IN AMERICA
from the
ASSAULTS AND CHARGES
OF
Ri i. L. TUCKER, D. D.,
Of Jackson, Miss.,
In liis Paper before the "Church Congress''of 1882,
on
" The Relations of the Church to the Colored Race."
i Rl PARED AND FUELISHED AT REQUEST OF THE COLORED CLERGY OF
THE PROT. EPIS. CHURCH,
By ALEX. CRl'MMELL,
Rector of St. Luke s Church, Washington, D. C.,
Author of " The Future of Africa," and " The Greatness of Christ,"
and other Sermons.
SECOND EDITION.
Price - - - 15 cents.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED BY JUDD & DETWEILER,
1883.
A DEFENCE OF THE NEGRO RACE.
This is peculiarly the age of criticism, and neither the
sensitiveness nor the weakness of peoples can exempt them
from its penetrating search or its pointed strictures. Criti¬
cism, however, in order to perform its functions aright,
must submit to certain laws of responsibility, and be held
by certain rules of restraint. It must deal with facts, and
not with fancies and conjectures. It must not indulge
what Butler calls the "forward and delusive faculty" of
the imagination, "ever intruding beyond its sphere." It
must avoid coloring its facts with the hues of its own
self-consciousness or feelings. It must be rigidly just in
its inferential processes. Nothing can be more ludicrous
than to make a wide generalization from the narrow circle
of a provincialism, and nothing more unjust.
It is because Dr. Tucker's paper "On the Relations
of the Church to the Colored Race '' is defective
in these several points that I have undertaken, at the
suggestion of reverend brethren of my own race and
Church, a refutation of it. We are all fully aware of the
weaknesses, and, to a large extent, of the degradation of
our race in this country; for the race has been a victim
race. Our children have been victimized, our men have
been victimized, and alas ! worse than all, our women
have been victimized—generation after generation, two
hundred years and more, down to the present! We
make no pretense that our people, by a miraculous impulse,
have of a sudden risen entirely above the malarial poison
of servitude. We know better than this, and we mourn
their shortcomings. But we know, also, that a marvelous
change has taken place in all the sections of their life—
4
social, civil, educational, ecclesiastical—since the day of
freedom ; and we regard it a most grievous misdemeanor
in Dr. Tucker that he has blindly ignored that change.
I have read Dr. Tucker's pamphlet with very much care
and attention, and I cannot resist the conclusion that it
is one of the most unjust and injurious statements that I
have ever met with. First of all, on the hypothesis that
his representation of the moral condition of the Negro is
correct—but which I deny—his pamphlet, instead of being
a lamentation over wrong and injustice, is an indict¬
ment, alike gross and undeserving, of a deeply-wronged
people. Unless I greatly misunderstand Dr. Tucker, and
his endorsers also, he attributes gross moral depravity,
general lewdness, dishonesty, and hypocrisy as Negro pecu¬
liarities, and as such constitutional to him. But I beg to
say that these charges are unjust. These traits of charac¬
ter, so far as they maintain at the South, are American
characteristics—the legitimate outcome of the pernicious
system of bondage which has crushed this race for more
than two hundred yeai*s. For, first-, when Dr. Tucker
and his endorsers declare that the Negro, as such, is void
of the family feeling; that moral purity is an unknown
virtue; that dishonesty is almost an instinct; that both
economy and acquisitiveness are exotics in his nature,
they testify that of which they do not know.
the native character of the negro.
I have lived nigh twenty years in West Africa. I have
come in contact with peoples of not less than forty tribes,
and I aver, from personal knowledge and acquaintance,
that the picture drawn by Dr. Tucker is a caricature. I
am speaking of the native Negro, (a) All along the West
Coast of Africa the family tie and the marriage bond are as
strong as among any other primitive people. The very
5
words in which Cicero and Tacitus describe the homes and
families of the Germanic tribes can as truly be ascribed to the
people of the West Coast of Africa. (/>) Their maidenly
virtue, the instinct to chastity, is a marvel. I have no hes¬
itation in the generalization that, in West Africa, every
female is a virgin to the day of her marriage. The harlot
class is unknown in all their tribes. I venture the asser¬
tion that any one walking through Pall Mall, London, or
Broadway, New York, for a week, would see more inde¬
cency in look and act than he could discover in an African
town in a dozen years. During my residence there I only
once saw an indecent act. Of course polygamy—and
polygamy is the exceptional fact—brings, in Africa, all its
common disastrous fruits: intrigue, unfaithfulness, adul¬
tery. But these are human, not Negro, results, cropping
out from an unnatural system. (c) And then, when you
come to the question of honesty, the state of society in
Africa settles that point. Heathen though these people
are, their system is a most orderly one—filled everywhere
with industrious activities; the intercourse of people regu¬
lated by rigid law. The whole continent is a beehive. The
markets are held regularly at important points. Caravans,
laden with products, are constantly crossing the entire
continent; and large, nay at times immense, multitudes
are gathered together for sale and barter at their markets.
Such a state of society is incompatible with universal theft
and robbery.
I know somewhat the reputation of the "Yankee;" and
the nature of the yew has made his name a synonym. But
if either Jew or Yankee possesses more of the acquisitive
feeling than the native African, then I have failed in my
knowledge of human nature.
Of course the wants of the African are inferior to those
of the Yankee or the Jew; but that the masterful instinct
6
of greed stimulates the entire continent is witnessed by the
strong trading tendencies of almost every tribe; by the
universal demand for foreign goods; by the search for out¬
lets for native products; and by the immense trade which
is poured out of every river into the holds of foreign
vessels.*
the debased american negro.
But perchance Dr. Tucker will insist that the portrait
he gives of the Southern Negro is a true one. He is void
of family feeling ; he is lewd ; he is a liar and self-deceiver;
he is dishonest and improvident. Grant, for the moment,
that this representation of the American Negro is correct.
I have shown that these characteristics are not native to the
race. Whence then this divergence of character from the
original type ? Why is the black man in America so dif¬
ferent in morality from his pagan brother in Africa ?
Look at Dr. Tucker's picture of the moral degradation
of this people. I do not wish to do him the least injustice.
Nevertheless I think I may repeat St. Paul's summary of
the moral condition of the Pagan Romans, of his day, as
the equivalent of Dr. Tucker's characterization of the
American Negro. I leave it to the reader to strike out the
few epithets in Rom. i, 29; or I Tim. 1, 9 and 10, which
may seem inapplicable to this case,f for Dr. T. charges
them as a class, with hypocrisy, lying, stealing, adultery, &c.
* See the testimony of celebrated African travellers—Mungo Park,
Ledyard, Adanson, Laing, &c., &c.
f Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, cove-
tousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malig¬
nity ; whisperers. Rom. 1: 29.
Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for
the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy
and profane, for whoremongers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if
there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. I Tim. 1:
9 and 10.
7
Now this is one of the most appalling representations
that has ever been put upon paper, (a) Here is a nation
of people, for a population that runs up its numbers to six or
seven millions, is not merely a people—it is a nation. Here
then is a nation, resident for more than seven generations
amid the vast populations of this Christian country ; and
yet, as Dr. Tucker avers, so low and degraded in moral
character, that he, himself, is forced even now, after twenty
years of freedom, to declare that they are a demoralized
people on the downward track to ruin.
(d) Yet notice that this Negro nation has been for two
centuries under the absolute control and moulding of the
Christian Church and people of the South. They have
not been separate in locality, as the Israelites in Goshen
were from the Egyptians. They have been living, in all
their generations, on the farms and in the houses and'
families of their masters. So thoroughly intermingled
have they been with the life and society of their superiors
that they have lost entirely their native tongues, and have
taken English as their vernacular. Moreover, they pre¬
sented the resistance of no organic religion to the faith of
their masters. They had a heterogeneous paganism when
they came from Africa—so inchoate and diversified that it
soon fell before the new circumstances in which they were
placed.
(c) Hence, it is evident (i) that the paganism of the
African was no formidable obstacle to the Christian
Church; (2) that the Christian Church had the oppor¬
tunity of easy conquest; and (3) joining to the numeri¬
cal inferiority of the Negro population the vast resources
of the Southern Christian, in all the elements of power
and available resources, we can see at once the high van¬
tage ground of the Christian Church.
(d) But what now is the fact presented by Dr. Tucker?
8
It is this, viz. : 'that after two and a half centuries, the
black race in the South is still in a state of semi-barbarism,
slightly veneered by a Christian profession. Their reli¬
gion (I use his own words) is "an outward form of Chris¬
tianity with an inward substance of full license given to
all desires and passions." (Page 18.)
Let us take Dr. Tucker at his word ; and what, I ask—
what is the inference to be drawn from this state of
things ? I state the conclusion with the greatest sorrow ;
but it seems irresistible, /. e., that the Christian Church
in the South, with the grandest opportunity for service
for Christ, and with the very best facilities, has been a
failure ! It has had one of the widest missionary fields!
It has had this field of service open before it two hundred
years, and it has hardly attempted to enter it! It has
'.been full of missionary zeal for the peoples of Greece and
Asia, for India, and even the West African Negro, but it
has lacked the missionary heart for millions of Negroes on
its own plantations and in its own households !
the southern black man the product of the south¬
ern '' schoolmaster '' slavery.
I do not deny that there is wide-spread demoralization
among the Southern black population. How could it be
otherwise? Their whole history for two hundred years
has been a history of moral degradation deeper and more
damning than their heathen status in Africa. I am speak¬
ing of aggregates. I grant the incidental advantages to
scores and hundreds which have sprung from contact with
Christian people. I am speaking of the moral condition
of the masses, who have been under the yoke; and I un¬
hesitatingly affirm that they would have been more
blessed and superior as pagans in Africa than slaves on the
plantations of the South.
9
Bishop Howe, of South Carolina, calls slavery " a
schoolmaster to the black man." Bishop Gregg declares
that "it brought its benefits and blessings." I am filled
with amazement that men of sense and reason can thus
travesty plain, common English, and talk such senseless
stuff! " Schooolmaster ! " And pray what sort of a
schoolmaster has slavery proven ? Why, the slave system
has had the black man under training two hundred years,
and yet never in all this period has it developed one Negro
community of strength or greatness ! Never raised up
anywhere an intelligent, thrifty, productive peasantry !
Never built up a single Negro institution of any value to
mankind ! Never produced a single scientific or scholarly
or learned black man ! Its only fruit has been darkness,
degradation, semi-barbarism, immorality, agonies, and
death! Garnet, Douglass, Ward, and Pennington
were men of the largest mould. But each had to run
away from the South to get the development of their
colossal natures amid Northern institutions !
And so, too, since emancipation. All the black men of
conspicuous genius or character South have had to get out
of the old slave region and come North for the training
and development of their intellect. The little Colony of
Sierra Leone, with a population of 90,000, has been in ex¬
istence one hundred years. Will their Reverences show me
anywhere in America any such results as that Colony ex¬
hibits in letters, civilization, commercial enterprise, man¬
hood, and religion, which have come from two hundred
years' tenure of slavery on American soil? Will they de¬
clare that their "schoolmaster" has bred such men,
started such enterprises, and developed such missionary
ventures as ,the handful of Negroes in that little English
colony? "Schoolmaster" indeed! Is it not an abuse
of the English language and of common sense to print
10
such verbiage ? Look for a few moments at the moral
status and training of the black race under slavery, and
see if anything else but demoralization could be the fruit
thereof ?
ist. They were left, as to religion, to themselves. Their
ministers were almost universally ignorant and unlettered
men. As the ambition and cleverness of the race, under
slavery, could find no other channel than the ministry, the
piety of ministers was but an incident; and so men anxious
for rule and authority, but withal ofttimes unscrupulous
and godless , as well as. ignorant, became their preachers.
Not all such indeed; but alas ! in large proportions ! Good
but illiterate men numbers of the field preachers were.
But large numbers of them were unscrupulous and lecher¬
ous scoundrels ! This was a large characteristic of " planta¬
tion religion;" cropping out even to the present, in the
extravagances and wildness of many of their religious
practices !
2. Their religion, both of preachers and people, was a
religion without the Bible—a crude medley of scraps of
Scripture, fervid imaginations, dreams, and superstitions.
So thorough was the legal interdict of letters and teaching,
that the race, as a whole, knew nothing of the Scriptures
nor of the Catechisms of the churches. I state it as a strong
conviction, the result of wide inquiry, that at the close of
the civil war not five hundred blacks among four and a
half millions of my race could be found, in the entire South,
who knew the " Assembly's Catechism;" not five hun¬
dred who knew, in its entirety, the Catechism of the
Episcopal Church. The Ten Commandments were as
foreign from their minds and memories as the Vedas of
India or the moral precepts of Confucius. Ignorance of
the Moral Law was the main characteristic of "Planta¬
tion Religion ! ''
11
3- Sad as are these facts in the history of the race, one
further item is horrifying j and that is that the prime
functions of the race, under slavery were ist, Lust, and
2d, unrequitted labor. This is the most serious feature
of the whole slave system; and upon it a volume might be
written. But I confine myself to the statement of a few
simple glaring facts.
