Principled Conservatism

Principled Conservatism

Thomas Allen

Conservatism is a tone or attitude; it is not a set of principles. This attitude rests on the wisdom of the ages and is highly skeptical of utopian schemes, such as socialism in all its forms. Thus, the wisdom of the ages, the accumulated wisdom of generations, tradition, guides conservatism instead of abstract speculation. Nevertheless, conservatism does not eschew principles.

What conservatives seek to conserve is not what happened a few years ago or even decades ago. They seek to conserve the consensus of their civilization over the centuries since it reflects the truth derived from its being.

Moreover, conservatives reject universality. They affirm selectivity and particularism; thus, they are tribal. Also, conservatives think in terms of individual men instead of in terms of mankind or humanity as do liberals and neoconservatives.

The following describes a principled conservative, also known as a traditional American conservative. Among the principled conservatives are Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, fusionists, and the Old Right. Principled conservatives should not be confused with neoconservatives, establishment conservatives, or enlightened conservatives. (Establishment conservatives are conservatives who are not neoconservatives, enlightened conservatives, or principled conservatives; they include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, the typical Republican politicians, and Buckleyites. Enlightened conservatives are the New Conservatives of the 1950s represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorn reason and principle, reduce virtue to prudence, and depend heavily on Providence.)

What follows is a description of the typical principled conservative. The typical principled conservative:

– opposes designs for the perfecting human nature and society;

– scorns uniformity, egalitarianism, utilitarianism, materialism, pragmatism, scientism, and positivism;

– prefers the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, and the convenient to the perfect;

– is partial to the present;

– is disinclined toward doctrine or creed and, therefore, objects to the notion that the United States are a creedal nation;

– eschews the abstract;

– rejects Rationalism and Universalism but does not reject rationality and universality as such;

– cherishes both individuality and plurality;

– believes in absolute truths and absolute values;

– believes that truth is objective and eternal;

– is not a reactionary seeking an unrecoverable lost past;

– rejects the notions of the perfect life of man, the illimitable progress of society, and materialistic determination;

– has an affection for the proliferation of variety and the mystery of human existence;

– dismisses the notion of man as a manipulable, mutable being whom social engineers can shape;

– affirms that utopia degrades man;

– believes, unlike collectivist liberals, that man is more than a tool-bearing gregarious animal whose end is material welfare;

– maintains that moral and spiritual virtues are the true end of man;

– sees man as an imperfect being, who cannot be molded into perfection (besides, perfection is subjective, and what one modeler sees as perfection, another sees as imperfection);

– believes that all people are (or should be) equal before the law (and even this equality is a chimera because of the differences in judges, jurors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and law enforcers) but objects to universal egalitarianism (the equality of all people in all respects, e.g., all people are equal in intelligence, ability, and potentiality);

– maintains that the individual is the locus of virtue in the social order and this virtue is based on the moral and intellectual order that has been passed from generation to generation; 

– accepts the historical idea that man is a rational, volitional, autonomous individual, a free being who lives between good and evil, truth and error, and who fulfills his destiny in the choices that he makes;

– understands that innate freedom is the essence of man’s being — and upon this axiom is his (the principled conservatives) political thoughts founded;

– is a proponent of tradition and prefers the traditional to the pragmatic when the two conflict;

– holds that principles should be derived mostly by convection and compromise and tested by long experience;

– favors an epistemology rooted in tradition and morality of particularity;

– distinguishes, unlike enlightened conservatives, between the good and evil traditions — using reasoning to distinguish among the possibilities;

– protects the tradition and applies it to new situations;

– does not avert change per se but does avert rapid change;

– is hesitative about change and innovation and is selective about which changes and innovations to accept;

– believes that change should be a slow and natural alteration and not some present infatuation;

– believes that change should come because of a need generally felt, not inspired by abstractions;

– prefers innovations that approximate natural growth, that is, they are intimate in the situation, and are no merely imposed;

