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THE COUNTRYMAN.
BY J. A. TURNER.
— “ BREVITY IS THE SOUI. OF WIT ”
$1 A YEAR.
YOL. III.
TURNWOLD, PUTNAM COUNTY, GA., MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 18G2.
NO. 8.
Educated Yegrocs.
There is a law on our statute book for
bidding the teaching of negroes to read.
Some of m3 7 good friends belonging to the
different sects of the country, who imagine
that they 7 can see into the counsels of the
Almighty, and can tell you very flippantly
all about his motives in .suffering our coun
try to be scourged with war, have become
alarmed, lest this law is one of the causes
which has brought upon 11s all this blood
shed, and are now proposing to repeal it,
as a peace-offering to Jehovah.
I shall discuss this subject, possibly at
some length, in this and future articles, and
I know, in advance, that some people will
accuse me of a want of reverence, in what
I shall say. I know this will be the case,
because the minds of many people are so
narrow and contracted with reference to
what reverence is, and with reference to
every idea they have of Gfod, that if you
don’t revere those narrow and contracted
ideas, then you are wanting in veneration
for your Maker. Now, I tell such, in ad
vance, that I have no veneration, and lean
succeed in having but very little respect for
their prejudices and ignorance. I have
tried as hard, as anyone ever did to respect
even men’s prejudice, because courtesy per
haps requires it : but I have been singular
ly unsuccessful in all iny 7 efforts in this line-
But for my Maker I have as much Venera
tion as any man who ever lived : and if
anyone says 1 have not, I tell you, right
here, you lie, sir ! In the pulpit, or out of
it, you lie !
Well, then, having settled this point, I
proceed.—The letter of my friend Dr.
Talmage, on the subject matter of this ar
ticle, published lately 7 in the Confederate
Union, is before me. What he says is en
titled to great weight. Therefore I make
his article the nucleus of my remarks. He
knows that l don’t know how to treat him
and his opinions otherwise than with re
spect. And yet I must be allowed to con
sider my esteemed friend (for l am proud
to rank him as such) in error at certain
points.
Let me say here, in passing, that no man
knows the specific causes influencing the
mind of Deity, in producing, or allowing
this war. lie who attempts to penetrate
the arcana of Jehovah’s mind, is guilty of
great folly, if not wickedness. In all ages
of the world, God has scourged, or suffered
the human race to be scourged with war.
It matters but little what form of expres
sion you use—whether God does a thing, or
suffers it done—the practical result is the
same, and he being omnipotent, the act is
his. ' It must be accepted, then, as a truth,
that it is God who is scourging this land
with war. The remote cause of it is his
hand. The immediat e cause of it is the evil
passions—the lusts—the ambition—the fa-
natacism of Seward, Greeley, and Sumner,
and the treason of Brownlow, (Jrittendeiq
and Johnson. Possibly 7 the evil passions
and ambition of some of our own southern
men, coming in conflict with those of the
creatures above mentioned, caused this war
by concussion, sooner than it might other
wise have come. But it all ends in the
same place—that the immediate cause of the
war is the evil passions of men. Why God
scourges, or (if the reader prefers it) suffers
the human race to be scourged by these
evil passions, neither I nor any other mor
tal who breathes, knows, whatever he may
pretend to know. This is the great myste
ry of God. I have the faith to believe—
nay, my own consciousness makes me know
it is all right.
It is almost impossible to prevent being
too discursive in this article. But I will
try to condense.
It is certain that the wrong-deeds of men
are the cause of this war. Is the statute
against teaching negroes to read, one of
these wrong-deeds 1 I think not. I don’t
think the statute is of any importance, any
way. I think that without it, there would
be no more negroes taught to read than are
with it. Notwithstanding the statute, a
good mail} 7 negroes have learned to read a.
little, and everyone who desired it, and bad
strength of purpose and will enough to car
ry out that desire, has learned to read a lit
tle, and is neither the better nor the worse
negro for it.
Why not take a practical view of this
subject ?—Is there any sir. in the Georgia
statute against educating negroes ] None
whatever : because God himsell enacted
that very statute, long before the Georgia
legislature was ever conceived of: and God
is not going to punish any people for re-en
acting one of his own statutes.
The negro is either capable of education,
or he is not. (I speak of him as a race.)
If he is capable of education, it is a sin to
withhold it from him. If he is incapable of
it and so created by his Maker, it may be
folly to say, by *law, lie shall not have an
education, but it is neither wickedness, nor
sin.
Now if the negro is capable of education,
he is also capable of freedom. Our whole
system of slavery is founded upon the idea
that the negro is incapable of enjoying free
dom : and upon the truth of this proposi
tion depends the propriety of slavery. I
hold that the negro is incapable of enjoyng
freedom—that God did not intend him to
ei joy it, and hence I am pro slavery in my
views and feelings. Convince me that the
African race is capable of enjoying freedom,
and you convince me that Gcd designed
them to be free. Convince me that God
designed them to be free, and I go for stri
king the bonds from the limbs of everyone
of them, to-day : I will then'support Lin
coln’s abolition proclamation : for 1 will not,
if I know it, fight against God’s designs.
If the negro is capable of education, he
is capable of freedom. Education and sla-
verv are incompatible: and when youstrike
at the ignorance of any people, you strike
at their fetters.
I say I think the statute which I am dis
cussing is of little importance any way, if
things are allowed to go on in their natu
ral course. If schools of any kind are got
ten up for the negroes, though, then 1 do |
think the statute mentioned is of some im-y
portance.
I think the agitation of the subject I am
discussing, has been gotten up at ft very,un-' %
fortunate time. It will divide and distract
the attention of our people upon a subject
upon which their minds should be a unit.
Bui my sectarian brethren, some of them,
are afraid the statute against teaching ne
groes to read, may be the cause of this war.
Repeal it, and ihe war will cease.—Now
God considers the motives of men. If this
statute is wrong now, it has been wrong all
the time. And I am afraid my friends will
hardly get credit with the Omniscient, for
their motives : and I am afraid the repeal
of the law will hardly end the war.
The germ of this whole movement about
teaching negroes to read, is the same germ
from which sprang abolition. It is planted
in the idea that the black race, as well as
the white, is capable of education, of free
dom, and such other blessings as the ortho
dox pro-slavery man believes, from every
teaching of the Almighty, God has design
ed for a superior race alone. The aboli
tionist holds, or used to hold, before our ne
groes showed themselves such a powerful