In speaking of the licentious and demoralizing nature of
slavery, I am speaking of its general influences. I have no
time to waste upon exceptional features. There are black
men who tell me that all slave-holders were tyrants and
Legrees; but such men I know to be fanatics. There are
white men who tell me that slave-holders in general were
fathers to their slaves ; but such men are manifestly fools.
Slave-holders, like all other sorts of men were divided into
two classes—the good and the bad : the good, like Baronial
lords, like Patriarchs of old, like the grand aristocrats of
civilized society, were kind, generous, humane, and fath¬
erly ; they were noblemen ; and there was a large class of
such men. The bad, and they were the mass of slave¬
holders, were full of greed, tyranny, unscrupulousness, and
carnality. They herded their slaves together like animals.
They were allowed to breed like cattle. The marriage re¬
lation was utterly disregarded. All through the rural dis¬
tricts, on numerous plantations, the slaves for generations
merely mated and cohabited, as beasts. They were sep¬
arated at convenience, caprice, or at the call of interest.
When separated each took up with other men or women as
lust or inclination prompted. Masters and ministers of the
gospel taught their slaves, not only that there was no sin in
such alliances, but that it was their duty to make new alli¬
ances and exercise the animal function of breeding. And
hence the cases are numerous where men, sold from one
plantation to another, have had six and eight living wives ;
12
and women, as many living husbands. Nay more than this,
I have the testimony where one man less than fifty years old
was the father of over sixty children ; of another man who
was kept on a plantation with full license as a mere breeder
of human beings ! And from this disastrous system, so
wide has been the separation of families and the rending
of the ties of relationship, that now after twenty years of
freedom, one cannot take up a copy of the eighty or ninety
colored newspapers printed in the United States without
finding at times a score of inquiries of husbands for wives
and of wives for husbands ; of children for parents and of
parents for children. Ever and anon I meet with a woman
who had a dozen children sold from her; and in her old
age, with living children, is childless, not knowing where
they are ! And one case came to my knowledge where a
woman married her own son, sold from her in his early
boyhood; and only discovered the relationship months
after the marriage !
Of this gross carnality of the slave system, trained into
the blood for generations, until they became mere animals,
we see symptoms cropping out ever and anon, in the atrocious
acts which are reported in southern newspapers. The slave
system is indeed dead, but its deadly fruit still survives.
But it should be remembered that these gross sins are com¬
mon as well among the whites of the South as among its
black population. It filled them full of lust as well as their
victims.*
One would have supposed that with these appalling facts
staring him in the face, Dr. Tucker would have taken up
the wail of lamentation—
" We have offended. Oh, my countrymen !
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From East to West
* See "A Journey to the Back Country" and "Sea Side and Slave
States," by Frederick Law Olmstead.
13
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven!
The wretched plead against us; multitudes,
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren ! Like a cloud that travels on
Steam1 d up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence.
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to injur'd tribes slavery and pangs;
And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint
With slow perdition murders the whole man,
His body and his soul. Coleridge,
Alas, nothing of the kind is visible in all this pamphlet !
It is an indictment, from beginning to end, of a victim¬
ized and wronged people! Bishops, presbyters, and lay¬
men all unite in a dark picturing of an entire race, almost
oblivious of any wrong-doing on their part! Some of these
men are painstaking in the endeavor to show that the diffi¬
culty lies in the inherent nature of the negro ! Poor
miserable obtuse creature, he has been to school two hun¬
dred years! He has had Bishop Howe's "schoolmaster,"
and all his teachings; but he still remains an ignorant,
stupid, semi-barbarous animal! It is the Negro! the
Negro !
And Dr. Tucker, instead of a wail of lamentation at the
neglect and outrage which has brought this race to degra¬
dation, not only ignores all the conspicuous facts of Negro
progress since emancipation, but actually enters a gross and
exaggerated charge of deterioration against the entire race.
Nay, worse than this; when confronted by brother clergy¬
men, who deny his charges, he goes to work to gather in
from every quarter every possible charge of infamy against
them! It is evidently a disguised attempt to prove Eman¬
cipation a failure !
the negro race south, progressive in numbers, in
property, in education, in religion.
This indictment of the black race is a false one. I care
not how generous may be the professions of Dr. Tucker,
14
his statement before the Episcopal Congress at Richmond
was an outrage, and his charges untrue and slanderous. I
set before me, at this point, especially, the following sum¬
mary of his charges. He says (p. 21) : " The great facts
stare us in the face—that the race is increasing largely in
numbers; that since the war but few of them have come up
above the moral level of the race ; that the average level in
material prosperity is but little higher than it was before the
war; that in morality there has been a great deterioration
since the removal of the restraints of slavery ; that there is
now no upward movement whatever in morals, and if there
is any change it is downward.''
I address myself to the proof that these charges are false.
PROOF FROM VITAL STATISTICS.
1st. The admission in this paragraph, viz : that the race
is increasing largely in numbers," is a refutation of the
charge of general deterioration. Nothing is more estab¬
lished than the fact that a people given up to concubinage
and license lose vitality and decline in numbers. Through
unbridled lust and the commonality of their women whole
islands in the Pacific seas have long since taken up
" funeral marches to the grave; "
and their populations have become utterly extinct. And
so everywhere on earth the integrity and the advance of a
people's population have been conditioned on the growth
and the permanency of the family feeling. The last cen¬
sus of the nation (1882) bears out these fundamental prin¬
ciples. The increase of the black population from
4,880,009, in 1870, to 6,577,497, in 1882, is in itself a
complete refutation of Dr. Tucker's assertion. Its full
force can only be seen in connection with another fact,
viz: that in the face of the enormous immigration from
Europe, added to the natural increase of the American
15
white population, the rate of increase is 34.8 for the black
race to 29.2 for the white.
Observe that the rate of increase of the slave population
in the decades, viz., from 1850 to i860, was 23.38, from
i860 to 1870, was 9.9.
But now we have the fact that as soon as slavery declines,
up springs this population to the enormous rate of 34.8.*
Will Dr. Tucker tell me that no moral facts underlie this
growth of a people ? That numerical increase is merely the
manifestation of animality ? Such an assertion is both false
and unphilosophical. The vitality of a people is a sure
indication of several high qualities. Mere human animals
can live and increase nowhere. They are doomed every¬
where to destruction. "No country," says Mr. Burke—I
substitute "people"—"No people in which population
flourishes and is in progressive improvement can be under
a very mischievous government." Freedom then is a
better government than slavery.
No, the growth of population evinces the presence of
moral qualities. It is a manifestation of industrial forces.
It witnesses the existence of the family instinct. It points
out forecast, the use of material agencies, and the play of
divers intelligent qualities which are absolutely necessary to
the persistency of life and the attainment of some of the
higher planes of being.
*It must be remembered, too, that this increase of the colored
people is entirely by native birth. More colored people left these
States during every one of these decades than came to them.
