LESSON VIII

SCRIPTURE READING EXERCISE

(SPECIAL LESSON.)

THE LAW OF THE LORD IN ANCIENT AND MODERN REVELATION APPLIED TO THE AMERICAN NEGRO RACE PROBLEM.

SUBJECT

I. The American Negro Race Problem.

1. Advent of the Negro Race in America.

2. Slavery and the Abolition of It.

3. Political Enfranchisement of the Black Race—Its Wisdom or Unwisdom.

4. Present Status of the Negro Race Problem.

II. The Law of the Lord As Affecting the Negro Race Problem.

1. The Progenitor of the Race.

2. The Manner of Its Preservation through the Flood.

3. The Course Put Upon it by Noah.

4. In what Respects a Forbidden Race.

5. From all the Foregoing Deduce the Law of God in the Question.

SPECIAL Text: "Let not man join together what God hath put asunder."—"THE COLOR LINE," chap. i.

. . .

4. The Race Question as Affecting the Southern States: Perhaps the most convincing book in justification of the South in denying to the negro race social equality with the white race is the one written by William Benjamin Smith, entitled "The Color Line, A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn," from which the following is a quotation:

"Here, then, is laid bare the nerve of the whole matter: Is the south justified in this absolute denial of social equality to the negro, no matter what his virtues or abilities or accomplishments?

"We affirm, then, that the south is entirely right in thus keeping open at all times, at all hazards, and at all sacrifices an impassible social chasm between black and white. This she must do in behalf of her blood, her essence, of the stock of her Caucasian race. To the writer the correctness of this thesis seems as clear as the sun—so evident as almost to forestall argument; nor can he quite comprehend the frame of mind that can seriously dispute it. But let us look at it closely. Is there any doubt whatever as to the alternative? If we sit with negroes at our tables, if we entertain them as our guests and social equals, if we disregard the color line in all other relations, is it possible to maintain it fixedly in the sexual relation, in the marriage of our sons and daughters, in the propagation of our species? Unquestionably, No! It is certain as the rising of tomorrow's sun, that, once the middle wall of social partition is broken down, the mingling of the tides of life would begin instantly and proceed steadily. Of course, it would be gradual, but none the less sure, none the less irresistible. It would make itself felt at first most strongly in the lower strata of the white population; but it would soon invade the middle and menace insidiously the very uppermost. Many bright mulattoes would ambitiously woo, and not a few would win, well-bred women disappointed in love or goaded by impulse or weary of the stern struggle for existence. As a race, the Southern Caucasian would be irrevocably doomed. For no possible check could be given to this process once established. Remove the barrier between two streams flowing side by side—immediately they begin to mingle their molecules; in vain you attempt to replace it. * * * * The moment the bar of absolute separation is thrown down in the South, that moment the bloom of her spirit is blighted forever, the promise of her destiny is annulled, the proud fabric of her future slips into dust and ashes. No other conceivable disaster that might befall the South could, for an instant, compare with such miscegenation within her borders. Flood and fire, fever and famine and the sword—even ignorance, indolence, and carpet-baggery—she may endure and conquer while her blood remains pure; but once taint the well-spring of her life, and all is lost—even honor itself. It is this immediate jewel of her soul that the South watches with such a dragon eye, that she guards with more than vestal vigilance, with a circle of perpetual fire. The blood thereof is the life thereof; he who would defile it would stab her in her heart of hearts, and she springs to repulse him with the fiercest instinct of self-preservation. It may not be that she is distinctly conscious of the immeasurable interests at stake or of the real grounds of her roused antagonism; but the instinct itself is none the less just and true and the natural bulwark of her life.

"At this point we hear some one exclaim, 'Not so fast! To sit at table, to mingle freely in society with certain persons, does not imply you would marry them." Certainly not, in every case. We may recognize socially those whom we personally abhor. This matters not, however; for wherever social commingling is admitted, there the possibility of intermarriage must be also admitted. It becomes a mere question of personal preference, of like and dislike. Now, there is no accounting for tastes. It is ridiculous to suppose that no negroes would prove attractive to any white. The possible would become actual—as certainly as you will throw double-double sixes [in dice], if only you keep on throwing. To be sure, where the number of negroes is almost vanishingly small, as in the north and in Europe, there the chances of such mesalliances are proportionally divided; some may even count them negligible. But in the South, where in many districts the black outnumbers the white, they would be multiplied immensely, and crosses would follow with increasing frequency. * * * But some may deny that the mongrelization of the Southern people would offend the race notion—would corrupt or degrade the Southern stock of humanity. If so, then such a one has yet to learn the largest-writ lessons of history and the most impressive doctrines of biological science. That the negro is markedly inferior to the Caucasian is proved both craniologically and by six thousand years of planet-wide experimentation; and that the commingling of inferior with superior must lower the higher is just as certain as that the half-sum of two and six is only four."