Throughout both Northern and Southern states, the social chasm between the highest and lowest human organisms (whether white or black, or black-and-tan), is even more pronounced now, than ever it was previously. For example, although the Negroes are a majority in many States, they are never permitted to attain actual administrative power and they never shall.
You cannot paint the Negro white, with laws and constitutions: though you write it in the fire and smoke of wars and revolutions.
To solemnly proclaim that “all men are created equal,” is as stupid and unscientific, as to assert that all dogs, cattle, apes and trees are created equal.
Are there not as many diverse varieties of dogs, cattle, apes and trees, as there are of men, planets, germs, stars and suns? Where then is the intrinsic equality between an oak tree and a currant bush — between a mettlesome wolf-hound and a yelping street cur — between a buffalo bull and a hand-fed steer — between an untamable gorilla of the woods and an organ-grinder’s castrated monkey — between a cosmic-brained Bismarck and that famous Christling, “the good young man that died.” Cannot a blooded bulldog whip a solid score of lean half-starved street mongrels? Upon exactly the same principle, a small body of bold, self-reliant, brainy men are ever more than a match (under any circumstances), for 10, 000, nay, 10, 000, 000 greasy mechanics. What is a mechanic anyhow but a specially trained slave? — and it would take the spirit of 1, 000 American slaves to make that of one live man. Theoretically all these organisms are of “the same species,” but in the savage rush for bread, love, space and life, there are as much functional difference between them, as there is between a royal Bengal tiger and “Mary’s little lamb.” The lamb was made to be eaten and the tiger was made to eat it; and man was born to struggle as the sparks fly upwards.
The necessities of environment make of each man, the enemy or rival of other men, more especially, those with whom he comes in direct personal conflict. Where then does equality come in? It does not ‘come in’ at all. It is an idiotic myth. There must always be a substratum of victimized organisms. How could the tiger live if there were no victims to devour? How could there be heroes if there were no slaves? How could there be great nations if there were no contemptible ones?
Compare the noble qualities inherent in some dogs with the obsequious “virtues” that distinguish nine men out of ten. Now, give to canine or homo equal liberty of action — equal opportunity — equal “rights”: and what will be the result? Must not the fiercest fighter fatten, while the skeletons of lean weaklings project through their scrofulous hides? What power originating among themselves could dictate and enforce — equality of opportunity?
Socialism, Christianism, Democratism, Equalityism, are really the whining yelpings of base-bred mongrel-multitudes. They howl aloud for State intervention — “protection for suffering humanity” — regulated mill-grinding as it were; with the State to be their Supreme Idol, their God and Master, their All in All, their Great Panjandrum. Poor deluded base spirited “weeds.” Truly the “Curse of God” is in the very marrow of their bones — in every pump-stroke of their dying hearts.
The man who prays to be “protected” by politicians, guarded by armed Janissaries, saved by idolatrous priests, and redeemed by State Regimentation is indeed a miserable sinner — a vile, despicable, un-manly wretch.
No paternalistic governmental mechanism (however theoretically perfect), can ever keep the base-born and well-born, the thoroughbreds and the hybrids, in a state of perpetual equilibrium. You might as well try to bind down an earthquake with hoop-iron, as to rule the Strong with “be it enacted.” “Be it enacteds” were invented only to frighten captives with.
What power on earth can permanently keep the Negro on a parity with the Anglo-Saxon?
The Strong must have their way in spite of all puritanical proscribings, all mock moralisms, all degrading legalisms, all constitutional covenantings. Neither the machinery nor the raw material of equality has ever existed; only the dream, the idea of it. Equality! Equality! in that one word is summed up the accumulated dementia of two thousand years! The thought of it was born in the brain of an inferior organism: and the brains of the inferior organisms nourish it still.
How can beings who for ages have been born and bred to toil and subjectitvity, ever comprehend the feelings of those who are free-born, and of valorous descent — of those who understand the cosmic law that Might is — Master?
You cannot muzzle a tempest with a cobweb, bridle a volcano with a shoe-string, bottle up a cyclone in a powder horn, nor catch a tidal wave with a boat-hook. Neither can you put a bit between the teeth of the Strong. They will see you — in Sheol first.
No artificial plan of society — no pious incantations however sincere and well intentioned; can ever prevent the pot that is of iron from smashing and sinking, the pot that is of clay — and why should it? If social equilibrium had been feasible, it would have been established ages and ages ago. It has never been established — and it never shall.[11]
What then is the good of eternally dreaming, theorizing, and constructing phantom castles-in-the-air, cities of god, and gardens of delight, upon foundations of deliberate unveracity? Let us be men — whole men — not clamorous, tearful little children demanding infantile sugar-plumbs. Let us face the fierce challenging facts of existence as boldly as our forefathers did before “Christly comfort and consolation” was introduced to un-man them — not like crouching, cringing, terrorized, oriental pariahs. Let us not be lured to wholesale annihilation by sonorous Asiatic evangelisms, that have proved themselves worthless and unsuitable to our temperament, our climate, and our breed. Let us be sensible, brave, practical; and as Virchow somewhat trenchantly recommends: — “Accept things as they truly are, not as we chose to imagine them” — or rather as they have been imagined by dotard philosophers, daft poets, and castrated clerics.
The problem that we are ever called upon to solve or be eaten up, is not how to make life ‘happy and equal’ for happiness is a moving mirage, and equality an impossibility but how men may conquer their Opportunities, surpass their Rivals, extirpate their Pursuers.
The race is still to the swift and the battle to the strong. Beauty and booty are always the prerogatives of victorious valor. Woe unto the outgeneralled ones!
Upon the island of Java there is a remarkable valley of death. It is literally strewed with the bones and skulls and skeletons of innumerable dead animals and creeping things. In the due season, giant turtles, five foot by three in diameter, travel up through it from the sea, to lay their eggs. En-route, they are set upon by packs of wild dogs and these dogs roll the turtles upon their backs and then devour them alive, by tearing out their unprotected entrails. When the dogs are gorged, they in their turn, fall an easy prey to ambushing tigers. Then hunters kill these tigers for their variegated skins. Rank grass springs up after the rainy season, through the skulls and bones that litter this tropical golgotha and droves of cattle gather there to fatten. Again the cattle are hunted for their hides, horns, and flesh, and their bones are also left where they fall, to manure the valley and prepare it for new generations of hunters and hunted. Such is in miniature, a picture of the everyday world as it actually is. All living beings are pursuing and — being pursued.
11
"Man has a right to subsistence", wrote Thomas Paine. «Yes» replied an observant reader, "he has a right to live one thousand years, IF HE CAN." It is not a problem of Right but of Ability & Strength.