Volume II Part 60 (2/2)
In addition to his work as teacher, lawyer, and orator, Prof. Greener was a.s.sociate editor of the _New National Era_ at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., and his editorial _Young Men to the Front_, gave him a reputation as a progressive and aggressive leader which he has sustained ever since with marked ability.
As a political speaker he began while in college, in 1868, and has continued down to the present time. He is a pleasant speaker, and acceptable and efficient in a campaign. As an orator and writer he excels. His early style was burdened, like that of the late Charles Sumner, with a too-abundant cla.s.sical ill.u.s.tration and quotation; but during the last five years his ill.u.s.trations are drawn largely from the English cla.s.sics and history. His ablest effort at oratory was his oration on _Charles Sumner, the Idealist, Statesman, and Scholar_. It was by all odds the finest effort of its kind delivered in this country. It was eminently fitting that a representative of the race toward whose elevation Mr. Sumner contributed his splendid talents, and a graduate from the same College that honored Sumner, and from the State that gave him birth and opportunity, should give the true a.n.a.lysis of his n.o.ble life and spotless character.
In the ”National Quarterly Review” for July, 1880, Prof. Greener replied to an article from the pen of Mr. James Parton on _Antipathy to the Negro_, published in the ”North American Review.” Prof.
Greener's theme was _The Intellectual Position of the Negro_. The following paragraphs give a fair idea of the style of Mr. Greener:
”The writer himself appears not to feel such an antipathy to us that it must need find expression; for his liberality is well known to those who have read his writings for the past fifteen years. Nor is there any apparent ground for its appearance because of any new or startling exhibitions of _antipathia_ against us noticeable at the present time. No argument was needed to prove that there has been an unreasonable and unreasoning prejudice against negroes as a cla.s.s, a long-existing antipathy, seemingly, ineradicable, sometimes dying out it would appear, and then bursting forth afresh from no apparent cause. If Mr. Parton means to a.s.sert that such prejudice is ineradicable, or is increasing, or is even rapidly pa.s.sing away, then is his venture insufficient, because it fails to support either of these views.
It does not even attempt to show that the supposed antipathy is general, for the author expressly, and, we think, very properly, relegates its exercise to those whom he calls the most ignorant--the 'meanest' of mankind.
”If his intention was to attack a senseless antipathy, hold it up to ridicule, show its absurdity, a.n.a.lyze its const.i.tuent parts, and suggest some easy and safe way for Americans to rid themselves of unchristian and un-American prejudices, then has he again conspicuously failed to carry out such purpose. He a.s.serts the existence of antipathies, but only by inference does he discourage their maintenance, although on other topics he is rather outspoken whenever he cares to express his own convictions.
”On this question Mr. Parton is, to say the least, vacillating, because he fails to exhibit any platform upon which we may combat those who support early prejudices and justify their continuance from the mere fact of their existence. We never expect Mr.
Gayarre and Mr. Henry Watterson to look calmly and dispa.s.sionately at these questions from the negro's point of view. The one gives us the old argument of De Bow's _Review_, and the other deals out the _ex parte_ views of the present leaders of the South. The one line of argument has been answered over and over again by the old anti-slavery leaders; the pungent generalizations of the latter, the present generation of negroes can answer whenever the opportunity is afforded them.
”But Mr. Parton was born in a cooler and calmer atmosphere, where men are accustomed to give a reason for the faith that is in them, and hence it is necessary, in opening any discussion such as he had provoked, that he should a.s.sign some ground of opposition or support--Christian, Pagan, utilitarian, const.i.tutional, optimist, or pessimist.
”The very apparent friendliness of his intentions makes even a legitimate conclusion from him seem mere conjecture, likely to be successfully controverted by any subtle thinker and opponent. No definite conclusion is, indeed, reached with regard to the first query (Jefferson's fourteenth) with which Mr. Parton opens his article: Whether the white and black races can live together on this continent as equals. He lets us see at the close, incidentally only, what his opinion is, and it inclines to the negative. But throughout the article he is in the anomalous and dubious position of one who opens a discussion which he cannot end, and the logical result of whose own opinion he dares not boldly state. The ill.u.s.trations of the early opinions of Madison and Jefferson only show how permanent a factor the negro is in American history and polity, and how utterly futile are all attempts at his expatriation. Following Mr. Parton's advice, the negro has always prudently abstained from putting 'himself against inexorable facts.' He is careful, however, to make sure of two things,--that the alleged facts are verities and that they are inexorable. Prejudice we acknowledge as a fact; but we know that it is neither an ineradicable nor an inexorable one. We find fault with Mr. Parton because he starts a trail on antipathy, evidently purposeless, and fails to track it down either systematically or persistently, but branches off, _desipere in loco_, to talk loosely of 'physical antipathy,' meaning what we usually term natural antipathy; and at last, emerging from the 'brush,' where he has been hopelessly beating about from Pliny to Mrs. Kemble, he gains a partial 'open' once more by a.s.serting a truism--that it is the 'ignorance of a despised cla.s.s' (the lack of knowledge we have of them) which nourishes these 'insensate antipathies.' Here we are at one with Mr. Parton. Those who know us most intimately, who have a.s.sociated with us in the nursery, at school, in college, in trade, in the tenderer and confidential relations of life, in health, in sickness, and in death, as trusted guides, as brave soldiers, as magnanimous enemies, as educated and respected men and women, give up all senseless antipathies, and feel ashamed to Confess they ever cherished any prejudice against a race whose record is as unsullied as that of any in the land.”