It will be noticed also that the rate of growth by birth in a state of
freedom has been much more rapid than in a state of slavery; thirty-
four per cent, being the rate since they were emancipated, while
twenty-two per cent, was the average of increase during the last two
decades in a Btate of slavery. These facts clearly indicate that the
physical condition of the colored people has been greatly improved
since they became free men, and no longer merchantable chattels to
be bought and sold.—From "The Field," in paper of Presbyterian
Board of Missions for Freedmen.
16
THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS OF THE RACE.
But, second, the educational progress of the race, re¬
futes Dr. Tucker's charge of deterioration. Previous to
emancipation the black race, so far as the intellect is con¬
cerned, was a dead race ! Look at this people at the pres¬
ent. There is, I know, vast illiteracy among the south¬
ern blacks. But there are two sides to all questions; and
there is a view of this question which is full of cheer and
encouragement.
Remember, then, that previous to emancipation there
were not more than 30,000 people of color in the Union
who could read and write. At the North those trained in
the schools were chiefly confined to the large cities. In the
rural districts tens of thousands were cruelly neglected. At
the South education was a thing universally interdicted by
law; secured only by stealth; and then confined to only a
small fraction of the race. Take these facts into consider¬
ation, and then consider the grand fact that this day there
are 738,164 of this race in annual attendance at school.*
Consider that a large number of these have advanced to a
knowledge of grammar, geography, and history! Con¬
sider that no small portion of these are persons who have
stretched forth to philosophic acquaintance and some of
the acquisitions of science and literature ! Consider that
over 15,000 of them are employed as teachers ! Consider
that in this immense army of scholars there is a grand reg¬
iment of undergraduates in fifteen colleges; then an¬
other, smaller, but not less important^ phalanx fitting them¬
selves for the legal and medical professions; and then a
* This is the number reported by Hon. Augustus Orr, State School
Commissioner of Georgia, in 1878. This statement included all
Southern States except Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana. The num¬
ber at this time must well nigh reach 1,000,000. See " Our Brother
in Black," p. 166, by Rev. A. S. Haygood, D. D.
17
larger host of sober, thoughtful, self-sacrificing men, who
are looking forward to the pains, trials, and endurance of
a thankless but glorious service as ministers of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Consider these large and magnificent facts, and you get
somewhat an idea of the wonderful contrast between the
bright and hopeful present and the dark and disastrous night
of our past intellectual history!
Join to this the other significant fact that this large
reading population has created a demand for a new thing
in the history of the race—Newspaper Literature. And
thus have sprung into existence over EIGHTY newspapers
edited by men of the Negro race. All this, be it noticed,
in a downward-going race!
statistics of education, furnished by bureau of edu¬
cation, washington, d. c.
Enrolment of colore^ youths, as far as reported by
State school officers, for the year 1880, 784,709.
Per cent, of the colored youth of school age enrolled,
about 48.
Colored school teachers in U. S. A.:
Males .... 10,520
Females .... 5*3*4
Total . . . 15*834
Normal schools for colored youth, 44; teachers in
these, 227; pupils in them, 7,408.
High schools, or academic, for them, 36 ; teachers in
them, 120; pupils, 5,327.
Universities and colleges for the race, 15 ; teachers in
them, 119; students, 1,717-
Schools of theology for them, 22; teachers in them,
65 ; pupils reported, 880.
2
18
Schools of law, 3; teachers in these schools, 10; pu¬
pils in the same, 33.
Schools of medicine, 2, with 17 teachers and 87
pupils.
the religious advancement of the freedman.
Upon this topic Dr. Tucker gives us simply dogmatism
and assertion. He never—to use his own language in re¬
ply to his critics—'' undertakes to furnish proof" of his
assertions. A man evidently of deep convictions, he is
content to use frequent and most positive affirmations.
"No one knows better than himself" the grave state¬
ments he makes ! He " knows " what he asserts "to be
absolutely true ! " " The consensus of all authorities (?)
establish them beyond the power of any man to overthrow
them." This is Dr. Tucker's usual style.
All this, let me remind Dr. Tucker, is but opinion,
unsupported, as are the statements of himself and his en¬
dorsers, by a single item of documentary or official testi¬
mony. And "opinion," says no less an authority than
John Locke, is " the admitting or receiving any proposi¬
tion for true upon arguments or proof that are found to
persuade us to receive it as true without certain knowledge
that it is so." Or, in other words, opinion is altogether
a subjective thing. But facts, Dr. Tucker will observe,
are objective, H. e., outside of the range of imagination,
conjecture, and likewise of dogmatism.
I shall not follow Dr. Tucker in his peculiar mode of
setting forth his case. I yield to him a monoply of self-
assertion and positiveness. Nevertheless, I shall present a
few facts upon this subject which, if I do not greatly err,
will lessen the weight of Dr. Tucker's cart-loads of inten¬
sity and exaggeration.
I present here statistics of the religious status of the
19
black race in the Southern States, These statements are
very imperfect. Items of considerable importance, such
as baptisms, marriages, contributions, &c., are omitted,
from the impossibility of securing details. I have not in¬
cluded the facts relating to Congregationalists, Episco¬
palians, Campbellites, and Lutherans. I have only taken
the work of those denominations which embrace the
masses of the black population.
Church Statistics of Black Population.
DENOMINATION. MINISTERS. MEMBERSHIP.
Baptists probably 3,000 700,000
Methodist Episcopal Church (Colored membership)...not known 300,000
African Methodist Episcopal 1,832 3!)0,000
Zion African Methodist Episcopal 2,000 3OO.O00
Colored Methodist Episcopal 638 125.000
Colored Methodist Episcopal Union 101 2,550
Presbyterians 75 15,000
7,646 1,832,552
Here, then, we have an aggregate of nigh two millions
of professed disciples amid the black population of the
South. Putting aside all the other items relating to their
religious life and conduct, I shall confine myself to this
single point of membership. What is to be said concerning
it? We will, for Dr. Tucker's sake,.make large conces¬
sions, (a) on account of the ignorance of these people; (b)
for the taint of immorality, the heritage of slavery, which,
doubtless, largely leavens their profession; and (c) because
their religion is certainly greatly alloyed with phrensy and
hysteria, and tinged with the dyes of superstition.
But, after all, is it not, in the main, genuine and true ?
Is it not, simple and childish though it be, in its essence,
Christianity ? Does it not lead to prayers, and faith, and
Sabbath keeping, and holy meetings, and sacramental
observances ? Does it not produce fruits of righteousness?
Does it not beget astonishing self-sacrifice for the glory of
Jesus, and the lavish outpouring of moneys for the exten¬
sion of Christ's kingdom and the building of churches?
