"Condition of the Free People of Color" (1839)

BY JUDGE WILLIAM JAY

IT appears from the census of 1830, that there were then 319,467 free colored persons in the United States. At the present time the number cannot be less than 360,000. Fifteen States of the Federal

Union have each a smaller population than this aggregate. Hence if the whole mass of human beings inhabiting Connecticut, or New Jersey, or any other of these fifteen States, were subjected to the ignorance and degradation and persecution and terror we are about to describe as the lot of this much-injured people, the amount of suffering would still be numerically less than that inflicted by a professedly Christian and republican community upon the free negroes. . . .

It is not necessary, for our present purpose, to enter into a particular investigation of the condition of the free negroes in the slave States. We all know that they stiffer every form of oppression which the laws can inflict upon persons not actually slaves. That unjust and cruel enactments should proceed from a people who keep two millions of their fellow-men in abject bondage, and who believe such enactments essential to the maintenance of their despotism, certainly affords no cause for surprise.

We turn to the free States, where slavery has not directly steeled our hearts against human suffering, and where no supposed danger of insurrection affords a pretext for keeping the free blacks in ignorance and degradation; and we ask, What is the character of the prejudice against color here? . . .

With these preliminary remarks we will now . . . consider in order, the various disabilities and oppressions to which they are subjected, either by law or the customs of society.

1. GENERAL EXCLUSION FROM THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.

Were this exclusion founded on the want of property, or any other qualification deemed essential to the judicious exercise of the franchise, it would afford no just cause of complaint; but it is founded solely on the color of the skin, and is therefore irrational and unjust. That taxation and representation should be inseparable, was one of the axioms of the fathers of our Revolution, and one of the reasons they assigned for their revolt from the crown of Britain. But now, it is deemed a mark of fanaticism to complain of the disfranchisement of a whole race, while they remain subject to the burden of taxation. It is worthy of remark, that of the thirteen original States, only two were so recreant to the principles of the Revolution, as to make a white skin a qualification for suffrage. But the prejudice has grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength; and it is believed that in every State constitution subsequently formed or revised, (excepting Vermont and Maine, and the revised constitution of Massachusetts,) the crime of a dark complexion has been punished, by debarring its possessor from all approach to the ballot-box. The necessary effect of this proscription in aggravating the oppression and degradation of the colored inhabitants, must be obvious to all who call to mind the solicitude manifested by demagogues, and office-seekers, and law-makers, to propitiate the good will of all who have votes to bestow. . . .

5. EXCLUSION FROM ALL PARTICIPATION IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

No colored man can be a judge, juror, or constable. . . . In the slave States generally, no black man can enter a court of justice as a witness against a white one. Of course a white man may, with perfect impunity, defraud or abuse a negro to any extent, provided he is careful to avoid the presence of any of his own caste, at the execution of his contract, or the indulgence of his malice. We are not aware that an outrage so flagrant is sanctioned by the laws of any free State, with one exception. That exception the reader will readily believe can be none other than OHIO. A statute of this State enacts, "that no black or mulatto person or persons shall hereafter be permitted to be sworn, or give evidence in any court of record or elsewhere, in this State, in any cause depending, or matter of controversy, when either party to the same is a WHITE person; or in any prosecution of the State against any WHITE person." . . .

6. IMPEDIMENTS TO EDUCATION.

No people have ever professed so deep a conviction of the importance of popular education as ourselves, and no people have ever resorted to such cruel expedients to perpetuate abject ignorance. More than one third of the whole population of the slave States are prohibited from learning even to read, and in some of them, free men, if with dark complexions, are subject to stripes for teaching their own children. If we turn to the free States, we find that in all of them, without exception, the prejudices and customs of society oppose almost insuperable obstacles to the acquisition of a liberal education by colored youth. Our academies and colleges are barred against them. We know there are instances of young men with dark skins having been received, under peculiar circumstances, into northern colleges; but we neither know nor believe, that there have been a dozen such instances within the last thirty years.

Colored children are very generally excluded from our common schools, in consequence of the prejudices of teachers and parents. In some of our cities there are schools exclusively for their use, but in the country the colored population is too sparse to justify such schools; and white and black children are rarely seen studying under the same roof; although such cases do sometimes occur, and then they are confined to elementary schools. Some colored young men, who could bear the expense, have obtained in European seminaries the education denied them in their native land.

It may not be useless to cite an instance of the malignity with which the education of the blacks is opposed. The efforts made in Connecticut to prevent the establishment of schools of a higher order than usual for colored pupils, are too well known to need a recital here; and her BLACK ACT, prohibiting the instruction of colored children from other States, although now expunged from her statute book through the influence of abolitionists, will long be remembered to the opprobrium of her citizens. We ask attention to the following illustration of public opinion in another New England State.

In 1834 an academy was built by subscription in CANAAN, New Hampshire, and a charter granted by the Legislature; and at a meeting of the proprietors it was determined to receive all applicants having "suitable moral and intellectual recommendations, without other distinctions;" in other words, without reference to complexion. When this determination was made known, a town meeting was forthwith convened, and the following resolutions adopted, viz. :

"Resolved, that we view with abhorrence the attempt of the abolitionists to establish in this town a school for the instruction of the sable sons and daughters of Africa, in common with our sons and daughters.

