The Everlasting Negro.

 GENTLEMEN who visit clubs and drink sherry cobbler— who read mongrel reviews, always contemptuous of substantial liberty and human rights— may sneer at the " everlasting negro," whose race inhabits one of the largest sections of the globe—who himself never wandered into Europe or obtruded his presence. By a series of crimes unexampled in human wrong, carried off under the Christian flag, and after running the gauntlet of a passage fatal to millions, he stood a barbarian slave for sale, as did the ancestors of Britons in the Roman market.

The bondsman of ancient days oppressed was nevertheless commonly regarded as a man ; but the blacks have been treated only as beasts of burden, and with an injustice inexpressibly unjust. When liberated, they have been expected to display all the docility of affectionate service—to rise at once into all the chaste relations of married life, for which the law itself disqualified them until a period within our own recollection in the British dominions—a law which still survives in all its virulence in the statute-book of America.

The " everlasting negro " is now an offence to his oppressors. He is their perpetual remorse and accusation, and nothing but the gentleness of his nature prevents him from being their terror and their scourge. There are, however, circumstances which break down all forbearance and rouse the dark passions that slumber in every breast, or rather those natural resentments which have often rescued nations from thraldom and constituted part of the animating power of the patriot who has vindicated his country and his race. We confess ourselves to be among THE FANATICS whose sympathies all turn towards this oppressed race— who look upon their oppression with inexpressible detestation— who believe in retributive judgment— and that a day of wrath is reserved for every nation, by which moral laws are violated, and especially where they are violated under legal sanction merely for the purpose of gain.

What has come upon America now has been foretold by her own moralists and statesmen. These " fanatics " predicted that slavery would debase the national character— would ruin the national constitution —would kindle the flames of civil war —and would perhaps one day arm the oppressed against the oppressors. Is there anything wonderful in such predictions or in their accomplishment? The oldest Book in the world tells us of a people who were bondsmen in the land of Egypt. Their masters set the example of that kind of "chivalry" which has been adopted, improved, and aggravated by the American people. Warnings were followed by visitations, and these by heavier, until by and bye the first-born of Egypt had to make atonement for the first-born of Israel. The horror of the increase of the Hebrews upon the Egyptian mind was solaced by the destruction of the Hebrew children. The Hebrew children nevertheless increased as under the power of oppression the African race seems everywhere to multiply. All, however, was in vain. Warnings and plagues lost their terror, and even hardened with their aggravation, until by and bye the "everlasting" Hebrews became the terror of the Egyptians, and thrust them out. But reanimated by their covetousness as well as their contempt, the hosts of Egypt pursued — they overtook — they almost captured—when, descending into the bed of ocean, its waters covered them and they were seen no more.

These are lessons for all time. They are lessons for that great nation now agonizing in the struggle between two great principles— whether these are inscribed upon their flag or not—and the " everlasting negro," as he is called, will rise, perhaps, amidst their ruins and their impoverishment and desolation.

The cry of " fanaticism " does not alarm us. King WILLIAM THE FOURTH, when he first appeared as the Duke of Clarence in the House of Lords, treated the nation to a speech in which the word " fanatics" was prominent.