Surely this is the testimony of scores and hundreds—
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, above all, Methodists
and Baptists, the very men who have done the most for
them, lived most with them, and who know them better than
any others.
Dr. Tucker, however, has deliberately declared of this
immense multitude of Christians (i) " that they have a form
of Christianity without its substance, and that they have
no comprehension of what that substance ought to be!" (2)
4'That the great mass of them are hypocrites, and do not
know it." (3) " That their religion is an outward form of
Christianity, with an inner substance of full license given to
all desires and passions." (4) " That almost a whole race
of them is going down into perdition before our eyes! " *
We have a dreadful picture in the 1st Epistle of the Co¬
rinthians of the demoralization of an Apostolic Church; and
yet the holy Apostle St. Paul did not dare to speak of that
Church in the sweeping and destructive way that Dr. Tucker
speaks of millions of disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ in
the Southern Negro churches. And I cannot but ask, if it
is not a horrible thing that a minister of the Gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ should thus assume the prerogative of
Deity, and thus sit in judgment upon the character and
piety of multitudes of people whom he has never seen, and
of whom he knows nothing !
" Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge His justice, be the God of God!"
* The reader will bear in mind that these and similar statements of
Dr. Tucker are absolutely contradictory of the statements of Southern
men made at the period of Southern " Secession." Then the South¬
ern clergy published to the world, as one ground of justification of
their course, their responsibility for hundreds of thousands
of negro christians, whom they had converted. Then, as
slaves, they were christians. Now, as freemen, they are " hypo¬
crites," going down to perdition! The reconcilement of these in¬
consistencies I leave to others.
21
industrial facts.
Fourth. I turn from the religious advance of my
people to their monetary and industrial condition. And
here, too, as in the other cases referred to, there is every
cause for thanksgiving. We are indeed a poor people—
most likely the poorest, as a class, in the whole nation.
This fact of poverty is unavoidable, for our history had
one conspicuous peculiarity, viz. : that while enriching
others, both law and slavery prevented us from enriching
ourselves. At the period of emancipation both these hin¬
drances were removed, and for the first time in two hun¬
dred years my people saw open before them the pathway
to wealth. The change in their monetary condiiion has
been rapid. They have not, indeed, succeeded as yet in
amassing wealth ; for, first, no people can extemporize a
state of opulence suddenly; nor, second, has it been possible
to break down straightway all the unhappy influences and
hindrances of slavery. Caste, the eldest child of slavery,
still exists. But, notwithstanding all the difficulties in the
way, the black race in this country has begun the race of
wealth ; has succeeded in entering some of the golden
avenues of prosperity and affluence.
Twenty years ago it was a slave race. Over four millions
of men and women did not own the bodies in which were
enshrined the immortal spirits which resided therein.
Out of those immortal spirits slavery had crushed every
noble impulse, and all the springs of action. And see now
at once the marvelous change. The instinct of greed,
dead for two centuries under the palsying influences of
slavery, has been resurrected by the genius of civil freedom.
To-day this same people are the possessors of a wide do¬
main of lands. Immense tracts of land have been brought
by them into cultivation, and by this cultivation they have
become producers of the most valuable staples.
22
I am indebted to the Editor of the " People's Advo¬
cate" for the following facts: "In the State of Georgia
the Negro owns 680,000 acres of land, cut up into farms;
and pays taxes on $9,000,000 worth of property. In
the Cotton States he owns 2,680,800 acres." And he
adds to this the significant remark : "Think of it, that in
the Cotton States, including a fraction of over two-thirds
of the race, the Negro, in seventeen years, has accumulated
territory equal in extent to the size of the State of Con¬
necticut. ''
Let me suggest here another estimate of this landed prop¬
erty of the Negro, acquired since emancipation. Taking
the old slave States in the general, there has been a large
acquisition of land in each and all of them. In the State
of Georgia, as we have just seen, it was 680,000 acres. Let
us put the figure as low as 400,000 for each State—for the
purchase of farm lands has been everywhere a passion with
the freedman—this 400,000 acres multiplied into 14, i. e.
the number of the chief Southern States, shows an aggre¬
gate of 5,600,000 acres of land, the acquisition of the black
race in less than twenty years.
But Dr. Tucker will observe a further fact of magnitude
in this connection: It is the increased production
which has been developed on the part of the freedmen
since emancipation. I present but one staple, and for the
reason that it is almost exclusively the result of free
negro labor.
I will take the five years immediately preceding the late
civil war and compare them with the five years preceding
the last year's census-taking; and the contrast in the num¬
ber of cotton-bales produced will show the industry and
thrift of the black race as a consequent on the gift of
freedom :
23
Tears.
1857 ....
2,93!t,519
3,113, Hfi2
3,851,481
4,669,770
Bales.
1878
1879
1S80
1881
1882
Ytars.
,. 4,811,2(55
Bales.
1859
1860
1861
1858 ...,
3,656,006
*,Oil,ZO.r>
5,073,531
...J.... 5,757,31)7
6,589,329
5,435,845
Total,
.18,230,738
The five years' work
of freedom 27,607,367
The five years' work
of slavery 18,230,738
Balance in favor of
freedom
9,436,639
Now this item of production is a positive disproof of
Dr. Tucker's statement, " that the average level in mate¬
rial prosperity is but little higher than it was before the
war." Here is the fact that the Freedman has produced
one-third more in five years than he did in the same time
when a slave !
Another view of this matter is still more striking. The
excess of yield in cotton in seven years [i. e., from 1875
to 1882] over the seven years \i. e., from 1854 to 1861] is
17,091,000 bales, being an average annual increase
of 1,000,000 bales. If Dr. Tucker will glance at the
great increase of the cotton, tobacco, and sugar crops
South, as shown in Agricultural Reports from 1865 to 1882,
and reflect that negroes have been the producers of these
crops, he will understand their indignation at his out¬
rageous charges of "laziness and vagabondage;" and
perhaps he will listen to their demand that he shall take
back the unjust and injurious imputations which, without
knowledge and discrimination, he makes against a whole
race of people.
This impulse to thrift on the part of the Freedmen was
no tardy and reluctant disposition. It was the immediate
offspring of freedom, and the result was—
First. The founding of the Freedman's Bank in the
city of Washington.
The following facts are worthy of notice :
(a) This bank was opened in 1865 and closed in 1874.
24
(F) No less than 61,000 Freedmen were the depositors
in this bank.
(r) The depositors were men and women in every
Sduthern State from Maryland to Louisiana.
(d) The sum total of moneys deposited amounted to
over $56,000,000. All which evidences character, indus¬
try, moral energy, and the capability of self-support.
