For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR.

MR. EDITOR:—I hope you will excuse my continued reference to the subject of prejudice "against color." I find that the evil still exists and sends its influence through the various ramifications of society. I am anxious to vindicate the character of our people from the slanderous calumny that their condition is the cause.

I cannot resist the conclusion, that the men who assert that our condition is the cause now, would, were they permitted, to revisit this country three centuries hence, (if their minds were unchanged,) have occasion to use the same argument, and for the same reasons, because the disparity between us and the whites, as regards condition, must be greater than now, if we continue to remain fettered by laws, and excluded by prejudice from an equal participation in the elements of progress. I, therefore, maintain, if prejudice is the cause of the present disparity of condition between the two "colors," or "races," and our condition the cause of that prejudice, then I further maintain that the present evil consequences which flow from its existence, will continue to be eternized.—Hence, I reject it as the invention of falsehood —the fabrication of a dream, having no foundation in truth or philosophy, and as an argument, fit only to be used by our oppressors, and not the oppressed. If we take American laws as the standard, our condition in every sense (complexion only excepted) is such as would qualify us for citizenship, under the broad, expansive wings of the American Eagle.

Your correspondent, J. B., of Farmington, like any other kind and benevolent men, is perfectly astonished that any person should assert that American prejudice is "directed against color." I am quite delighted to know that the northern latitude of J. B. has prevented him from witnessing such degrading exhibitions. He, therefore, aims to dispose of the subject logically, when he says, "If the prejudice is against our color, which composes every known shade of the human race, from the jet black to the pure Caucasion—that prejudice cannot be removed except by removing the cause." Granted—very true —I accept your logic, J. B.; but pray what is the cause of prejudice, and then we may agree on what is to be removed? It is certainly not "color," for it is not capable of producing anything—I say that it is that ignorance which begets a depraved public sentiment. You can only destroy prejudice by removing ignorance, its nursing mother. He can be melted by the breath of an enlightened public sentiment, like a snow bank by the fervid rays of a July sun. No sane person would think of charging the masonic structure that forms the forts of Sevastopol with being the cause of the war, yet the Allies discharge their cannon against it. Our complexions are equally innocent, but they furnish a target, against which, prejudice discharges all her vials of wrath, envy, and hatred. Those who assert that condition is
the cause of the prejudice, beg the question by making a false issue, which constitutions and charters have never claimed; and by so doing, conspire against us, and coalesce with our enemies in furnishing a reason for their demon-like atrocities. Where in the free States of the American Union is the "free colored man" excluded from the privileges of the white, on the ground of condition?—Read the constitutions of the several States; look at their statute laws; the doors of the public halls; enquire at the gates of the chartered monopolies; the pews of sanctuaries and the gates of cemeteries, and ask the question why are you excluded? and then tell me if the answer is not because you are not "white." Then why in the name of goodness cannot we come away, telling the simple truth, that we were excluded on account of our complexion.

Every intelligent legislation has excluded the idea of making conditiona standard years ago. The progress of our people forbids it. Let us cease perpetuating such a slander on the character of our people, as to admit for a moment, that we are excluded by condition from any privileges that belong to those of a different complexion. The doctrine that prejudice directs itself against us, because either we or our forefathers have been enslaved, is on a par with that of condition, and forms another link in the chain of pro-slavery apologies. They will search in vain for a standard of disqualifications on that ground. They are both so opposed to the natural views of our people, that those who advocate such doctrines, show but little evidence that they believe them. They can neither write books, deliver lectures, or talk on the subject of prejudice for half an hour without contradicting their doctrines by unguarded expressions. If this question of prejudice against "color" is ever settled, it must be done on its own independent merits, without the addition of pro-slavery collaterals. If any many believes that he is too degraded to possess the elective franchise, I cheerfully accord to him the right of being his own representative. If any man believes that prejudice is heaped upon him because his father was enslaved, then there is but little hope for the generation which succeeds him; and if we reason from their own premises, prejudice will exist for centuries after slavery is abolished. So much for American slavery being the mother of prejudice.

Believing, as I do, that the prejudice under which we suffer is instinctive, and has no foundation in reason, I am anxious that every prop that sustains it with reason, should be removed, and let it stand forth in its own naked deformity. The assertion that prejudice is the offspring of slavery, and rests on condition, I believe to be false in theory, and produces an injurious effect on the minds of the oppressed. That they are not the barriers that deprive us of certain rights and privileges, is easily proven by a reference to the laws that disqualify us. The cases selected by J. B., properly belong to the social department of the question, while I have confined my argument to organical prejudice, as it exists in institutions. In reply to this first question, I say that the prejudice was not "against color," for, according to his own showing, the color was not perceptible.—To the second question, respecting the young Brazilian clothed with titles and nobility, no proof is given that there was not prejudice against his color, any more than the case of Daniel Webster being refused admission at a hotel, under the supposition that he was a "negro." The very statement of the questions involved the idea that J. B. must have understood me to say that "color" was the cause of prejudice, when I only said that it was the object against which it was directed. If J. B. could produce a thousand such cases, they would not in the least invalidate my argument. I have said, and now repeat it, prejudice is instinctive, the offspring of ignorance, and sometimes directs itself against one object, and then against another. In Europe, it is against condition—in other places, it is against "blood, faith," &c.; but in the United States, and as an American question, it is chiefly directed against "color," and, so far as the "free colored population" of this country are concerned, their disabilities are complexional. The only barrier that prevents them from obtaining and enjoying the rights and privileges of American citizens is the "color of their skin."

Now, Mr. Editor, I have, I think, succeeded in proving that the prejudice of this country is "against color," and in doing so, I maintain the effect of my argument, is not injurious to ourselves, nor has it any tendency to discourage attempts on our part to better our condition in this country; but on the contrary, presents the only hopeful side of the question. The revolutionary events of history and the triumphs of science over ignorance and superstition, all prove that this prejudice has, at different periods of the world's history, fastened itself on other objects, and the dense fog which surrounded it has been dispelled by the light of civilization. Now if these triumphs in other ages, and other times, have been achieved by the public enlightenment, the advancement of science, and the principles of toleration, why may not we, under the present progressing state of civilization, hope to realize like achievements from the use of the same instrumentalities? Look at New England, the pride and boast of American civilization, where the blessings of a public education, is the inalienable right of every child born on the soil of those enlightened commonwealths. Is not the prejudice "against color" receding before the omnipotence of an enlightened public sentiment? The same regenerating influences are at work in this country that made the spirit of liberty inseparable from "British soil;" and in the order of national events, the period must arrive when the complexion of every human being will be compatible with freedom, and justice to all mankind.

W. W.

COLUMBIA, Jan. 18, 1855.