The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed.

Excerpt

THE NEGRO.

What is his Ethnological Status? Is he the progeny of Ham? Is he a descendant of Adam and Eve? Has he a Soul? or is he a Beast, in God's nomenclature? What is his Status as fixed by God in creation? What is his relation to the White race?

The intelligent will see at once, that the question of slavery,either right or wrong, is not involved in this caption for examination: nor is that question discussed. The points are purely ethnological and Biblical, and are to be settled alone by the Bible and by concurrent history, and by facts existing outside of the Bible and of admitted truth. We simply say in regard to ourself, in this day of partisan strife, religious and political, that we take no part in any such party strife, and that it is many years since we cast our last vote. This much, to prevent evil surmises.

With this understood independence of all parties, we begin by saying, that the errors and mistakes, in understanding the true position of the negro, as God intended it to be in his order of creation, are all traceable to, and arise out of two assumptions. The learned men of the past and present age, the clergy and others have assumed as true:

1. That the negro is a descendant of Ham, the youngest son of Noah. This is false and untrue.

2. That the negro is a descendant of, or the progeny of, Adam and Eve. This is also false and untrue.

These questions, or rather these assumptions, of the learned and unlearned world, are Biblical, and are to be settled by the Bible alone, whether they be true or false, and by outside concurrent history—and of facts known to exist, and admitted to be true by the intelligent, and as they may serve to elucidate any statement or account given in the Bible.

We shall have frequent use of the term, "logic of facts," and now explain what we mean by it. It is this: If one sees another with a gun in his hands, and that he shoots a man and kills him, and the bullet is found afterward in the dead man's body, that although we did not see the bullet put into the gun, yet we know by this "logic of facts," that it was in the gun. It is the strongest evidence of what is true, of any testimony that can be offered.

It will be admitted by all, and contradicted by none, that we now have existing on earth, two races of men, the white and the black. We beg here to remind our readers, that when they see the word men, or man, italicised, we do not use it as applying to Adam and his race. But we may sometimes use these words in the general and accepted sense of them, but it is only for the purpose of getting before the minds of our readers, the propositions of the learned of this age, exactly as they would wish them to be stated. We will now describe, ethnologically, the prominent characteristics and differences of these two races as we now find them.

The white race have long, straight hair, high foreheads, high noses, thin lips, and white skins: the olive and sunburnt color, where the other characteristics are found, belong equally to the white race....