The destruction of this Bank, through the rascality of
white men, was a great calamity; but it did not quench
the ambition of the race. Since then other notable de¬
monstrations of manly power have been shown by the
freedmen.
Second. The uprising of thousands in the Southwest
and their emigration with great loss of property, health,
and life to the West, was not the act of degenerate beings,
but of high-souled and aspiring men—albeit they were
poor and ignorant. They were cheated wholesale out of
their wages by the very men—Dr. Tucker's neighbors—who,
he tells us, "knowthe Negroes and love them "with the
'' tender remembrances of childhood!'' These men, owners
of wide, uncultivated tracts of land, refused to sell these
Freedmen the smallest patches, in order to keep them per¬
petual serfs of the soil. So, in deep indignation, they
shook the dust of the South from their feet and carried
their families into free Kansas, to secure freeholds, liberty,
and education for their children.
Third. Just nowa fact of magnitude invites the attention of
the friends of the Negro. I refer to the projected railroad,
already begun by the black citizens of North Carolina.
All but four miles of the forty (40) mile route has already
been graded, by a black Civil Engineer, employed by the
company. The track for the road is to be laid down from
Wilmington, N. C., to Wrightsville, on the seaboard ; and
the whole scheme is the work, in capital and execution, of
Freedmen !
25
Fourth. " The last census shows us that the colored
people are assessed for over $91,000,000 worth of taxable
property. Does this look like an incurably thriftless
race ? " *
I have referred above to the large landed estate of the
black man ; and I may add here that it is the result of his
own sweatful toil. He has earned his own property. Un¬
like the Indian, he has had no one to prop him up. He
was turned loose suddenly, without any capital, to under¬
take the duty of self-support. The nation acted as though
it owed him no duty and no debt. It gave him his free¬
dom to save its own life; and then left him to struggle for
life, if not to die ! Justice demanded that, after centuries
of slavery, he should have been made the ward of the
nation—at least until he learned the ways and provinces of
freedom. He was turned out to die.
But neither failure nor death was to be the destiny of
the Negro. It never has been in any of the lands of his
emancipation. Everywhere, when freedom has come to
him, he has discovered all the proclivities to enterprise and
personal sustentation. It has been conspicuously so in this
nation. The Freedmen of this country, on coming out of
bondage, began at once all the laborious activities which
their needs demanded, and which were required for the
securing a foothold in this land.
Of course this industrial enterprise was not universal. It
never is universal in any people. Large numbers could
not understand the situation; could not see the grand
vistas of opportunity and success which freedom opened
before them. My own estimate of their progress since
emancipation is this, viz: (1) That about one-third have
fallen to a lower level than they were previous to emanci¬
pation, viz: the aged, the decrepid, the imbruted, and the
* See speech of Rev. Dr. Allen, before Presbyterian General Assem.
bly, 1883.
26
slaves of the meanest, lowest whites. (2) That another
third stand a little above their condition when freedom
was given them. And, (3) lastly, that the last third have
risen to a state of superiority which already rivals the en¬
ergy and progress of the American people in general. To
start one-third of any people earnestly on the road of
glorious progress is a grand result. For in all revolutions
of society there is sure to be a great loss of men. For it
is with men as it is with seeds—some spring up into life,
and some seem to have no productive vitality at all. Says
Bishop Butler : " For of the numerous seeds of vegetables
and bodies of animals which are adapted and put in the
way to improve to such a point or state of natural maturity
1 and perfection, we do not see that one in a million actually
does. For the greater part of them decay before they
are improved to it, and appear to be absolutely de¬
stroyed." * So, too, some men—large classes of men—are
sure to fall behind in the race of life. But, as the im¬
mense loss of seeds does not contradict the fact of the
prodigious wheat harvests of the West, which supply the
world with food, so the actual loss or decline of a third of
the Freedmen does not contravene the fact of the real pro¬
gress of the race. For this same relative loss is discovered
in all peoples. It is seen in the white population of this
land, notwithstanding all their advantages. Look into the
alms and poor houses ; into the jails of the country; into
the indigent quarters of the large cities ; examine the sta¬
tistics of crime and poverty, and you will see that fully
one-third of the white population is constantly going
down. Indeed society everywhere advances only by the
force and energy of minorities. It is the few who lift up
and bear the burdens and give character to the many.
* Butler's Analogy, Ch. V.
27
But, nevertheless, it is advance; and the human race in
civilized countries is ever going upward.
Just here I rest my case ; and I submit that I have dis¬
proved Dr. Tucker's gross indictment of my race. I have
shown, by the evidence of incontrovertible fact, by figures
and statistics which cannot be denied—
ist. That their numerical increase has been prodigious ;
2d. That their acquisition of property has been enormous ;
3d. That they show almost a reduplicated capacity for
production, the direct result of freedom;
4th. That their rise in education and religion has been
almost like the resurrection of a people from death to life !
DR. TUCKER'S REMEDIAL SYSTEM.
I close this paper with a brief reference to Dr. Tucker's
plans for the elevation of the Negro.
They are as follows :
ist. That the Northern people shall furnish supplies of
money for work among Negroes ;
2d. That Southern Missionaries shall use and disburse
these moneys in church work among the black race;
3d. That Northern Missionaries shall be excluded from
this work.
4th. That black men shall not be entrusted with the
training and education of their brethren.
As Dr. Tucker is evidently serious in these suggestions, I
presume that I must take them up in as serious a manner as
he presents them.
Now, I beg to say that nothing can be more non-natural
than the plans thus proposed. People, however philan¬
thropic, are rarely prepared to go it blind in the disburse¬
ments of moneys. Christian people especially give as
"stewards" of their Divine Master. They want to know,
first of all, the quality of fitness in their almoners; and,
next, that they will use their moneys aright. But here is
28
a proposition which reverses all the settled principles of
alms-giving. For—
ist. It cleverly lays the burden of obligation in this
matter upon the Northern people. Dr. Tucker says, "You
freed the slaves and left them on our hands." * * *
" Blood and trouble have come of it so far, and for this
you of the North are largely to blame.'' But the question
arises, Has freedom made the alleged heathenism of the
Southern blacks any denser than slavery did? Has emanci¬
pation plunged the Southern blacks into ignorance and
benightedness ? And, if not, whence arises the special
obligation of the North to perform this duty of evangeli¬
zation ? And then—
2d. Why should Southern men be the chosen missionaries
to the black race ? Whence arises their special fitness for
this work ? From experience ? From high achievement or
from large success? Why, Dr. Tucker admits the failure
of the South. The Negro has been moulded and fashioned
by Southern Christians two centuries and more; and Dr.
