Volume IV Part 13 (1/2)
But as the legislature has thought proper thus to set at defiance the moral sense of mankind, and to take refuge behind the enactments of the Const.i.tution, let us try the strength of their entrenchments. The words of the Const.i.tution, which it is pretended sanction the resolution we are considering are the following, viz.--”The _people_ have a right to a.s.semble together in a peaceable manner to consult for their common good, to _instruct their representatives_, and to apply to the legislature for a redress of grievances.” It is obvious that this clause confers no rights, but is merely declaratory of existing rights. Still, as the right of the people to apply for a redress of grievances is coupled with the right of _instructing their representatives_, and as negroes are not electors and consequently are without representatives, it is inferred that they are not part of _the people_. That Ohio legislators are not Christians would be a more rational conclusion. One of the members avowed his opinion that ”none but voters had a right to pet.i.tion.” If then, according to the principle of the resolution, the Const.i.tution of Ohio denies the right of pet.i.tion to all but electors, let us consider the practical results of such a denial. In the first place, every female in the State is placed under the same disability with ”blacks and mulattoes.” No wife has a right to ask for a divorce--no daughter may plead for a father's life. Next, no man under twenty-one years--no citizen of any age, who from want of sufficient residence, or other qualification, is not ent.i.tled to vote--no individual among the tens of thousands of aliens in the State--however oppressed and wronged by official tyranny or corruption, has a right to seek redress from the representatives of the people, and should he presume to do so, may be told, that, like ”blacks and mulattoes,” he ”has no const.i.tutional right to present his pet.i.tion to the General a.s.sembly for any purpose whatever.”
Again--the State of Ohio is deeply indebted to the citizens of other States, and also to the subjects of Great Britain for money borrowed to construct her ca.n.a.ls. Should any of these creditors lose their certificates of debt, and ask for their renewal; or should their interest be withheld, or paid in depreciated currency, and were they to ask for justice at the hands of the legislature, they might be told, that any attention paid to their request must be regarded as a ”mere act of privilege or policy, and not imposed by any expressed or implied power of the Const.i.tution,” for, not being voters, they stood on the same ground as ”blacks and mulattoes.” Such is the folly and wickedness in which prejudice against color has involved the legislators of a republican and professedly Christian State in the nineteenth century.
4. EXCLUSION FROM THE ARMY AND MILITIA.
The Federal Government is probably the only one in the world that forbids a portion of its subjects to partic.i.p.ate in the national defence, not from any doubts of their courage, loyalty, or physical strength, but merely on account of the tincture of their skin! To such an absurd extent is this prejudice against color carried, that some of our militia companies have occasionally refused to march to the sound of a drum when beaten by a black man. To declare a certain cla.s.s of the community unworthy to bear arms in defence of their native country, is necessarily to consign that cla.s.s to general contempt.
5. EXCLUSION FROM ALL PARTIc.i.p.aTION IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
No colored man can be a judge, juror, or constable. Were the talents and acquirements of a Mansfield or a Marshall veiled in a sable skin, they would be excluded from the bench of the humblest court in the American republic. In the slave States generally, no black man can enter a court of justice as a witness against a white one. Of course a white man may, with perfect impunity, defraud or abuse a negro to any extent, provided he is careful to avoid the presence of any of his own caste, at the execution of his contract, or the indulgence of his malice. We are not aware that an outrage so flagrant is sanctioned by the laws of any _free_ State, with one exception. That exception the reader will readily believe can be none other than OHIO.
A statute of this State enacts, ”that no black or mulatto _person_ or _persons_ shall hereafter be permitted to be sworn, or give evidence in any court of Record or elsewhere, in this State, in any cause depending, or matter of controversy, when either party to the same is a WHITE person; or in any prosecution of the State against any WHITE person.”
We have seen that on the subject of pet.i.tion the legislature regards itself as independent of all obligation except such as is imposed by the Const.i.tution. How mindful they are of the requirements even of that instrument, when obedience to them would check the indulgence of their malignity to the blacks, appears from the 7th Section of the 8th Article, viz.--”All courts shall be open, and every _person_, for any injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and justice administered without denial or delay.”
