teuton and Arab, Irishman and Jew. These diversities affect not
merely or mainly the body, but still more the mind, all its products
and institutions. Moreover, they are very persistent, maintaining and
asserting themselves in scarcely diminished force from generation to
generation, sometimes even under levelling conditions of highly
composite intermixture. "We have seen how tenaciously they have clung
to the type of their ancestors throughout all the vicissitudes of ages"
(_Ripley_, Pop. Sci. Mon., March, 1898, p. 608).
The thread of national character, though interlaced and interwoven with
bewildering perplexity, is found to stretch itself unbroken through the
ages. In continuous illustration of this truth we may cite the great
work of Lapouge, _L'Aryen_, and the researches of the school he so
brilliantly represents. Furthermore, these differences are not merely
sidewise, right and left, this way and that, in the same plane of
quality. They are at least three-dimensional; they are up and down,
higher and lower. The one race is distinctly superior, the other
inferior, in some given particular. While all branches of this great
family are very highly endowed, yet they are by no means equally
endowed. Each has its points of excellence, but these points are not
the same in number or importance. Even among these members of the same
family, there is by no means equality; there are favourites of nature.
Now even the protagonist of the Black man does not controvert Mr.
Darwin, does not deny that the distinction between Negro and European
is apparently great enough to mark off two species; it merely says the
distinction is not of superior and inferior. But how can this be? Will
any one deny that the Greek was measurably superior to the Mede in a
host of important particulars? That he has excelled all other sons of
men in certain respects? That he has fallen markedly below the Jew and
the German in others? If, then, distinctions of inferior and superior
do undoubtedly obtain between stems so closely knit physiologically and
genetically, with what show of reason can it be held that varieties,
like Negro and European, distinct enough for "true and good species,"
are yet not to be distinguished as inferior and superior? In what
respect, pray then, are they distinguishable? Possibly some one may say
that black, as a color for man, is neither better nor worse than
white--we doubt it, but let it pass; that a broad, flat nose and thick,
everted lips are neither inferior nor superior to the straight,
clean-cut nose and lips curved like the bow of Phoebus. But even if
we do not dispute about such tastes, the list of such regards is a very
short one, and when we come to the profounder mental, moral, and social
differences, we can find no other terms than greater and less to
describe the relative endowments of the widely sundered races. The one
breed of dogs does not differ from the other merely in length of hair
or shape of head and face; it is superior or inferior in size,
strength, courage, agility, endurance, ferocity, fidelity, docility,
intelligence. Can we say less, must we not say more, of the varieties
of men? We should really like to know, if the Greeks were neither
superior nor inferior to the Bushmen, what was the real distinction
between them?
Once again, if millennial contact and intermingling of such near
affinities as Teuton and Alpine Kelt have not availed to efface their
distinguishing features, either of body or of mind--if the wonted
ancestral fires still live in the remote descendants--how can we hope
for aught else from the mixture of European and African? Will not the
slumberous apathy in which the Dark Continent broods away its aeons
surely fall upon the people that drink its blood into their own veins?
Not to anticipate such a result is to scorn analogy, to despise
science, to defy history.
We now come to the second question: _Will intermingling with inferiors
really lower the superior stock?_ It seems very hard to believe that
any sober-minded man can long hesitate to answer, Yes. Does any breeder
of horses or cattle or dogs or pigeons, or any cultivator of grains or
flowers, or any student of heredity in either plants or animals,
entertain any doubt whatever? We trow not. We need not, however, appeal
to general principles, or to common sense, or to universal observation
of the lower planes of life. The mingling of races is no new thing on
our planet; it has been widely diffused, and the results are matters of
record. We shall content ourselves with citing a single authority, than
whom there is none higher--whom not even the most suspicious will
suspect of Southern ignorance and prejudice. We allude to the
distinguished author of "The American Commonwealth," and the
"Assimilation of Races in the United States."
