The slave trade : $b Slavery and colorJervey, Theodore D. (Theodore Dehon)
History
The slave trade : $b Slavery and color
Jervey, Theodore D. (Theodore Dehon)
African Americans; Slave trade -- United States; Slavery -- United States; United States -- Race relations
But whether the region mapped out now as Winnipeg, Alberta and the
other wheat areas of the Canadian West might have been attached to the
great white Union in the sixties, if undisturbed by war and moving
with continuingly accelerated industrial development or not, the Union
would have become whiter, as the Lower South darkened; and Calhoun’s
“substratum” theory would have there been tested to the fullest extent
and risk.
From this Lincoln’s adroit political play induced the Lower South, by
firing on the flag, to save itself, unknowingly. By the invasion of
Virginia he forced that State, as well as North Carolina and Tennessee,
into the Confederacy, against which, in 1862, he drew the weapon of
emancipation without the least idea as to how deep it must cut. For it
has proven to be a two edged sword.
Nothing more clearly reveals Lincoln’s ignorance of the inevitable
consequences of emancipation, than his message to Congress in December,
1862:
“But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth and cover
the whole land. Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make
them more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the whole
country and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could the
one in any way disturb the seven?... But why should emancipation
South send the free people North? People of any color seldom run
unless there be something to run from. Heretofore to some extent
they have fled North from bondage and destitution. But if gradual
emancipation and deportation be adopted they will have neither to flee
from.... And in any event cannot the North decide for itself whether
to receive them?”[392]
If this was the Great Emancipator’s view of emancipation, what wonder
that the “Southern color psychosis” should spread like measles, from
contact alone.
The Congressional Reconstructionists thought that they had won in
the war between the States what has since been styled euphoniously,
“a sphere of influence,” a subject people to sell goods to. But the
mass of Northern and Western whites, true Americans, sickened of
the excesses of Congressional Reconstruction. The Federal troops
were withdrawn on the order of a true patriot, Rutherford B. Hayes,
President of the United States, and not of a section.
Chastened and disciplined by their fall from power, the most energetic
and industrious, the boldest and most assertive Negroes have, since
1876, been steadily moving into the mammoth cities of the North and
West, to there build up in the segregated districts, groups of New
Negroes, as the Report of the Chicago riot shows “more perfect thro
suffering.”
By a joint committee of blacks and whites that riot has been discussed
and that makes the discussion the more valuable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account