But The Enfranchised Negro Has Always
Thrown Away His Hoe, Has Eaten Any Man's Hog But His Own, And Has
Too Often Sold His Daughter For A Dollar When Any Such Market Has
Been Open To Him.
I confess that this cry of abolition has been made peculiarly
displeasing to me by the fact that the
Northern abolitionist is by
no means willing to give even to the negro who is already free that
position in the world which alone might tend to raise him in the
scale of human beings - if anything can so raise him and make him fit
for freedom. The abolitionists hold that the negro is the white
man's equal. I do not. I see, or think that I see, that the negro
is the white man's inferior through laws of nature. That he is not
mentally fit to cope with white men - I speak of the full-blooded
negro - and that he must fill a position simply servile. But the
abolitionist declares him to be the white man's equal. But yet,
when he has him at his elbow, he treats him with a scorn which even
the negro can hardly endure. I will give him political equality,
but not social equality, says the abolitionist. But even in this he
is untrue. A black man may vote in New York, but he cannot vote
under the same circumstances as a white man. He is subjected to
qualifications which in truth debar him from the poll. A white man
votes by manhood suffrage, providing he has been for one year an
inhabitant of his State; but a man of color must have been for three
years a citizen of the State, and must own a property qualification
of 50l. free of debt.
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