In his Romanes Lecture of June 7, 1902, on "The Relations of the
Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind," Mr. Bryce says (p. 24):
"Where two races are physiologically near to one another, the result of
intermixture is good. Where they are remote, it is less satisfactory,
by which I mean not only that it is below the level of the higher
stock, but that it is not generally and evidently better than the lower
stock.... But the mixture of whites and negroes, or of whites and
Hindus, or of the American aborigines and negroes, seldom shows good
results. The hybrid stocks, if not inferior in physical strength to
either of those whence they spring, are apparently less persistent, and
might--so at least some observers hold--die out if they did not marry
back into one or other of the parent races. Usually, of course, they
marry back into the lower." (_N.B._ Mr. Bryce, it appears, is so
"provincial, unintelligent and unchristian" as to assume that the
Whites are superior--a higher stock, and the Negroes inferior--a lower
stock!) Again, p. 26: "... the two general conclusions which the facts
so far as known suggest are these: that races of marked physical
dissimilarity do not tend to intermarry, and that when and so far as
they do, the average offspring is apt to be physically inferior to the
average of either parent stock, and probably more beneath the average
mental level of the superior than above the average mental level of the
inferior." Again, p. 35: "Should this view be correct, it dissuades any
attempt to mix races so diverse as are the white European and the
negroes." And on p. 36: "The matter ought to be regarded from the side
neither of the white nor of the black, but of the future of mankind at
large. Now for the future of mankind nothing is more vital than that
some races should be maintained at the highest level of efficiency,
because the work they can do for thought and art and letters, for
scientific discovery, and for raising the standard of conduct, will
determine the general progress of humanity. If therefore we were to
suppose the blood of the races which are now most advanced to be
diluted, so to speak, by that of the most backward, not only would more
be lost to the former than would be gained to the latter, but there
would be a loss, possibly an irreparable loss, to the world at large."
Lastly, p. 39: "The moral to be drawn from the case of the Southern
States seems to be that you must not, however excellent your intentions
and however admirable your sentiments, legislate in the teeth of
facts.... Nevertheless, the general opinion of dispassionate men has
come to deem the action taken in A.D. 1870 a mistake."
Now, we are quite willing to concede that possibly, even probably,
there are exceptions to the general conclusions of this eminently
fair-minded investigator. We feel sure there are many cases in which
the Mulatto is raised distinctly above his coal-black parent; we
believe there are some cases, relatively rare, absolutely frequent, in
which he rises measurably above the median line, towards his white
parent. The law of Mendel, or any other plausible law of inheritance,
would lead us to expect such a result. And yet, the extreme difficulty
of organic ascent, whether of the individual or of the race, as
compared with the fatal facility of descent, prepares us to expect, in
general terms, precisely what Mr. Bryce affirms. It is so easy to fall
ill! It is so hard to get well! In any case, that the average of
cross-breeding between widely separate races, like Black and White,
rises above the mid-line or approaches the superior, is a proposition
that runs squarely against all evidence and all reason, nor will
anything but invincible prepossession maintain it.
True it is, that a great authority, a stalwart champion of the Black
man, whose attention we had called to these extracts, declares in reply
that he is "not at all affected by Mr. Bryce's statements." He thinks
we have here, in the United States, a much broader basis of induction
than the Englishman has (as if Mr. Bryce, the author of "Assimilation
of Races in the United States" [1892], of all men, could neglect or
ignore this important example!); he has in mind a case of triple
mixture, reaching back several generations, yet the family are vigorous
and of excellent character; and he refers to thousands of Mulattoes
that are perfect physically--all of which may be true and yet not
enlightening. We sometimes meet with not uncultured persons who are
firmly persuaded that the moon controls the weather. Tell them that the
most minute and accurate observations, extending through half a century
and designed to test the matter, have failed to reveal any connection
between the weather and the moon's phases; point out to them the
insuperable obstacles in the way of their opinion--and they reply that
they are "not at all affected by your statements", that they and their
ancestors have observed for generations that changes in the weather
coincide accurately with changes in the moon, that the broadest
induction in their own neighbourhood shows clearly that beans will not
flourish if planted in the dark of the moon, and that it would be
madness to plant potatoes in the light. If any other facts or
observations seem not to conform to this theory--why, so much the worse
for them!
The general inferiority of the mixed stock has passed into a proverb
even in Africa, where it is said: "A god created the whites; I know not
who created the blacks; certainly a devil created the mongrels." So
reports Livingstone (quoted by Lombroso), and adds that he had seen but
one Portuguese Mestizo of robust health. In Brazil it is held that the
mingling of Indian with Latin blood has not produced evil results,[14]
but everywhere else such remote crossings have been more or less
disastrous. Strikingly is this the case with the Zambos--the mixture of
Indian and Negro; they are mainly degenerates and degraded. Thus E. G.
Squier, writing of Honduras in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XII.,
says: "A small part of the coast, above Cape Gracias, is occupied by
the Sambos, a mixed race of Indians and Negroes, which, however, is
fast disappearing." In Mexico, Central and South America, the
half-breeds are everywhere stationary or declining. In India the
Eurasians (20,000 in Calcutta) "touch a level of degradation which is
far lower than any reached by the pure heathen about them. They inherit
defects more conspicuously than virtues from both races from which they
spring" (Pop. Sci. Mon., Nov., 1892). In Japan the inferior Ainos are
passing away before the superior Japanese. The hybrids are never
healthy or vigorous, and vanish with the third or fourth generation.
Here, in the United States, the testimony is all against the Mulatto.