– thus, favors change that responds to a specific defect while opposing change that is primarily designed to improve the conditions of human circumstances;

– favors change that is small and limited while opposing change that is large and indefinite;

– opposes radical change and innovation;

– cautions against change not because he opposes change but because of the severe limitation of an individual’s knowledge;

– opposes change for the sake of change, i.e., the lust for change;

– believes that tradition needs to guide reason;

– objects to the Rationalist’s idea of reason divorced from tradition, custom, and habit;

– opposes rationalist ideologies derived solely by reasoning in part because they are inflexible;

– accepts using reason operating within the bounds of tradition but opposes abstract reasoning;

– acknowledges that knowledge is a form of tradition because it passes from one generation to another;

– holds that the knowledge of any individual or group of individuals is insignificant compared with the knowledge of the nations and ages;

– conceives of knowledge as the search for and the acceptance of truth and not as the acquisition of power to control and manipulate man and nature;

– asserts that moral knowledge is gained from tradition;

– objects to the Rationalist’s notion of moral knowledge being abstract and universal, but does not reject moral universality because the development and exercise of universal moral truths depend on tradition;

– believes that morality is tradition-specific and depends on a particular time, place, and relationship (morality or moral doctrines include individualism, pluralism, natural rights, human rights, the principle of utility, categorical imperative, and social contract);

– accepts morality as consisting of principles and ideals that are universal and acknowledges that they are abstractions construed from tradition but rejects the Rationalist’s notion that they are timeless, transcultural, and tradition-neutral; that is, these principles and ideals arrive from tradition and do not beget tradition;

– places the absolute moral values of Western civilization above relativism, which he loathes;

– opposes the notion that society can be compelled with a plan of supratemporal ideals;

– maintains that rights are settled by convention and are not universal abstractions; 

– holds that freedom is the first criterion of political order;

– acknowledges that freedom is essential to the nature of man and is neutral to virtue and vice, yet man has the duty to seek virtue;

– argues that rights are inherently derived from the nature of man; rights are not derived from society or the state;

– asserts that every individual has the right to live uncoerced by force or fraud in possession of his life, liberty, and property;

– asserts that each person has the duty to obey moral laws by which he respects the rights of others to their lives, liberties, and property — failure to do so results in the forfeiture of his rights and freedoms;

– promotes the freedom to choose, free will; therefore, man cannot be forced to be free;

– contends that although man may be forced to act virtuously, he cannot be forced to be virtuous — only when an individual is free to choose virtue or vice can he be virtuous;

– advocates freedom from and opposes freedom for, which is not freedom at all but a set of conceived ends;

– demands the right to bear arms (thus, condemning all forms of gun control) and all the other inalienable rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights;

– objects to political correction, speech codes, counterculture, cancel culture, sensitivity training, and other similar absurdities;

– values loyalty and sees patriotism as a virtue and not a vice;

– maintains that the United States are a European country and a White or Aryan country and, therefore, their people are a European people;

– believes that the United States are an integral part of European civilization, i.e., Western civilization;

– believes in racial preservation (or at least, use to be but now, regrettably, is most likely a racial nihilist who practices the new morality of sacrificing the races on the altar of humanity);

– opposes miscegenation and policies, such as integration, that lead to miscegenation (unfortunately, those who have become racial nihilists have abandoned this opposition);

– opposes immigration of nonwhites (unfortunately, those who have become racial nihilists have abandoned this opposition);

– supports the traditional family, which is the basic unit of human society, and, therefore, opposes weakening the family by encouraging sexual licentiousness, homosexuality, and miscegenation, and subverting the authority of the parents;

– is pro-life and, therefore, opposes abortion;

– opposes inheritance and estate taxes (they are antifamily taxes) and the  progressive income tax;

– maintains that the United States are a Christian country and, therefore, opposes attempts to deny or weaken this Christian heritage;

– opposes governmental efforts to deny people their rights of religious expression and worship;

