WHITES AND BLACKS IN AMERICA.
ON the last occasion —some few months ago—on which we dealt with the subject of the coloured population of the United States, we drew attention to evidence recently forthcoming as to the considerable moral and intellectual development which the Negroes are capable of achieving under proper guidance. Unfortunately,-this progress has not been accompanied by any relaxation of the abhorrence felt by the Whites in regard to social intercourse and association with the coloured population. The evidence of the continuance, if not, indeed, of the growth of that abhorrence, is daily accumulating, and we find it difficult not to be forced into the belief that serious trouble is in store for the Republic. The recent outbreak of riot, outrage, and Lynch-law in the South is an unpleasant phenomenon enough ; but what is infinitely more important is the fact that throughout the Northern and Western States—that is, among the population that poured forth blood like water to emancipate the Negroes—the refusal to consider them as possessed of equal social rights with the white man is steadily growing more determined.
The New York correspondent of the Manchester Examiner, who lets the readers of that paper have information on other subjects than the weather or the last financial coup, has collected instances illustrating the present aspect of feeling in America on the Negro question, which, both from their number and their character, can only be described as appalling. Men who may be perfectly willing to respect a coloured person's political rights, will do almost anything, rather than be brought into personal relations with him. President Harrison's Ad- ministration lately appointed as Minister at Hayti the well- known half-bred Negro, Mr. Fred. Douglass, famous before the war as an Emancipation lecturer, and from 1876 to 1881 United States Marshal to the District of Columbia. Politically, the appointment gave, as far as we can gather, no offence whatever. When, however, it became necessary for the new Diplomatic Agent to proceed to his post, the greatest possible difficulties were encountered. The ordinary mail steamers to the West Indies were out of the question as a means of transport, as their rules are so strict in regard to coloured passengers that they would have only been able to give deck-passages to the Minister and his party. At first, too, it seemed as if even the officers of the United States Navy could not be relied on-to obey orders in such a case. No fewer than three Captains in succession had to be deprived of their commands, before an officer willing to take Mr. Douglass to Port- au-Prince was discovered. That is, rather than submit to what they considered the degradation of having to receive a black man on terms of equality in their ships, three separate officers chose to close their careers. When we remember the very strict discipline that prevails in the United States Navy, and the natural inclination of an" officer to obey his orders, even if he were told to turn his ship into a cattle-boat, it is almost impossible to overrate the significance of the event. Take as another example of the feeling, the fact that on a recent occasion Mr. Douglass was refused accommodation by all the leading hotels in Jacksonville, Florida, on the ground of his colour. Nor was this the result of the old slave-owner prejudice, for the hotels in question were kept by Northerners and., in. tended for Northern guests. As examples of similar exclusiveness, may be mentioned the fact that the Young Men's Christian Association will nowhere in America admit coloured youths to membership, and that most of the conventions of the Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist Churches refuse to allow coloured clergy- men to take part in their deliberations. Again, in Brooklyn it is impossible for a black citizen, however wealthy or good his position, to obtain a place in the theatres except in the upper gallery. In Boston, the retail traders, it is said, refuse to employ coloured assistants in the shops ; while at one of the watering-places of New Jersey, specially frequented by visitors from New York, black strangers or residents are not permitted to bathe in the sea at the same time as the Whites. Into every rank of life this intolerance extends, and even General Harrison is reported to have dismissed all the black servants from the White House on his assumption of office. In Chicago only the other day, eight hundred workmen in a soap-manufactory went on strike because two Negroes had been employed in some menial position in the office ; while the Trade,Union of Locomotive Engineers has openly announced that no Negro can become a member of their body. In New York, the boycotting of the Negro seems to have reached its acme, for there he is debarred, chiefly by Irish jealousy, from almost every kind of occupation. " He cannot," we are told, " obtain employment from any of the municipal departments for work on the streets, and is not even considered worthy of digging sewer-trenches. He is unable to secure work as a mason, a carpenter, or as a painter. He is not permitted to drive a truck, car, or cab, and if he attempts to do so, every white driver whom he meets on the avenues does his best to upset him. He may not even aspire to the proud position of a barber, except in so far as the scraping of coloured chins and cheeks is concerned. In one word, he is debarred from doing everything that Pat, who has just arrived from the Ould Counthry,' chooses to consider as belonging to his own particular province. The gentlemen from Cork will brook no interference or competition on the part of the damned niggers.' " The restrictions as to Negro railway travelling, and the refusal of the Whites to alkw Negro children to be educated along with their own, are too well known to need description ; but two specific instances of the manner in which coloured people are sometimes treated in typical Western States, may be quoted from the correspondence of the Manchester Examiner. At Detroit, in Michigan, a respectable and wealthy mulatto brought an action against a restaurant-keeper who had refused to serve him ; but though there was no doubt about the facts, the jury unanimously decided against the plaintiff, who was, moreover, obliged to pay heavy costs. Again, at Decatur, in the State of Illinois, the leading confectioner of the place refused to