“Fanatics" was the word applied to those of whom PITT became the legislative leader—who denounced the slave trade of Africa, and put down the accursed thing. WILLIAM THE SAILOR thought the British navy was nourished by the slave trade, and that we should ruin our maritime power if we did not rob Africa of her children. We are old enough to remember the same cry of " fanaticism " against all who were for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. Who has not read the eloquent denunciations of Lord BROUGHAM, when the missionary SMITH was condemned to death by the "chivalry" of Demarara. It was the fanatics of those times, with whom we rejoice to have been associated, who won the emancipation, we will not say of the African, but of the British Empire, from the thraldom of that system, long supported by our British "chivalry;" defended too often by our ministers of religion, who invented all those commonplaces by which the South at present defends the oppression of the negro race, and which now read to every Englishman like blasphemy. Let any one who doubts this look back to the discussions upon the subject, and they will find that the articles in our leading journals and reviews are, to our national disgrace, simply reproductions of those which, with less criminality because with less experience, were issued by the enemies of man during the heat of our glorious struggle. All who believe the negro race destined to Christian civilisation and the enjoyments of human rights, are treated from day to day with " the everlasting negro." Caricaturists distort his features to hideous proportions in order to play upon the antipathy of race for which Englishmen are renowned. His religious sentiments— the great barrier to his resentment and the balm of his affliction— furnish topics of ridicule, because he expresses the emotions of his heart in the broken language of his down-trodden people. Every philosophical mind acquainted with the history of humanity is aware that uneducated men of all races express with vivacity all their emotions, and that between this fervour of utterance and no feeling at all there are in their case but few intermediate stages. The TROLLOPE'S, and men of that class who talk upon this subject, pander to the base spirit which is as incapable of philosophical appreciation as of Christian sympathy. Why should the negro, because his utterance of his religious feeling is loud and unclassical, be represented as a mere ape, while the same manifestations are seen in every part of the world where religious sentiment is expressed by uneducated men. The result of our over-civilization is not only to disguise the feelings, but to make the outer expression the very reverse often of the inward sentiment. But these are refinements from which the negro race are necessarily remote. We are, however, at the beginning of the end. The idle literature which is opposed to the grandest movements of our times will pass to the trunkmakers, while those who are strenuous for the assertion of human liberty will be remembered as benefactors of their own as well as the African race. The curse of slavery sinks deeply. It embraces all who touch it. It demonises their character ; it makes them not only insensible, but opposed to the claims of right. And yet strange enough the very men who are loudest in their declamations about the brutal instincts of the negro the moment the slave becomes free, expected from such a population as Jamaica the chastity which they do not find in the counties of their own country or on the Continent. Statistics prove this. What is still more humiliating is that the demoralisation of the blacks with respect to their social relations, has not only been regularly organised by slave-holders as a property interest, but promoted— never discouraged by the licentious habits of the whites themselves. Can we in the face of a creole population, everywhere advancing upon the distinct races, pretend that the African is licentious, and the African alone? The rights of these millions of human beings appear to us to be the grand charge upon the sympathy and effort of all mankind. To secure them we have in our own country made a sacrifice, paltry as it now turns out compared with the penalties exacted by Providence in America. We talk of the £20,000,000 we paid for the emancipation of slaves as though we had laid the slave under a lasting obligation. Let it be remembered that this £20,000,000 went to the slave-holder and not to the slave. It was not the price paid by a nation for the ransom of brethren from the hands of aliens ; but the price settled among themselves in composition of a common wrong. That price was well, and, in some of its aspects, nobly paid. Happy for England that it was so. Her prosperity has never been retarded for an hour. The ruin of the sugar plantations, long watered with tears and blood, in Jamaica is a small deduction from the great national account. Had the question been in the hands of the slave owners this price would never have been paid, but the weight of bondage would have been increased with every effort to destroy it. America has had the power of resistance and the will, and now war is exacting not only the first born of the population but millions sufficient to pay the price of every slave under the Stars and Stripes. These are events which can only be interpreted one way, and supercilious and heartless sneers at the oppressed will not retard their Avenger for an hour.

It was the judicial condemnation of JOHN SMITH, who was sentenced to death, that finally destroyed the slavery party of Great Britain. It was the execution of JOHN BROWN, for his ill-judged effort— that of a man driven mad by years of family and personal oppression, but whose heart was full of the noblest aspiration— that ushered the great war now raging in America. It is said that his last act upon earth just before he ascended the scaffold, which was to ensure his name the everlasting remembrance of Africa— was to take from the arms of a negress her infant child and leave upon its brow the last kiss of human affection ; thus signifying the cause for which he suffered before he yielded up his great indignant and heroic spirit.

Sydney Morning Herald 5 Jan 1863, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13072006