| THE EDUCATION OF THE COLORED RACE IS THE DUTY OF THE NATION |
By Professor HARRIS HANCOCK
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
FORTY years ago the civil war was ended, the negro freed. Individually there will always be persons who entertain feelings of animosity against their fellow man of another section; for sectionalism will ever exist. But as a nation such feelings must be buried, if there are any which influence the political government of the people. For every section is a part of the nation and the nation is under equal obligations to every section. Each state is an integral part of the nation, and no state may be regarded by the union as a province.
It is a historical fact that slavery was forced upon this country by England against the protests of the states, both north and south. For example, in 1769 the House of Burgesses of Virginia by a vote abolished slavery, but was prohibited from so doing by George III., King of England, "in the interests of commerce." Further, in 1778 Virginia, and in 1798 Georgia, passed acts prohibiting the importation of slaves, Virginia fixing as a penalty the heavy fine of one thousand pounds; it is also true that Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky were banded together in the support of a practical system of emancipating the slaves by degrees, a movement which was eventually stopped by the abolitionists, a party that came into existence after the Missouri compromise, in 1820-21. This party demanded the immediate and uncompensated freedom of all slaves, notwithstanding the fact that England had just liberated four hundred thousand slaves at the cost of twenty million pounds. No other such attack upon private property can be found in the history of civilized nations. We emphasize the fact that some of the southern states led the world in an earnest appeal to prevent slavery, although with a peculiar irony the world to-day holds the south responsible absolutely for the existence of this institution. And further to show that the nation as a whole was responsible for the existence of the colored race in America, it must be recognized that although the south was at that time somewhat of a maritime people, no slave was ever brought to this country by a southern vessel, and that "New England ship-owners practically monopolized the traffic of slavery for a number of years"[1] It is also found that Massachusetts was the first colonial state (1641) that legalized slave
- ↑ See "The True Civil War," pp. 28, 29, 30; and in this connection see also "Origin of the Late War," by George Lunt, an eminent lawyer of Massachusetts.