serve a black clergyman with an ice. But though at first sight the expression of such opinions 'by Northerners may seem incomprehensible, we trust that Englishmen will not run away with the notio'n that the Northern advocates of disenfranchisement must necessarily he going back from their old principles. In the first place, it must be remembered that the Northerners did not fight to give the Blacks the vote, but to save the Union, and to put an end to Slavery, and with it the domination of " a slave-owning, slave-breeding, slave- driving aristocracy." If the Abolitionists had been allowed to free the Blacks by peaceful means, they would almost certainly, as in the case of the Indians and the Chinese, have refused them the franchise. The result of the con- ferring of the full citizenship on the Blacks has shown that this policy would have been the true one. In the Southern States, the Negroes have, as a rule, been prac- tically deprived of all political power, and are mere tools in the bands of the Whites. As a Southern politician told Mr. Bryce,—" We like the coloured person, and treat him better than the Northerners, but we intend to vote him." In North and South Carolina, in Georgia and in Alabama, the Negroes, if the reports are true, are utterly in the hands of the Whites, and the power of the law is frequently invoked to oppress, almost to re-enslave them. Under such circumstances, it is hardly to be wondered that the Northerners should say : Why should the South be allowed a voting strength in pro- portion to a population half of which is deprived of its rights ? If disfranchisement were to take place, the coloured population of the South might, it is argued, be placed under the special protection of the Federal Government, as are the Indians, and strenuous efforts might be made by expenditure out of the Federal Treasury to educate them and raise their condition. No such scheme, however, is ever likely to be tried. The solely on account of his colour. In addition, no owner of house-property in New York will, if he can avoid it, let a house to a Negro, on the ground, apparently, that it would depreciate the rest of his property to do so. More offensive, according to our notions, than all, marriages between Blacks and Whites are actually punished with hard labour. Only the other day, an English emigrant, not aware of the law, was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment—if we remember rightly, it was five years— for this very offence. More formidable, however, than these instances of the refusal of the Whites to admit that there can be any equality between them and the Blacks, is the growth of the demand for either expelling the Negroes or else depriving them of political rights. The expulsion cry, once vague and shadowy, has become, if not a matter of practical politics—nothing which is physically impossible could well be that—at least one of actual debate. A month ago, Senator Gibbs, one of the leading politicians of the Southern States—a man noted for his connection with the Sunday-school movement—advocated in the Senate of Georgia the " forced emigration or extermination of the Negroes," whom he declares to be "worthless as labourers " and " a danger to the community at large." "There is not room in this country," he exclaimed, "for the Negro and the Yankee. I care not what course the Courts may take. But when the white men strike for home and fireside, I am with them." On a ballot taken, it was found that the votes of the Senate with regard to the expulsion of the Negro element from the State stood 16 to 16. The presiding officer, on being called upon to give the casting-vote, registered it against Senator Gibbs, and the latter's motion was therefore lost, but only by a single vote. As another sign of the times may be noted the fact that Mr. W. L. Royall, in seeking election for Congress in Richmond, Virginia, declared that his sole aim at Washington would be to secure the disfranchisement of the Negro. Most remarkable of all, General Sherman, the hero of the march to Richmond, in addressing a meeting of his former army at Cincinnati, expressed him- self prepared to admit the disfranchisement of the Negro provided that the Congressional representation of the South was reduced in proportion to the number of coloured persons deprived of the vote. This manifesto is declared by the correspondent of the Manchester Examiner to represent the unanimous popular opinion of the North. That this, however, is an exaggeration, we can hardly doubt. Still, the fact remains that a man in General Sherman's position actually advocates the disfranchisement of the entire Negro whole question bristles with difficulties. The Democrats, for instance, could not be expected to endure a reduction of their power in Congress and the Electoral College. And, again, there would be a great difficulty in disfranchising the Negroes of the Northern States, many of whom have enjoyed the franchise all their lives, just as did their fathers before them. That the people of the United States will weather the trouble, we do not doubt for an instant, for they are Englishmen, and do not succumb, in the end, to any political troubles, however great. Still, the Negro question is one 'which all friends of the Union will watch with anxiety till a solution is discovered. Before we leave the subject, we must, in justice to the American people, say something as to the instances of social oppression exercised upon Negroes with which we began this article. English people cannot easily realise the conditions. To begin with, they seldom hear the other side of the question, for it is one that Americans naturally shrink from speaking about. The outrages on and lynching of Negroes are abominable enough, and no word shall ever be said here to condone the cruelty and injustice of such acts. We must not forget, however, that in many parts of the South no white woman will go out alone without a revolver. Unquestionably a portion of the Negroes of the Gulf States are still licentious savages not yet emancipated from the hideous abominations of the Obeah, nor from the persistent inclination towards evil always existing in uncivilised mankind. If we lived within sight, as it were, of a population whose grandparents were Guinea savages, we should find it no easy task to think and act calmly and justly in regard to the Negroes.
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