Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/419

Rh the chaotic confusion dissolved itself in the most beautiful harmony.

One peculiarity in these so-called children of nature is their aristocratic tendency; but I have always regarded the children of nature as natural aristocrats. They pride themselves on belonging to rich masters, and consider a marriage with the servant of a poor master as a great misalliance. They look up to their rich masters, as an Oriental Grefac of the old race, upon his ancestors. That which beyond everything else is an impediment to the emancipation of this people, and in great masses, is their want of nationality, their want of popular spirit, and a general unity of feeling. They have merely a feeling for family or for kindred, and perhaps for the tribe, where the tribes still continue unbroken, as in Africa. They have no common memories, and no common object of lofty, popular aspiration. The tribes and small principalities of Africa prove this also. And to imagine that the emancipated slaves of America could, beyond the sea, in Liberia, in Africa, establish a community according to the American republic, is, I believe, a mistake. Small monarchical communities are, however, that which they appear to me formed for. They feel, in a high degree, the sentiment of piety and loyalty, and would always be easily governed, and would like to be governed by a naturally superior person. I see, therefore, the ideal of negro-life in small communities, ennobled by Christianity, arranging itself round a superior—their priest or king, or both in one person. And in America I see them thus by preference around a white man, either as his free servants or small tenants, convinced that as a means of leading the people to order and reasonable industry the slaves fetters and the whip are not needed, but merely Christian, human instruction, which leads to industry and order; the preaching of Christianity, and that great influence which a man of the white race, by his natural intellectual