Ohio legislators may deny that negroes and mulattoes are citizens, or people; but they are estopped by the very words of the statute just quoted, from denying that they are ”_persons_.” Now, by the Const.i.tution every _person_, black as well as white, is to have justice administered to him without denial or delay. But by the law, while any unknown _white_ vagrant may be a witness in any case whatever, no black suitor is permitted to offer a witness of his own color, however well established may be his character for intelligence and veracity, to prove his rights or his wrongs; and hence in a mult.i.tude of cases, justice is denied in despite of the Const.i.tution; and why denied? Solely from a foolish and wicked prejudice against color.
6. IMPEDIMENTS TO EDUCATION.
No people have ever professed so deep a conviction of the importance of popular education as ourselves, and no people have ever resorted to such cruel expedients to perpetuate abject ignorance. More than one third of the whole population of the slave States are prohibited from learning even to read, and in some of them free men, if with dark complexions, are subject to stripes for teaching their own children. If we turn to the free States, we find that in all of them, without exception, the prejudices and customs of society oppose almost insuperable obstacles to the acquisition of a liberal education by colored youth. Our academies and colleges are barred against them. We know there are instances of young men with dark skins having been received, under peculiar circ.u.mstances, into northern colleges; but we neither know nor believe, that there have been a dozen such instances within the last thirty years.
Colored children are very generally excluded from our common schools, in consequence of the prejudices of teachers and parents. In some of our cities there are schools _exclusively_ for their use, but in the country the colored population is usually too spa.r.s.e to justify such schools; and white and black children are rarely seen studying under the same roof; although such cases do sometimes occur, and then they are confined to elementary schools. Some colored young men, who could bear the expense, have obtained in European seminaries the education denied them in their native land.
It may not be useless to cite an instance of the malignity with which the education of the blacks is opposed. The efforts made in Connecticut to prevent the establishment of schools of a higher order than usual for colored pupils, are too well known to need a recital here; and her BLACK ACT, prohibiting the instruction of colored children from other States, although now expunged from her statute book through the influence of abolitionists, will long be remembered to the opprobrium of her citizens. We ask attention to the following ill.u.s.tration of public opinion in another New England State.
In 1834 an academy was built by subscription in CANAAN, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and a charter granted by the legislature; and at a meeting of the proprietors it was determined to receive all applicants having ”suitable moral and intellectual recommendations, without other distinctions;” in other words, without reference to _complexion_.
When this determination was made known, a TOWN MEETING was forthwith convened, and the following resolutions adopted, viz.
”RESOLVED, That we view with _abhorrence_ the attempt of the Abolitionists to establish in this town a school for the instruction of the sable sons and daughters of Africa, in common with our sons and daughters.
”RESOLVED, That we will not a.s.sociate with, nor in any way countenance, any man or woman who shall hereafter persist in attempting to establish a school in this town for the _exclusive_ education of blacks, _or_ for their education in conjunction with the whites.”
The frankness of this last resolve is commendable. The inhabitants of Canaan, a.s.sembled in legal town meeting, determined, it seems, that the blacks among them should in future have no education whatever--they should not be instructed in company with the whites, neither should they have schools exclusively for themselves.
The proprietors of the academy supposing, in the simplicity of their hearts, that in a free country they might use their property in any manner not forbidden by law, proceeded to open their school, and in the ensuing spring had twenty-eight white, and fourteen colored scholars. The crisis had now arrived when the cause of prejudice demanded the sacrifice of const.i.tutional liberty and of private property. Another town meeting was convoked, at which, without a shadow of authority, and in utter contempt of law and decency, it was ordered, that the academy should be forcibly removed, and a committee was appointed to execute the abominable mandate. Due preparations were made for the occasion, and on the 10th of August, three hundred men, with about 200 oxen, a.s.sembled at the place, and taking the edifice from off its foundation, dragged it to a distance, and left it a ruin. No one of the actors in this high-handed outrage was ever brought before a court of justice to answer for this criminal and riotous destruction of the property of others.