"Resolved, that we will not associate with, nor in any way countenance, any man or woman who shall hereafter persist in attempting to establish a school in this town for the exclusive education of blacks, or for their education in conjunction with the whites." . . .

The proprietors of the academy supposing, in the simplicity of their hearts, that in a free country they might use their property in any manner not forbidden by law, proceeded to open their school, and in the ensuing spring, had twenty-eight white, and fourteen colored scholars. The crisis had now arrived when the cause of prejudice demanded the sacrifice of constitutional liberty and of private property. Another town meeting was convoked, at which, without a shadow of authority, and in utter contempt of law and decency, it was ordered, that the academy should be forcibly removed, and a committee was appointed to execute the abominable mandate. Due preparations were made for the occasion, and on the 10th of August, three hundred men with about two hundred oxen, assembled at the place, and taking the edifice from off its foundation, dragged it to a distance, and left it a ruin. No one of the actors in this high-handed outrage was ever brought before a court of justice to answer for this criminal and riotous destruction of the property of others.

The transaction we have narrated expresses in emphatic terms the deep and settled hostility felt in the free States, to the education of the blacks. The prejudices of the community render that hostility generally effective without the aid of legal enactments. Indeed, some remaining regard to decency and the opinion of the world, has restrained the Legislatures of the free States, with one exception, from consigning these unhappy people to ignorance by "decreeing unrighteous decrees," and "framing mischief by a law." Our readers, no doubt, feel that the exception must of course be OHIO.

. . . Ohio legislators . . . enacted a law in 1831, declaring that, "when any appropriation shall be made by the directors of any school district, from the treasury thereof, for the payment of a teacher, the school in such district shall be open"—to whom?—"to scholars, students, and teachers of every grade, without distinction or preference, whatever," as commanded by the constitution? Oh no!—"shall be open to all the WHITE children residing therein!" Such is the impotency of written constitutions, where a sense of moral obligation is wanting to enforce them. . . .

10. SUBJECTION TO INSULT AND OUTRAGE.

The feeling of the community towards these people, and the contempt with which they are treated, are indicated by the following notice, lately published by the proprietors of a menagerie, in New York. "The proprietors wish it to be understood, that people of color are not permitted to enter, except when in attendance upon children and families." For two shillings, any white scavenger would be freely admitted, and so would negroes, provided they came in a capacity that marked their dependence; their presence is offensive, only when they come as independent spectators, gratifying a laudable curiosity.

Even death, the great leveller, is not permitted to obliterate, among Christians, the distinction of caste, or to rescue the lifeless form of the colored man from the insults of his white brethren. In the porch of a Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia, in 1837, was suspended a card, containing the form of a deed, to be given to purchasers of lots in a certain burial ground, and to enhance the value of the property, and to entice buyers, the following clause was inserted: "No person of color, nor any one who has been the subject of execution, shall be interred in said lot."

Our colored fellow-citizens, like others, are occasionally called to pass from one place to another; and in doing so are compelled to submit to innumerable hardships and indignities. They are frequently denied seats in our stage coaches; and although admitted upon the decks of our steamboats, are almost universally excluded from the cabins. Even women have been forced, in cold weather, to pass the night upon deck, and in one instance the wife of a colored clergyman lost her life in consequence of such an exposure.

The contempt poured upon these people by our laws, our churches, our seminaries, our professions, naturally invokes upon their heads the fierce wrath of vulgar malignity. In order to exhibit the actual condition of this portion of our population, we will here insert some samples of the outrages to which they are subjected, taken from the ordinary public journals.

In an account of the New York riots of 1834, the Commercial Advertiser says:

"About twenty poor African (native American) families, have had their all destroyed, and have neither bed, clothing, nor food remaining. Their houses are completely eviscerated, their furniture a wreck, and the ruined and disconsolate tenants of the devoted houses are reduced to the necessity of applying to the corporation for bread."

The example set in New York was zealously followed in Philadelphia.

"Some arrangement, it appears, existed between the mob and the white inhabitants, as the dwelling-houses of the latter, contiguous to the residences of the blacks, were illuminated and left undisturbed, while the huts of the negroes were singled out with unerring certainty. The furniture found in these houses was generally broken up and destroyed—beds ripped open and their contents scattered in the streets. . . . The number of houses assailed was not less than twenty. . . ." Philadelphia Gazette.

"No ease is reported of an attack having been invited or provoked by the residents of the dwellings assailed or destroyed. The extent of the depredations committed on the three evenings of riot and outrage can only be judged of by the number of houses damaged or destroyed. So far as ascertained, this amounts to FORTY-FIVE. One of the houses assaulted was occupied by an unfortunate cripple, who, unable to fly from the fury of the mob, was so beaten by some of the ruffians, that he has since died in consequence of the bruises and wounds inflicted. . . ." National Gazette.

William Jay, (Boston, etc., 1853), 371–394 passim.