"'Tis Sixty Years Since": Address of Charles Francis Adams; Founders' Day, January 16, 1913Adams, Charles Francis
Philosophy
"'Tis Sixty Years Since": Address of Charles Francis Adams; Founders' Day, January 16, 1913
Adams, Charles Francis
Philosophy, Modern
The solution thus most pronouncedly laid down by Colonel Haskell may or
may not prove in this case correct and final. It certainly is not for
me, coming from the North, to undertake dogmatically to pass upon it. I
recur to it here as a plausible suggestion only, in connection with my
theme. As such, it unquestionably merits consideration. I am by no means
prepared to go the length of an English authority in recently saying
that "emancipation on two continents sacrificed the real welfare of the
slave and his intrinsic worth as a person, to the impatient vanity of
an immediate and theatrical triumph."[3] This length I say, I cannot go;
but so far as the present occasion is concerned, with such means of
observation as are within my reach, I find the conclusion difficult to
resist that the success of the abolitionists in effecting the
emancipation of the Afro-American, as unexpected and sweeping as it was
sudden, has led to phases of the race problem quite unanticipated at
least. For instance, as respects segregation. Instead of assimilating,
with a tendency to ultimate absorption, the movement in the opposite
direction since 1865 is pronounced. It has, moreover, received the final
stamp of scientific approval. This implies much; for in the old days of
the "peculiar institution" there is no question the relations between
the two races were far more intimate, kindly, and even absorptive than
they now are.
That African slavery, as it existed in the United States anterior to the
year 1862, presented a mild form of servitude, as servitude then existed
and immemorially had almost everywhere existed, was, moreover,
incontrovertibly proven in the course of the Civil War. Before 1862, it
was confidently believed that any severe social agitation within, or
disturbance from without, would inevitably lead to a Southern servile
insurrection. In Europe this result was assumed as of course; and,
immediately after it was issued, the Emancipation Proclamation of President
[3] Bussell's (Dr. F.W.) "Christian Theology and Social Progress."
Bampton Lectures, 1905. Lincoln was denounced in unmeasured terms by
the entire London press. Not a voice was raised in its defence. It was
regarded as a measure unwarranted in civilized warfare, and a sure and
intentional incitement to the horrors which had attended the servile
insurrections of Haiti and San Domingo; and, more recently, the
unspeakable Sepoy incidents of the Indian mutiny. What actually occurred
is now historic. The confident anticipations of our English brethren
were, not for the first time, negatived; nor is there any page in our
American record more creditable to those concerned than the attitude
held by the African during the fierce internecine struggle which
prevailed between April, 1861, and April, 1865. In it there is scarcely
a trace, if indeed there is any trace at all, of such a condition of
affairs as had developed in the Antilles and in Hindustan. The attitude
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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