Tucker avers—I am using his own language—" the Negro
is retrograding in morality," (p. 2.) "I say deliberately,
with a full realization of what the words mean, that the
great mass of the Negroes in the South professing religion
have a form of Christianity without its substance ; and, fur¬
ther, that they have no comprehension of what that sub¬
stance ought to be," (p. 3.) And this after two hundred
years of Southern training !
Then, next, Dr. Tucker, self-contradictory as usual, ex¬
horts—"Work through the Church South;" that is, be it
noticed, through this inept and fruitless Church South,
which has brought the Negro to a state of ignorance of
"what the substance of Christianity ought to be !" But
let us follow our author: "Work through the Church
South * * * and then you will enlist those who thor¬
oughly know what they are about; know how to reach the
29
colored people ; who love them with the remembrances of
childhood and youth and manhood, as strangers can never
learn or grow to care for them" (p. 27.)
Did ever any one hear such assumption ! The Church
South " thoroughly knows what they are about!" But for
two hundred years they have had an awkward way of show¬
ing it ! " They know how to reach the colored people !''
But, alas, in two hundred years have failed to reach them;
and now Dr. Tucker himself is calling for a new departure ;
exhorts an attempt de novo in order to reach and christian¬
ize them! This is logic with a vengeance! But lastly
comes the claim—"We Southern people know the Negro
better than you do ! " This is the old claim which the
American people have heard ad nauseam. Alas for all their
knowledge they never knew them well enough to treat them
as men ! They never knew them well enough to give them
freedom ! They never knew them well enough, after free¬
dom came, to stimulate culture, manhood, and superiority
among them.
Precisely this same claim was made by the slaveholders
in the British West Indies. They were constantly telling
the English people, "we know the Negro better than you
do." And yet emancipation had to be forced upon both
West Indian and American slaveholders ! With all their
knowledge of the Negro, and their exuberant love of him,
they both resisted to the utmost the unfettering of their
bondmen !
How was it after emancipation ? The great work of ele¬
vating and educating the Freedmen had to be undertaken
by philanthropists outside of the former domains of slavery;
by the friends of the black man in England; by Northern
men in the United States. I don't know of one single in¬
stance in the history of Negro bondage where slaveholders,
as a class, have ever voluntarily emancipated the Negro, or,
when raised to freedom, have ever voluntarily put them-
30
selves to pains to elevate him to manhood, intelligence,
and superiority.
I challenge Dr. Tucker to point out one such instance.
3. The main reason Dr. Tucker gives for the rejection of
Northern Missionaries is that the " Northern man don't
know the Negro." When they (/. e., the Northern Chris¬
tians) propose to help the Negroes, the Southern (white)
Christians "draw back," he says, "with a feeling of
despair, mingled with anger, that God's servants should
in wilful ignorance build up the kingdom of evil." Passing
strange language this ! Here these Northern people, from
divers denominations of Christians, have been sending forth
missionaries to every quarter of the heathen world—Pres¬
byterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Episco¬
palians. Everywhere they have gone their work has
been so graciously attended by the gifts of God the Holy
Ghost, they have shown such wonderful knowledge of
human nature, and plied such marvelous skill and practi¬
cality that English Civilians, great Governors-General,
French and German tourists, yea, even infidel travelers,
have spoken of these Northern American missionaries as
equal, and in many cases superior, to all other modern
Missionaries. And yet Dr. Tucker gravely tells us, " Send
no Northern Missionaries down here ! '' And why, for¬
sooth, this mandate ? Because, without doubt, something
besides the grace of God, and high literary culture, and a
knowledge of human nature is needed. And pray what is
this special quality needed ? Why, to use the grotesque
language of a humorous acquaintance, " these Northern
men—wise, learned, experienced in God's work, full of
the Holy Ghost—lack a knowledge of the special science
of negroology." That, Dr. Tucker would have us be¬
lieve, is the exclusive possession of Southern slaveholders !
But how comes it to pass that Northern people '■'■rarely
know a Negro when they see him ?'' As Dr. Tucker seems
31
oblivious of some facts in American history, let me briefly
set before him two classes of facts :
The first class :
(a) Let me say that Northern people from Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, &c., went to
Africa in slave ships, stole and bought native Negroes from
the predatory chiefs, and brought them in cargoes to the
Northern States. And this fact, first of all, shows some
"acquaintance" of a very sorry nature " with Negroes"
on the part of Northern people.
(F) These captured Negroes were bought by Northern
people by thousands ; worked on their farms and in their
houses ; and ofttimes were put upon the auction block,
and sold as goods and chattels. And this fact implies,
secondly, a further acquaintance with Negroes.
(c) And, lastly, that these Northern people were not
Negro-worshippers is evidenced by the fact that these
Negroes were kept in ignorance by their owners ; whipped
at the whipping-post; families were separated ; treated as
brutes; once, under the suspicion of insurrection, were
hung up in the streets of New York as dogs ! And then, after
emancipation, for nigh fifty years they were cruelly
treated: excluded from cars, coaches, and steamboats ;
frequently mobbed ; and late as 1863, in an awful riot,
their houses were sacked, their women whipped in the
streets, and their men hung up at the lamp-posts ! Does
not all this look as though " Northern people knew Negroes
when they saw them ? ''
I turn to the second class of facts:
(a) During the whole period of Northern slavery there
was always a class of Northern men, philanthropists, who
revolted at human bondage.
(b) This class of men—Quakers, Episcopalians, and
others—were never afraid of slaveholders, and would never
allow themselves to be bullied by them.
32
(V) At a very early period, even in Colonial times, they
asserted themselves, and demanded the abolition of slavery.
(d) Hence arose the "Abolition Societies" of the
Middle States, who both established schools for Negro chil¬
dren and demanded the abolition of slavery. It was these
men—the Jays, Clarksons, Kings, and Kent?, of New York;
the Boudinots, Shotwells, the Benezets, of New Jersey ; the
Rushs and Franklins, of Pennsylvania—who ameliorated
the condition of Northern Negroes, and, in some cases, de¬
stroyed their slavery. They looked upon these people as
men, and secured their citizenship. They regarded them
as intelligent beings; and so, at last, through their efforts,
schools, and the colleges of the North—Dartmouth, Har¬
vard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Princeton, and Pennsyl¬
vania—have been opened to Negroes. Nay, beyond this,
they counted them as brethren in Christ; and so they have
been received in their churches ; and in many cases they
have been cordially welcomed to their pulpits.
And now I trust these facts will serve to convince Dr.
Tucker that Northern people " know a Negro when they
see him!" And I beg to add, if he has any doubt of these
historical facts, he can easily verify them by any " Common
School History of the United States of America."
Dr. Tucker may also learn from this that Northern people
have had some experience in the endeavor to civilize and
elevate the black race; and so, when they come South on
such a mission, they will come, not as novices, but as adepts.