In a report of the Provost-Marshal General, the opinions of physicians
stand eleven to one against the Mulatto as "scrofulous and
consumptive," "degenerated physically," and the one favourable
judgement reposes on only two instances. The anthropometry of the
Mulatto is decidedly against him. His average lung capacity, the most
significant of measurements, was found by Gould to be only 158.9 cubic
inches against 163.5 for the pure Black, and 184.7 for the White. His
respiration rate was equally unfavourable, being 19 per minute against
17.7 for the pure Black, and 16.4 for the White. We refer, also, to the
testimony of Dr. Shaler (p. 52), that he had never known a Mulatto to
pass threescore. The writer remembers the first use he ever heard of
the word "cachectic;" his father spoke of it as a term generally
applicable to Mulattoes.
[14] But Lapouge (_L'Aryen_): "That immense realm reverting
to barbarism."
From the convergence of all such testimony, which may be multiplied
indefinitely, there seems no escape whatever. We must concede, with
Lombroso: "It is impossible to contemplate these facts without
admitting that marriages between some human races are much less fertile
and happy than between others;" and especially unfortunate are those
between such extremes as Whites and Negroes. When such anthropologists
as Waitz, Serres, Deschamps, Bodichon, anticipate a millennium from
universal miscegenation, it is only sentimentalism or else
forgetfulness of the distinction drawn so properly by Topinard
(Elements d'Anthropologie generale, 1885) between the intermingling of
nearly related and of distantly related races. In the first case the
result is, in general, certainly good; in the latter, it is quite as
certainly bad.
But let us now, merely for the moment and for the sake of argument,
admit that both our premises are in doubt; that, perhaps, after all the
Negro is not inferior organically--mentally, morally, or physically--to
the Caucasian, and that interfertility might, perhaps, work no
deterioration; would the case be essentially altered? Assuredly not.
For even then the most extreme negrophilist must still admit that there
is, at least, a reasonable doubt; even if the Negro be not proved
inferior, yet he is certainly not proved equal, and there is a large
body of at least apparent evidence against him; even if it be not
certain that miscegenation would work deterioration, it is at least
very possible and seemingly probable. Who, then, would have the
foolhardihood to make this experiment of race amalgamation--an
experiment which, once made, is made forever; whose consequences could
never be undone--when there is at least and at the very lowest an
undeniable possibility, not to say certainty, that those consequences
would be disastrous in the extreme? Can we imagine a more wanton folly?
Would such an experiment beseem any other place so well as the
madhouse?
But some one will say that we are fighting "bogies"; that no one in the
North, much less in the South, desires any such amalgamation. Do not
believe it! The intense, the supreme yearning of large bodies of
Negroes is for social recognition among the Whites--more especially for
intermarriage with their haughty, old-time despisers. Who does not know
this, simply does not understand the dominant facts of Southern
life.[15] True, there may be no longer anyone in the North that openly
advocates miscegenation--no one that would welcome or even tolerate it
in his family, though we remember to have read years ago a distinct
declaration, by no mean authority, that it might be a positive
advantage to pour the strong, rich blood of the Black man into the
languid veins of the Southern Whites! However, granted that all would
NOW[16] disavow such a sentiment--and let us accept the disavowal
unreservedly--the fact remains that the highest authorities in the
North, the factors that form public opinion and guide legislation, have
never yet to our knowledge raised their voices against miscegenation in
the South. What means this expressive silence? In this momentous,
all-overshadowing controversy, there is no middle ground. He that is
not against amalgamation is for it. Who so does not oppose must _ipso
facto_ favour it. Only ciphers are neither plus nor minus.
[15] Nor do we see how any one can blame them. Especially the
intelligent Mulatto recognizes, and justly, that social equality,
with its necessary corollary, intermarriage, is the key of the
whole position. Without it, he sees clearly that his race is
doomed. From his point of view, the denial of such equality
appears as a colossal injustice, an immeasurable wrong. And
unless he be racially inferior, he is incontrovertibly right.
[16] We are not willing to deface these pages with passages
quoted in proof of the fact that miscegenation has been advocated
openly and repeatedly in the highest quarters, and doubtless in
all good faith and good will. But he who has any doubt on this
point may consult the _Edinburgh Review_ of 1827, pp. 390-394;
Lyell's "Second Visit to the United States," 1849, Vol. II., p.
216; The Fourth of July Speech of Mr. Wendell Phillips (1863);
the speeches of Mr. Theodore Tilton, sometime editor of _The
Independent_; but especially the collection of pamphlets entitled
"Miscegenation," by D. G. Croly and others (1864), wherein "not
only the propriety, but the necessity, of the marriage of Black
and White" is argued passionately. Abominable as such doctrines
may sound, they flow inevitably from the principles even at this
date commonly accepted in both Englands, and they can be proved
_wrong_ only by proving that our present contentions are _right_.