Negroes and Negro "Slavery:" the first an inferior race: the latter its normal condition.Van Evrie, John H.
History
Negroes and Negro "Slavery:" the first an inferior race: the latter its normal condition.
Van Evrie, John H.
African Americans; Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States
issue on this matter, to appeal to a supposed popular bigotry and
fanaticism in order to conceal the most vital and most stupendous truth
of modern times—a truth underlying all our sectional difficulties, and
which, truly apprehended by the mind of the masses, will instantly
explode those difficulties—renders it an imperative duty to expose the
folly and sophistry of those who strive to keep it out of sight. They
assume that the Bible teaches the origin of all mankind from a single
pair—that the Mongol, Indian, Negro, etc., with the same origin, have
the same nature as the white man, and consequently have the same natural
rights, and that we owe to them the same duties that we owe to ourselves
or to our own race. And, moreover, they proclaim a belief in this
assumption as essential to salvation, or, in other words, that if it be
rejected Christianity will disappear from the world. It need not be
repeated that the writer will not condescend to argue a self-evident,
actually existing, every-day palpable and unavoidable physical fact, or
insult the reader’s understanding by presenting proofs to show that the
Negro is specifically different from himself—that is a matter beyond the
province of rational discussion, and entirely within the domain of the
senses; yet, as already observed, in the subsequent chapters of this
work the _extent_ of these differences separating whites and blacks will
be demonstrated, their physical differences and approximations shown, in
order to determine their moral relations and social adaptations. But the
assumption that belief in the dogma of a single human race or species is
vital to the preservation of Christianity needs to be exposed, as it is
in reality as monstrous in morals as stupid and absurd in fact. We
cannot _believe_ that which we _know_ to be untrue, and to affect such
belief, however good the motive may seem, must necessarily debauch and
demoralize the whole moral structure. There are many things—such as the
belief in the doctrine of election, original sin, of justification by
faith, that admit of belief—honest, earnest, undoubting belief—for they
are abstractions and purely matters of faith that can never be brought
to the test of physical demonstration, or to the standard of material
fact, but the question of race—the fact of distinct races or rather the
existence of species of Caucasian, Mongols, Negroes, etc., are physical
facts, subject to the senses, and it is beyond the control of the will
to refuse assent to their actual presence. Can a man, by taking thought,
add a cubit to his stature? Can he believe himself something else—a
woman, a dog, or that he does not exist—that black is white, or that red
is yellow, or that the Negro is a white man? It is possible to deceive
and delude ourselves, and believe or think that we believe many things
which our interest, our prejudices, and our caprices prompt us to
believe, but they must be things of an abstract nature, where there are
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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