Page:A defence of the negro race in America from the assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker.djvu/35

 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 mastership and control. Placed in juxtaposition with a degraded and illiterate race, they will naturally, albeit unconsciously, 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 require too much from poor human nature to expect of the Southern white men such large disinterestness as Dr. Tucker demands. 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 South have resorted to every possible expedient to neutralize the force of the "" which gave freedom to the black man. They, the aristocracy of the South, have left no stone unturned to narrow the limits of the black man's new-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 does 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