Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/36

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THOUGHTS ON AMERICA.
23


portions of this Union where these staples are produced, it will be retained. And when we get Hayti, Mexico, and Jamaica, common sense will doubtless extend it, or rather, re-establish it there too."[1]

I will now quote a little from the Mr. De Bow's large work:—[2]

"No amount of education or training can ever render the negro equal in intellect with the white." "'You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's lug,' is an old and homely adage, but not the less true; so you cannot make anything from a negro but negroism, which means barbarism and inferiority." "As God made them so they have been, and so they will be; the white man, the negro, and the jackass; each to his land, and each to his nature; true to the finger of destiny (which is the finger of God), and undeviatingly pursuing the track which that finger as undeviatingly points out." [3]

"Is the negro made for slavery? God in heaven! what are we, that because we cannot understand the mystery of this Thy will, we should dare rise in rebellion, and call it wrong, unjust, and evil? The kindness of nature fits each creature to fulfil its destiny. The very virtues of the negro fit him for slavery, and his vices cry aloud for the shackles of bondage!" "It is the destiny of the negro, if by himself, to be a savage; if by the white, to be a serf." "They may be styled human beings, though of an inherently degraded species. To attempt to relieve them from their natural inferiority is idle in itself, and may be mischievous in its results."[4]

"Equality is no thought nor creation of God. Slavery, under one name or another, will exist as long as man exists; and abolition is a dream whose execution is an impossibility. Intellect is the only divine right. The negro cannot be schooled, nor argued, nor driven into a love of freedom."[5]

"Alas for their folly! (the abolitionists.) But woe!

  1. Richmond (Va.) Semi-weekly Examiner, January 4, 1863.
  2. "The Industrial Resources, etc., of the Southern and Western States: embracing a View of their Commerce, Agriculture, Manufactures, Internal Improvements; Slave and Free Labour, Slavery Institutions, Products, etc., of the South, etc., with an Appendix." By J. D. B. de Bow, etc. In 8 vols. 8vo. New Orleans, 1852.
  3. De Bow, vol. ii. p. 199.
  4. Id. p. 203.
  5. Id. p. 204.