"The present
practice of the friends of Africa is to frame laws according to their own
notions for the government and improvement of this people, whereas God
has already enacted the laws for the government of their affairs, which
laws should be carefully ascertained, interpreted, and applied; for until
they are found out and conformed to, all labor will be ineffective and
resultless."
We have thus passed in review some of the tendencies of the age. We have
only touched the edges of a vast subject, and shall be quite satisfied if
we have suggested thought in the direction indicated. But in this limited
view of our complex human problem it is time to ask if we have not pushed
the dogma of equality far enough. Is it not time to look the facts
squarely in the face, and conform to them in our efforts for social and
political amelioration?
Inequality appears to be the divine order; it always has existed;
undoubtedly it will continue; all our theories and 'a priori'
speculations will not change the nature of things. Even inequality of
condition is the basis of progress, the incentive to exertion.
Fortunately, if today we could make every man white, every woman as like
man as nature permits, give to every human being the same opportunity of
education, and divide equally among all the accumulated wealth of the
world, tomorrow differences, unequal possession, and differentiation
would begin again.
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