The transaction we have narrated, expresses in emphatic terms the deep and settled hostility felt in the free States to the education of the blacks. The prejudices of the community render that hostility generally effective without the aid of legal enactments. Indeed, some remaining regard to decency and the opinion of the world, has restrained the Legislatures of the free States, with _one exception_, from consigning these unhappy people to ignorance by ”decreeing unrighteous decrees,” and ”framing mischief by a law.” Our readers, no doubt, feel that the exception must of course be OHIO.
We have seen with what deference Ohio legislators profess to regard their _const.i.tutional_ obligations; and we are now to contemplate another instance of their shameless violation of them. The Const.i.tution which these men have sworn to obey declares, ”NO LAW SHALL BE Pa.s.sED to prevent the poor of the several towns.h.i.+ps and counties in this State from an _equal_ partic.i.p.ation in the schools, academies, colleges, and universities in this State, which are endowed in whole, or _in part_, from the revenue arising from _donations_ made by the United States, for the support of _colleges and schools_--and the door of said schools, academies, and universities shall be open for the reception of scholars, students, and teachers of every _grade_, without ANY DISTINCTION OR PREFERENCE WHATEVER.”
Can language be more explicit or unequivocal? But have any donations been made by the United States for the support of colleges and schools in Ohio? Yes--by an act of Congress, the sixteenth section of land in _each_ originally surveyed towns.h.i.+p in the State, was set apart as a donation for the express purpose of endowing and supporting common schools. And now, how have the scrupulous legislators of Ohio, who refuse to acknowledge any other than const.i.tutional obligations to give ear to the cry of distress--how have they obeyed this injunction of the Const.i.tution respecting the freedom of their schools? They enacted a law in 1831, declaring that, ”when any appropriation shall be made by the directors of any school district, from the treasury thereof, for the payment of a teacher, the school in such district shall be open”--to whom? ”_to scholars, students, and teachers of every grade, without distinction or preference whatever_,” as commanded by the Const.i.tution? Oh no!
”Shall be open to all the WHITE children residing therein!!” Such is the impotency of written const.i.tutions, where a sense of moral obligation is wanting to enforce them.
We have now taken a review of the Ohio laws against free people of color. Some of them are of old, and others of recent date. The opinion entertained of all these laws, new and old, by the _present_ legislators of Ohio, may be learned by a resolution adopted in January last, (1839) by both houses of the legislature. ”RESOLVED, That in the opinion of this general a.s.sembly it is unwise, impolitic, and inexpedient to repeal _any_ law now in force imposing disabilities upon black or mulatto persons, thus placing them upon an equality with the whites, so far as this legislature can do, and indirectly inviting the black population of other States to emigrate to this, to the manifest injury of the public interest.” The best comment on the _spirit_ which dictated this resolve is an enactment by the _same_ legislature, abrogating the supreme law which requires us to ”Do unto others as we would they should do unto us,” and prohibiting every citizen of Ohio from _harboring or concealing_ a fugitive slave, under the penalty of fine or imprisonment. General obedience to this vile statute is alone wanting to fill to the brim the cup of Ohio's iniquity and degradation. She hath done what she could to oppress and crush the free negroes within her borders. She is now seeking to rechain the slave who has escaped from his fetters.
7. IMPEDIMENTS TO RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.
It is unnecessary to dwell here on the laws of the slave States prohibiting the free people of color from learning to read the Bible, and in many instances, from a.s.sembling at discretion to wors.h.i.+p their Creator. These laws, we are a.s.sured, are indispensable to the perpetuity of that ”peculiar inst.i.tution,” which many masters in Israel are now teaching, enjoys the sanction of HIM who ”will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” and who has left to his disciples the injunction, ”search the Scriptures.”
We turn to the free States, in which no inst.i.tution requires, that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should be prevented from s.h.i.+ning on any portion of the population, and inquire how far prejudice here supplies the place of southern statutes.