The following pa.s.sages from a most brilliant speech at the Dinner of the Harvard Club of New York, exhibit a pure, perspicuous, and charming style:
”What Sir John Coleridge in his 'Life of Keble' says of the traditions and influences of Oxford, each son of Harvard must feel is true also of Cambridge. The traditions, the patriotic record, and the scholarly attainments of her alumni are the pride of the College. Her contribution to letters, to statesmans.h.i.+p, and to active business life, will keep her memory perennially green. Not one of the humblest of her children, who has felt the touch of her pure spirit, or enjoyed the benefits of her culture, can fail to remember what she expects of her sons wherever they may be: to stand fast for good government, to maintain the right, to uphold honesty and character, to be, if nothing else, good citizens, and to perform, to the extent of their ability, every duty a.s.sumed or imposed upon them,--democratic in their aristocracy, catholic in their liberality, impartial in judgment, and uncompromising in their convictions of duty. [Cheers and applause.]
”Harvard's impartiality was not demonstrated solely by my admission to the College. In 1770, when Crispus Attucks died a patriot martyr on State Street, she answered the rising spirit of independence and liberty by abolis.h.i.+ng all distinctions founded upon color, blood, and rank. Since that day, there has been but one test for all. Ability, character, and merit,--these are the sole pa.s.sports to her favor. [Applause.]
”When, in my adopted State, I stood on the battered ramparts of Wagner, and recalled the fair-haired son of Harvard who died there with his brave black troops of Ma.s.sachusetts,--
”'him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men, Thet rived the Rebel line asunder,'--
I thanked G.o.d, with patriotic pleasure, that the first contingent of negro troops from the North should have been led to death and fame by an alumnus of Harvard; and I remembered, with additional pride of race and college, that the first regiment of black troops raised on South Carolina soil were taught to drill, to fight, to plough, and to read by a brave, eloquent, and scholarly descendant of the Puritans and of Harvard, Thomas Wentworth Higginson. [Great applause and cheers.]
”Is it strange, then, brothers, that I there resolved for myself to maintain the standard of the College, so far as I was able, in public and in private life? I am honored by the invitation to be present here to-night. Around me I see faces I have not looked upon for a decade. Many are the intimacies of the College, the society, the buskin, and the oar which they bring up, from cla.s.smates and college friends. I miss, as all Harvard men must miss to-night, the venerable and kindly figure of Andrew Preston Peabody, the student's friend, the consoler of the plucked, the encourager of the strong, Maecenas's benign almoner, the felicitous exponent of Harvard's Congregational Unitarianism. I miss, too, another of high scholars.h.i.+p, of rare poetic taste, of broad liberality--my personal friend, Elbridge Jefferson Cutler, loved alike by students and his fellow-members of the Faculty for his conscientious performance of duty and his genial nature.
”Mr. President and brothers, my time is up. I give you 'Fair Harvard,' the exemplar, the prototype of that ideal America, of which the greatest American poet has written,--
”'Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man, An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in Against the poorest child of Adam's kin.”
”[Great applause.]”
Prof. Greener rendered legal services in the case of Cadet Whittaker at West Point, and in the trial at New York City, where, as a.s.sociate counsel with ex-Gov. Chamberlain,--an able lawyer and a magnificent orator,--he developed ability and industry as an attorney, and earned the grat.i.tude of his race.
Prof. Greener entered Harvard as a member of the Baptist Church; but the transcendentalism and rationalism of the place quite swept him from his spiritual moorings. In a recent address before a literary society in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., he is represented to have maintained that Mohammedanism was better for the indigenous races of Africa than Christianity. Dr. John William Draper made a similar mistake in his ”_Conflict between Religion and Science!_” The learned doctor should have written ”Conflict between the Church and Science.” Religion is not and never was at war with science. Prof. Greener should have written, ”Mohammedanism better for the Africans than Snake Wors.h.i.+p.”
This brilliant young man cannot afford to attempt to exalt Mohammedanism above the cross of our dear Redeemer, and expect to have leaders.h.i.+p in the Negro race in America. Nor can he support the detestable ideas and execrable philosophy of Senator John P. Jones, which seek to shut out the Chinaman from free America. The Negro must stand by the weak in a fight like this, remembering the pit from which he was dug. But Prof. Greener is young as well as talented; and seeing his mistake, will place himself in harmony with not only the rights of his race, but those of humanity everywhere.
Blanche K. Bruce was born a slave on a plantation in Prince Edward County, Virginia, March 1, 1841, and in the very month and week of the anniversary of his birth he was sworn in as United States Senator from Mississippi. Reared a slave there was nothing in his early life of an unusual nature. He secured his freedom at the end of the war, and immediately sought the opportunities and privileges that would, if properly used, fit him for his new life as a man and a citizen. He went to Oberlin College where, in the Preparatory Department, he applied himself to his studies, attached himself to his cla.s.smates by charming personal manners, and gentlemanly deportment. He realized that there were many splendid opportunities awaiting young men of color at the South; and that profitable positions were going begging.
Mr. Bruce made his appearance in Mississippi at an opportune moment.
The State was just undergoing a process of reconstruction. He appeared at the capital, Jackson, with seventy-five cents in his pocket; was a stranger to every person in the city. He mingled in the great throng, joined in the discussions that took place by little knots of politicians, made every man his friend to whom he talked, and when the State Senate was organized secured the position of Sergeant-at-arms.
He attracted the attention of Gov. Alcorn, who appointed him a member of his staff with the rank of colonel. Col. Bruce was not merely Sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, but was a power behind that body. His intelligence, his knowledge of the character of the legislation needed for the people of Mississippi, and the excellent impression he made upon the members, gave him great power in suggesting and influencing legislation.
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