The American Missionary — Volume 32, No. 03, March, 1878 — John Shaqi
The American Missionary — Volume 32, No. 03, March, 1878Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 32, No. 03, March, 1878
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
_The South Carolinian_ gives an apparently frank representation of
the situation as it appears to the native people of that State.
The present shows more honesty and less crime, a renewed interest
of the whites, and the banishment of the blacks from politics. No
party will be tolerated “which aggressively, and in real earnest,
advocates negro rights.” He says: “The whites regard the negro as
an inferior animal, admirably adapted to work and to wait, and look
on him, ‘in his proper place,’ with a curious mixture of amusement,
contempt and affection. It is when he aspires to participate in
politics, or otherwise claim privileges, that their hatred becomes
intense.” In regard to Education, he writes: “There is great
prejudice in this State against free schools for any color; nor
have the airs put on by colored-school children contributed to
remove it. Policy, however, and past promises will probably impel
the maintenance of a free-school system for some time, at least,
but on a less extensive scale. It is proper to add that some
cultured Southerners are in favor of educating and elevating the
negro, as the best way to solve our race difficulties. But it is
doubtful if their views will prevail against inherited prejudice.”
But _The Louisianian_ takes stronger ground. The Southern question
germinated when a slave was first introduced into the American
colonies. The institution of slavery made all the difference;
giving rise in the South to a “domineering and proscriptive
aristocracy,” with regard to all of the African race, and putting
all whites—poor or rich, ignorant or educated—on a footing of
equality. “There was a nobility in the white skin, more sacred
and more respected than the one derived from the letters patent
of kings;” more even, apparently, than that based on intelligence
or virtue. Slavery made of the Southern planters, “high barons
in reality, although not in name.” In the North and West, on
the contrary, there was a democracy politically, but a social
aristocracy, not recognizing the equality of the white skin. The
writer says: “The aristocrats of the South were the real ones;
those of the North were spurious. The Southern question used to be,
that of the maintenance of this supremacy over the whole land by
these real aristocrats.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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