In every State North they can point to schools and churches,
to intelligent and thrifty communities, nay, in some cases,
to wealthy and learned colored men, the result of the en¬
deavors of their fathers to elevate a wronged and injured
people, and to redress a dark and shameful past. When
the South has done as much for the Negro as the North,
then it will be unjust as well as absurd to say that " South¬
ern Missionaries barely know a Negro when they see him !"
83
For my own part, I differ toto ccelo from Dr. Tucker. I
rejoice in the aid of all sorts of Christians in this great work.
I am glad to have the assistance not only of Northern, but
also, and especially, of Southern white missionaries. When,
with their other knowledge of the Negro, they come to a
recognition of him as a man, then they will make the very
best missionaries to the Negro. This was the case of old
with the Abolitionists. None were so true to the Negro
cause as the Grimkes, the Birneys, the Brisbanes, and others.
But I must say, with all candor, that the deliverance of
the black race South into the hands exclusively, of South¬
ern whites, has its dangers. I would not, for the life of me,
say one word in the least derogatory to Southern white
men. They are just the same—no better, no worse—than
other men. They are in no way responsible for the acts
nor the sentiments of their forefathers. Nay. their fathers
themselves were the heirs, not the creators, of the heritage
of human bondage. But Southern men are but men; and
Southern or any other men, who are the descendants of a
long line of slaveholders, or of a feudality, or of a nobility,
or of an aristocracy, are the heirs of a spirit of dominancy;
and carry in their blood all the proclivities to undue mas¬
tership and control. Placed in juxtaposition with a de¬
graded and illiterate race, they will naturally, albeit uncon¬
sciously, be tempted to a system of feudality or peonage,
unless the most careful safeguards are guaranteed that race.
There is no such guarantee in placing the Negro entirely in
the hands of his former masters. It would be to look: for too
much from poor human nature to expect of the Southern
white man such large disinterestedness as Dr.. Tucker de¬
mands. He has too many personal interests involved in this
problem for him to rise to the height of such lofty virtue ;
and therefore the temptation should not be set before him.
Nor is this mere speculation. The South has shown its
hand. Ever since emancipation the Legislatures of the
34
South have resorted to every possible expedient to neu¬
tralize the force of the £' amendments '' which gave free¬
dom to the black man. They, the aristocracy of the
South, have left no stone unturned to narrow the limits of
the black man's ne^-born liberty and his rights. Hence
it is evidently unsafe to put the Freedman's future entirely
in the hands of his former master.
No, the Southern black man needs teachers of diversified
characteristics. He needs the Southern Missionary, for
he is to the "manner born," and understands certain
phases of life, society, and character which no other man
knows. But he needs, too—and so doeys the Southern white
man need—the Northern element. No civilization on this
continent will be worth a cent which lacks a large infusion
of the large common-sense, the strong practicality, the fine
intelligence, the lofty culture, the freedom-loving spirit,
and the restless aspiration of the people of the North.
Hence, it seems to me, that there must be an element of
aberration in Dr. Tucker's constitution when he deliberately
ejaculates "Send no more Northern Missionaries down here!''
Here, when the whole civilized world is instinct with curi¬
osity at the manifestation of the peculiar civilization of the
North; and delegates are coming hither from England
and China, from France and Japan, from Germany and
Madagascar, to study it, and carry away with them its
very best elements as contributions to the higher civiliza¬
tion of the future; Dr. Tucker peremptorily demands
that the Negro is to be entirely shut out from it.
Dr. Tucker is mistaken. He has not the ability to
erect another Chinese wall to keep out this (to him) ob¬
jectionable element. What has-been so graciously and
fruitfully begun by Northern teachers, preachers, and phi¬
lanthropists will be continued, until the Negro in the South
is re-fashioned, enlightened, and lifted up to the very
highest planes of civilization, grace, and manhood.
35
4• Equally mistaken is Dr. Tucker in another most im¬
portant point. He seems to think that the work of edu¬
cating the Negro race is to be entrusted chiefly to white
men. " The Negroes," he says, "are not well enough
educated, not yet on a high enough level, to make good
use of any help you may extend to them. The Southern
white people, who know all about the race, and how to
deal with them, are the only ones who can work judi¬
ciously to lay sure foundations."
I cannot dwell upon this topic. I only wish to say
three or four things :
ist. That hundreds of well-furnished and efficient
colored teachers (about 16,000 at the present) are now in
the field doing noble service as teachers.
2d. That hundreds more can be obtained for the same
service at any time.
3d. That hundreds more besides these are preparing in
schools, academies, and colleges for a life service as
teachers among their race ; and there is no likelihood of a
lack of supply of colored teachers in the farthest future.
4th. That an indigenous agency in the evangelization of
a people is a universal principle. Negroes are no excep¬
tion to this principle; and the man or the organization
which attempts the training of the black race by ignoring
this principle may surely expect these two inevitable re¬
sults :
a. They will doubtless get a certain following of people;
but their gatherings, save in the rarest exceptional cases,
will be nothing more nor less than useless "snobberies,"
to be perpetually petted or paid for their allegiance, and
everlastingly deficient in strength and manliness. And,
b. They will find the masses about them will resist all
their inducements, and, under the racial impulse, will go off
to any standard lifted up by a man of their own blood.
The true leaders of a race are men of that race; and any
36
attempt to carry on missions opposed to this principle is
sure to meet disastrous failure!
The Negro race is a living, not a dead race—alive in the
several respects of industry, acquisitiveness, education, and
religious aspiration. Not entirely divorced as yet from
the sore diseases of the Egypt from which they have only
recently been delivered, they are, nevertheless, making
mighty efforts for cure and healing by both the appliances
of education and the Blood of the Lamb. It is a race
instinct in every section with hope and aspiration. All
the springs of action are moving in it. Its leaders, every¬
where, conscious, indeed, of deep, radical defects within,
and most formidable hindrances without, have, notwith¬
standing, but few misgivings as to the future. They have
very great confidence, first of all^ in certain vital qualities
inherent in the race ! They trust those universal and un¬
failing tendencies of truth, justice, and equity, which
have ever attended their history on this continent! They
look with no uncertainty to the large and loving brother¬
hood of countless Christians, of every name, in this land,
whose hearts are alive with pity for the past sorrows of the
Negro ; whose prayers go up as clouds of incense for his
restoration; arid whose purses pour forth annually tens of
thousands for his well-being and salvation ! And they
repose in quiet confidence upon the marvelous mercy and
loving-kindness of a divine Deliverer and Saviour, who
has wrought out a most gracious and saving providence for
them !
These succors and assistances cannot fail ! They will
surely serve to realize the qualities and justify the chaiacter
implied in the epithet of Homer, when he speaks of
"^Ethiopia's Blameless Race."