– believes in traditional education controlled by the parents instead of the government and, therefore, disapproves of the government acquiring the job of educating children (public education);

– supports teaching traditional virtues and how to think instead of what to think and, therefore, opposes using schools to indoctrinate students with propaganda to tear down traditional values and loyalties;

– asserts that the function of schools and colleges is to train the mind and to transmit the culture and tradition of the civilization to the young; thus, opposes training students for life adjustment through life experience via free activity where the teacher imposes nothing and where current prejudices are taught instead of values, which leads to value nihilism and political collectiveness, which are the basis of the current educational system;

–  argues that society and state were made for man and man is not made for them — unlike socialists in all their forms, who believe that man is secondary to society and state;

– rejects the notion that society is a real entity, a living organism, with a life, rights, and moral duties of its own and, therefore, does not consider society an organism morally superior to people, nor is it a being with a corporate personality that has rights;

– considers the individual as the essential moral entity and society as merely a set of relations between persons;

– believes in a transcendental order, a body of natural laws, that rule society and conscience;

– maintains that civilize society requires orders and classes;

– opposes people who attempt or want to reconstruct society on an abstract design;

– favors a society based on noninstrumental rules of conduct, i.e., rules that do not specify a practice or routine to promote or hinder the achievement of some substantive purpose but prescribes how to live harmoniously;

– promotes a society where citizens are regarded as individuals who may severally or collectively engage in many self-chosen activities;

– maintains that all value resides in the individual and that all social institutions derive their value from individuals;

– holds that social institutions are justified only when they serve the needs of individuals;

– defines the state as a definite group of people, distinct and separate from other people, who possess a monopoly of legal coercive force; it is not an organism or being with a life of its own independent of the people who comprise it; moreover, it is not one with the citizens whom it governs in a holistic unity;

– declares that the purpose of the state is to ensure the peaceful coexistence among citizens holding diverse and disparate ideas of moral truths instead of promoting or imposing moral truth;

– identifies two natural functions of the state: (1) to protect the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assaults, which includes protecting citizens from assaults by foreign forces and (2) to judge conflicts of rights with rights;

– treats the state (government) as a civil association, i.e., people associating solely in their obligations to observe the law (people are not told what to do but how to do whatever they choose to do);

– maintains that the government of a state is not a manager but is an umpire, the custodian of the rules;

– affirms that the state ought to be limited to its proper function of preserving order;

– opposed the state (government) being used to bring about some specific goal or ideal;

– holds that the state has the duty to respect the rights and freedoms of individuals and to guarantee these rights and freedoms by restraining those who trespass against the lives, liberties, and property of others;

– abhors the notion of using the state (government) to create and impose a utopia;

– sees the state as necessary to maintain social order, which is necessary for a harmonious society;

– supports small, limited government;

– asserts that the sole purpose of government is to rule; therefore, objects to the government being used to impose beliefs and activities on the people, to educate them, to make them better or happier, or to direct them to undertake specific activities;

– holds that governing is specific and limited to providing general rules of conduct to enable people to pursue activities of their own choice instead of imposing substantive activity and, therefore, opposes the government enacting positive laws directing people how to live;

– prefers the constitution that the founding fathers gave the United States to the one that Lincoln gave them, which is the one under which they now operate;

– maintains that the United States consists of 50 sovereign nations or bodies politics, States, as set out in the original Constitution and founding documents (Regrettably, most likely has abandoned the Constitution that the founding fathers gave the country in favor of the Constitution that Lincoln and the Radical Republicans gave it; thus, he claims that the United States is a sovereign nation.)

