The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 01, January, 1889 — John Shaqi
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 01, January, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 01, January, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
During the years of reconstruction and political agitation, uncertainty
prevailed, but now again the Southern position is becoming settled. It is
the old position with a variation. It runs: The Negroes are an inferior
race, and must be held as a peasant class in subjection to the superior
white race. To this the warning is again added: This is purely a domestic
affair, and all outsiders must keep tongues and hands off. This revised
version of the old theory is proclaimed by Senator Eustis in his now
somewhat famous article in the _Forum_. More recently it has been
re-affirmed in the fervid eloquence of Mr. Grady, of Atlanta, in his
address at Dallas, Texas.
This is the same orator (he is an orator) who a few years since
electrified the whole country by his speech at the New England dinner, on
the "New South." But the logic of Southern events has driven him down
again to the platform of the "Old South." More recently still, the
Governor of South Carolina, in his message to the Legislature, has taken
the same position.
These three gentlemen, representing the press and the politician, are
sustained by the pulpit in the South. For example, the Presbyterian
church South repels all overtures for re-union with the Presbyterian
church North, because such a re-union would involve a practical
recognition of the equal manhood of the inferior race. The Presbyterian
church South does not stand alone on this platform. Other denominations
are arrayed side by side with it, and we fear that even the
Congregationalists in the South, with two Conferences in the same State,
one white and the other black, are in danger of being numbered with them.
This is the Southern position. It portends the renewal of the old
antagonism. It repels the North, denying its right to interfere, and thus
draws again the sectional line; and above all, it sets up sharply the
antagonism of races, consigning the Negro permanently to an inferior
place. This implies, of course, that if the Negro will not quietly accept
this place, he must be compelled to do so by force of arms, and in this
struggle the North is notified that it has no right to interfere. We can
only express our amazement at this theory! With the memory of the war so
fresh, when the North broke over all warnings against interference, and
stepped in to aid the helpless slave, can the South now hope to make
these warnings any more efficacious? Can it hope that the North will
acquiesce in a quasi slavery, that sets aside substantially all that it
gained and established by the long war?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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