* Cbe Conservative *
moved all hygienic restraints , and they
were no longer obedient to the inexor
able laws of health , plunging into all
sorts of excesses and vices , leading ir
regular lives , and having apparently
little or no control over their appetites
and passions. It is very manifest that
these morbid tendencies and suscepti
bilities have been growing and taking
deeper root for the past thirty years ;
hence their unstable condition and their
susceptibility to and inability to resist
attacks of disease that were formerly
almost unknown among them. ( Powell. )
In the wholesale violation of these
hygienic laws after the war , as previous
ly stated , was laid the foundation of the
degeneration of the physical and mental
constitution of the negro. Licentious
ness left its slimy trail of sometimes in
eradicable disease upon his physical
being , and neglected bronchitis , pneu
monia and pleurisy lent their helping
hand toward lung degeneration.
A Moral Heine ; .
Science has demonstrated that he is a
moral being , without the high moral
character or broad brain abilities of the
white man , it being an anatomical fact
that the average weight of the negro's
brain is 42 ounces , while 49 ounces is the
recognized average of the Caucasian ;
that his mental calibre is small , his
brain convolutions being few and super
ficial and his forms of insanity , prin
cipally mania , showing the involvement
only of the lower physical strata of the
brain.
If science thus demonstrates the ne
groe's mental inferiority , certainly his
tory , dating as far back as the time of
Pepi , of the VI Dynasty of Egypt , 2,500
years B. 0. , proves his phylogeny to
have been of an inferior type , and that
the general characteristics of the negro
of that date were the same as those of
the negro of equatorial Africa today.
From the time of Genesis and the
curse of Canaan : "A servant of ser
vants shnlt thou be to thy brethren ,
the negro has belonged to a subordinate
race , and ancient history has left no rec
ords of his achievements as warrior , king
or councillor , but along its whole path
way he has plod in servitude , even from
the day when the Oyrenian was laid
hold upon and made to bear the cross of
the fainting Christ.
The problem of adjusting and adopt
ing this people to the environments of
civilization has been left in these latter
days to the white people of the South.
Under the environments of slavery and
under the tutelage of the whites , their
worst character was uplifted and eleva
ted , but under the present conditions of
life , and under their own leaders , I do
not hesitate to say that the race is de
generating and fast reverting to their
original types of savagery. Under the
old regime , the negro had for his pre
ceptor and educator the most highly
educated and moral class of the white
people , at present , under the fancied an
tagonism of classes , and because of
racial prejudices , the negro is used only
for temporary purposes , and without
regard for his future welfare or im
provement. In domestic service , the
mothers and fathers yet have the advan
tage of attrition to the whites , but their
children are being raised by superannua
ted members of the family who have
neither the mental nor moral qualifica
tions , nor the proper self-control to edu
cate and restrain them.
New Issue of Itncc.
This "new issue" of the race , essen
tially ignorant and superstitious , vicious
and impulsive , idle and improvident ,
mentally never more than a half-grown
child , without self-confidence or am
bition , without originality or persistency
of purpose ; descended from the most
inferior and degraded race of West
Coast Africans , not at all equal to the
Kaffirs or Zulus of Southern Africa or
the Soudanese of Northern Africa this
type of the second generation , which
today confronts our southern civiliza
tion , is to any unbiased mind worse than
the first.
Can they , with their history , with
heredity , with their character , measure
up to the necessary standard and the
high requirements of this day ? I answer
no and I answer yes no , if they con
tinue the experiment under their own
leadership ; yes , if they are willing to
trust , faithfully and obediently , their
leadership in education , in morals , and
in government of state to the best
thought and talent of the whites.
IMcnncc to the South.
The negro is in the South to remain ,
and all attempts at expatriation or de
portation , or colonization , will be as vain
as they are chimerical ; he will remain ,
however , as a parasite upon the body
politic , and unless led with consummate
skill through the dangers that confront
him he will become a standing menace
to the welfare of the South.
The negro is nothing of a peasant ; he
never develops a country ; he has made
no material advancement , as their
history since the war in the South will
show , the race as a whole in Virginia
today not paying 5 cents on the dollar of
this state's taxes.
The history of this people in Hayti
and Santo Domingo , with complete con
trol of their own government , is too
well known as a disastrous failure to re
quire reiteration here. In Jamaica , even
under British influences and allowed a
fair proportion in the participation of
government , they have made an absolute
failure , and , from credible authority ,
have reverted to hoodooism and canni
balism ; and the only experiment ever
made by England in this country , when
in the war of 1812 the English fleet
under Admiral Oockburn carried off a
large number of negroes from Tide
water , Virginia , to Halifax , Nova Scotia ,
and there colonized them , has been like
wise a dismal failure , for I am informed
by an eye-witness that , though left to
themselves and supplied with all the
privileges of education , they have
dwindled to a mere handful , and are
living in a condition of poverty and de
gradation that will sooner or later end
in a state of brutal savagery.
Question of Education.
*
It may be pertinently asked if educa
tion would the better fit this race for
the responsibilities before them. Surely
so , but the history and statistics of the
past thirty-five years in the South show
that the negro neither desires a full and
systematic education nor has he , as a
class , received any substantial benefits
from it , for though there may be an
occasional gleam of intellectual brillian
cy , it is the exception , and the dark pall
of ignorance still beclouds the race of
southern negroes , although the public
school system , 19-20 of whose cost has
been paid for by the whites , has been
their common privilege. Before this
method of elevating the negro can be
relied upon for their material advance
ment , experience has shown that the
methods of education now in vogue
must be changed , and that it must be
industrial and mechanical , and , above
all , that it must be directed by the
maturer wisdom of the whites in order
that intelligence may give dignity and
beauty to his labor , and that , added to
this , religion and morality may be
weaved into the woof and warp of the
practical affairs of the negro's daily life.
No , the negro will remain with us in
the South , if he will but give up his
aspirations to full citizenship and con
fide his education and government to the
whites , who , in times past , have proved
their love for him remain in peace , re
main to fill the offices for which God
and nature designed him , remain to be
the white man's servant , "hewers of
wood and drawers of water. " Some
kind of restraining and inhibitory in
fluences such as once characterized the
institution of slavery , must be thrown
around him as a safeguard for many
years to come , or there will be a con
tinued degeneracy and a tendency to a
reversion to his primitive typo as a
savage.
He must eliminate himself directly
from the body politic , and the education
which he is capable of taking will the
better fit him to gravitate to his appointed
place in the onward march of southern
civilization. This is the problem for the
South ; to carry these two races in peace ,
for discord means ruin ; to carry them
separately , for assimilation means de
basement ; to carry them in equal
justice , for to this she is pledged ; to
carry them even unto the end , for this is
her destiny. This burden no other
people bears today , on none other hath
it ever rested.