– adheres to the doctrine of States’ rights;

– remonstrates all treaties, agreements, conventions, alliances, international organizations, etc. that impinge on the sovereignty and independence of the United States or any State;

– opposes the Supreme Court and other federal courts revising the Constitution and rewriting federal and State statutes;

– condemns bureaucrats issuing and enforcing administrative decrees (regulations) that interfere with personal liberty and dignity, private property, and the sanctity of the family;

– favors the dispersal and decentralization of political and economic power and abhors the concentration and centralization of political and economic power;

– advocates a free-market, free-enterprise economy;

– ardently supports private ownership of property and the right of the owner to control his property;

– advocates an economy that is independent of the state (government) and, therefore, loathes governmental economic planning no matter the form;

– opposes Marxism in all its forms (communism, fascism, national socialism, democratic socialism, etc.) and Keynesianism and related economic systems (such as the current economic system of the United States) — thus, opposing all economic systems designed to control the economy;

– loathes the notion that bureaucrats can better invest capital than capitalists can;

– abhors the notion that bureaucrats know better how consumers should spend their money than consumers do;

– opposes governmental control of credit and interest rates either directly or indirectly through its central bank;

– opposes the redistribution of wealth including the redistribution of wealth through punitive taxation or inflation;

– rejects egalitarianism and accepts unequal acquisition of property, wealth, influence, honor, etc. and the right to pass them to the heirs of the holder; the only equality that he supports is the equal right of all men to be free from coercion against their life, liberty, and property;

– opposes greed and the drive to exploit and prefers to enjoy rather than to exploit;

– has the propensity to use and enjoy what is available instead of longing for something else;

– favors a foreign policy that places the interest of the United States first;

– prefers peace to war;

– believes that the United States armed forces should only be used to defend the territory of the United States;

– opposes meddling in the affairs of other countries and an interventionist foreign policy;

– views welfarism, the welfare state, with disfavor;

– disapproves of the government providing insurance against the hazards of life;

– prefers voluntary aid associations and programs to governmental welfare programs;

– supports protecting the environment;

Thus, a principled conservative esteems tradition, is cautious about change, and is devoted to the preservation, maintenance, and extension of the tradition of freedom and virtue. He uses tradition as a guide for reasoning and reason to distinguish between desirable traditions and undesirable traditions.

Further, the essential principles of the principled conservative are virtue and liberty, the freedom of the individual. Virtue depends on freedom, and virtue should be the goal of freedom. (This goal requires the government to be limited to providing general rules of conduct to maintain the social order by protecting the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assaults, which includes protecting citizens from assaults by foreign forces, and judging conflicts of rights with rights; however, it should never be used to impose beliefs and activities.)

A principled conservative is skeptical of collectivism and statism as they move toward totalitarianism. He favors the primacy of the individual, which requires the division of power, that is, limited government and a free economy.

Moreover, a principled conservative abhors attempts to establish a utopia and the notion that society and mankind are perfectible, yet he strives to improve human institutions and conditions. Thus, he trusts the free function of free individuals either individually or in voluntary cooperation.

Some principled conservatives may deviate from several of the above items. However, most principled conservatives adhere to nearly all, if not all, of these items.

Reference

Francis, Samuel. “Statement of Principles [of the Council of the Conservative Citizens].” 2005.

Gottfried, Paul Edward. Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007.

Kerwick, Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case against Neoconservatives. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stairway Press, 2016.

Meyer, Frank S. In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays. Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1996.

Personal observations and other articles.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Paul Becomes a Heretic

 Paul Becomes a Heretic

Thomas Allen

The following is a summary of Chapter II, “The Changes in the Eschatological Programme” of Section IV of The Formation of Christian Dogma: An Historical Study of its Problem by Martin Werner and translated by S.G.F. Brandon (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1957), pages 283–294. My comments are enclosed in brackets.

For Paul, the final resurrection would occur in two stages. The first came with the return of Christ and his reign on earth. Next, came the final victory over the angels and spiritual powers that had rebelled against God. At the end of the war came the destruction of the Angel of Death. Then, came the last and Final Resurrection.

