SECTION VI.SECTION VI.
Before I entered New Lngland, while I was ascending theMississippi, I was told by a Boston gentleman that the people ofcolour in the New England States were perfectly well-treated;that the children were educated in schools provided for them;and that their fathers freely exercised the franchise. Thisgentleman certainly believed he was telling me the truth. Thathe, a busy citizen of Boston, should know no better, is now asstriking an exemplification of the state of the case to me as acorrect representation of the facts would have been. There aretwo causes for his mistake. He was not aware that the schools forthe coloured children in New England are, unless they escape bytheir insignificance, shut up, or pulled down, or theschool-house wheeled away upon rollers over the frontier of apious State, which will not endure that its coloured citizensshould be educated. He was not aware of a gentleman of colour,and his family, being locked out of their own hired pew in achurch, because their white brethren will not worship by theirside. But I will not proceed with an enumeration of injuries, toofamiliar to Americans to excite any feeling but that ofweariness; and too disgusting to all others to be endured. Theother cause of this gentleman's mistake was, that he did not,from long custom, feel some things to be injuries, which he wouldcall anything but good treatment, if he had to bear them himself.Would he think it good treatment to be forbidden to eat withfellow-citizens; to be assigned to a particular gallery in hischurch; to be excluded from college, from municipal office, fromprofessions, from scientific and literary associations? If hefelt himself excluded from every department of society, but itshumiliations and its drudgery, would he declare himself to be"perfectly well-treated in Boston?" Not a word more ofstatement is needed.
A Connecticut judge lately declared on the bench that hebelieved people of colour were not considered citizens in thelaws. He was proved to be wrong. He was actually ignorant of thewording of the acts by which people of colour are termedcitizens. Of course, no judge could have forgotten this who hadseen them treated as citizens: nor could one of the most eminentstatesmen and lawyers in the country have told me that it isstill a doubt, in the minds of some high authorities, whetherpeople of colour are citizens. He is as mistaken as the judge.There has been no such doubt since the Connecticut judge wascorrected and enlightened. The error of the statesman arose fromthe same cause; he had never seen the coloured people treated ascitizens. "In fact," said he, "these people holdan anomalous situation. They are protected as citizens when thepublic service requires their security; but not otherwise treatedas such." Any comment would weaken this intrepid statement.
The common argument, about the inferiority of the colouredrace, bears no relation whatever to this question. They arecitizens. They stand, as such, in the law, and in theacknowledgment of every one who knows the law. They are citizens,yet their houses and schools are pulled down, and they canobtain no remedy at law. They are thrust out of offices, andexcluded from the most honourable employments, and stripped ofall the best benefits of society by fellow-citizens who, once ayear, solemnly lay their hands on their hearts, and declare thatall men are born free and equal, and that rulers derive theirjust powers from the consent of the governed.
This system of injury is not wearing out. Lafayette, on hislast visit to the United States, expressed his astonishment atthe increase of the prejudice against colour. He remembered, hesaid, how the black soldiers used to mess with the whites in therevolutionary war. The leaders of that war are gone whereprinciples are all,-- where prejudices are nothing. If theirghosts could arise, in majestic array, before the Americannation, on their great anniversary, and hold up before them themirror of their constitution, in the light of its firstprinciples, where would the people hide themselves from theblasting radiance? They would call upon their holy soil toswallow them up, as unworthy to tread upon it. But not all. Itshould ever be remembered that America is the country of the bestfriends the coloured race has ever had. The more truth there isin the assertions of the oppressors of the blacks, the moreheroism there is in their friends. The greater the excuse for thepharisees of the community, the more divine is the equity of theredeemers of the coloured race. If it be granted that thecoloured race are naturally inferior, naturally depraved,disgusting, cursed,--it must be granted that it is a heavenlycharity which descends among them to give such solace as it canto their incomprehensible existence. As long as the excuses ofthe one party go to enhance the merit of the other, the societyis not to be despaired of, even with this poisonous anomaly atits heart.
Happily, however, the coloured race is not cursed by God, asit is by some factions of his children. The less clear-sighted ofthem are pardonable for so believing. Circumstances, for which noliving man is answerable, have generated an erroneous convictionin the feeble mind of man, which sees not beyond the actual andimmediate. No remedy could ever have been applied, unlessstronger minds than ordinary had been brought into the case. Butit so happens, wherever there is an anomaly, giant minds rise upto overthrow it: minds gigantic, not in understanding, but infaith. Wherever they arise, they are the salt of their earth, andits corruption is retrieved. So it is now in America. While themass of common men and women are despising, and disliking, andfearing, and keeping down the coloured race, blinking the factthat they are citizens, the few of Nature's aristocracy areputting forth a strong hand to lift up this degraded race out ofoppression, and their country from the reproach of it. If theywere but one or two, trembling and toiling in solitary energy,the world afar would be confident of their success. But theynumber hundreds and thousands; and if ever they feel a passingdoubt of their progress, it is only because they are pressed uponby the meaner multitude. Over the sea, no one doubts of theirvictory. It is as certain as that the risen sun will reach themeridian. Already are there overflowing colleges, where nodistinction of colour is allowed;--overflowing, because nodistinction of colour is allowed. Already have people of colourcrossed the thresholds of many whites, as guests, not as drudgesor beggars. Already are they admitted to worship, and to exercisecharity, among the whites.
The world has heard and seen enough of the reproach incurredby America, on account of her coloured population. It is now timeto look for the fairer side. The crescent streak is brighteningtowards the full, to wane no more. Already is the worldbeyond the sea beginning to think of America, less as the countryof the double-faced pretender to the name of Liberty, than as thehome of the single-hearted, clear-eyed Presence which, under thename of Abolitionism, is majestically passing through the landwhich is soon to be her throne.
From Harriet Martineau, Society in America, VolumeI, Part I, Chapter III, Section VI - " Citizenship of Peopleof Colour." London: Saunders and Otley, 1837, pp. 193-199.
Forward to Society in America, Ch.III, Section VII, - "Political Non-Existence of Women"
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