active determination. One cannot think then of
democracy in America or in the modern world
without reference to the American Negro. The
democracy established in America in the eighteenth century was not, and was not designed to be,
a democracy of the masses of men and it was thus
singularly easy for people to fail to see the incongruity of democracy and slavery. It was the
Negro himself who forced the consideration of
this incongruity, who made emancipation inevitable and made the modern world at least consider
if not wholly accept the idea of a democracy including men of all races and colors.
2. Influence on White Thought
Naturally, at first, it was the passive presence of the Negro with his pitiable suffering and sporadic expression of unrest that bothered the American colonists. Massachusetts and Connecticut early in the seventeenth century tried to compromise with their consciences by declaring that there should be no slavery except of persons "willingly selling themselves" or "sold to us." And these were to have "All the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel." Massachusetts even took a strong stand against proven "man stealing"'; but it was left to a little band of Germans in Pennsylvania,