According to Paul, only the Christians, the saved, who had died before the Second Coming of Christ were resurrected with his Second Coming. The saved living then were “changed.” At the “end,” the dead who had not been resurrected would be raised. Thus, Paul reckoned the Final Judgment occurring in two stages. First, came the judgment of Christians when Christ returned. Last, came a general Final Judgment at the end of Christ’s rule when all the other dead were resurrected. In the Final Judgment, Christians would serve with Christ as judges. 

Paul believed, or at least strongly suggested, that the heavenly Christ would return in his lifetime or shortly afterward. This return would manifest itself as a predestinated number of Christ’s followers, i.e., those in fellowship with him, taking part in the glory of God’s Kingdom in a perfect world order. This world order would be spiritual. Along with the advent of God’s Kingdom would be the final resurrection. 

As the Apostolic generation passed away without the return of Christ, the immediacy of the Second Coming began to fade. Because of this delay, the Church abandoned Paul’s doctrines of the Second Coming and the End Time.

Because of the delayed Second Coming and the rise of a new generation, the Church had no choice but to abandon Paul’s notion about the imminent return of Christ and his advice not to procreate. It also had to abandon Paul’s notion of election. (Paul held that when all the predestined elect had come to faith in Jesus in the last generation [Romans 11:25ff], then Christ would return.)

Nevertheless, the idea of an Antichrist remained popular. The Antichrist was often related to heresy, as in 1 John 2:18ff. For example, Athanasius (293?-373) accused Arius (256?-336) of being the precursor of the Antichrist.

After Paul’s death, the early Church still clung to Paul’s notion of two ages at the end of time. Thus, the Kingdom of God would fulfill the End Time by destroying the existing natural world and the creation of a new and perfect heaven and earth.

However, over time, the Church began abandoning Paul’s view of the End Time as a spiritual new world and replacing it with an End Time as a cleansing of the natural world. For example, Methodius (d.c. 311) argued that if God destroyed the present natural world, He would admit that His first creation was defective. Thus, the future burning of the world should be understood as cleansing the world, i.e., a process of renewing, and not as destroying the world.  Eventually, the Church adopted the doctrine of the future resurrection of the natural physical body.

Opposing this new doctrine of the Resurrection were the heretics, who relied heavily on the Bible in their opposition. Moreover, they argued, “that the resurrection of the physical body to immortality was intrinsically impossible” (p. 287). Because the physical body was of earthly matter, it was mortal. Further, when the physical body died, it decomposed, and its elements returned to the earth. Some of these elements became part of another body. Consequently, a specific individual could never be reassembled with the original parts. Also, between birth and death, each individual body was constantly changing and, therefore, never really remained identical with itself. [Can the omnipotence of God overcome these problems?]

The heretics’ strongest arguments came from the Scriptures. According to Psalm 1:5, “the ungodly would not generally be raised up, even for judgment” (p. 288). Likewise, Job 7:9-10 declared that the dead would not be raised.

The heretics also used the New Testament to argue against the resurrection of the physical natural body. Paul had declared that “the physical body was the seat of sin” (p. 288) and, thus, not worthy of resurrection. At the Final Resurrection, the saved would receive a supernatural body like the body of angels, and, in this way, enter into everlasting life. Restoration of the natural physical body merely meant continuing “the earthly-natural mode of existence in the eternity of the other world” (p. 288). Citing Romans 7:18, 24, 8:8, 1 Corinthians 15:44,50, and Galatians 5:7, the heretics condemned the thought of resurrecting the physical natural body.

This attack against the resurrection of the physical body pushed the Church to defend its dogma more vigorously. The resurrected body would be an exact replica of the natural physical body when it was alive. [Does this mean that if an individual died as an infant, he would forever remain an infant? Likewise, does it mean that if an individual died of old age, he would always appear to be old-age?] Some Church Fathers, such as Tertullian (160?-230?), declared “that the resurrection of Jesus had been a reconstruction of his former natural physical body” (p. 289). (This assertion conflicted with Paul’s teachings in 2 Corinthians 5:16.)

“Accordingly for Paul ‘resurrection’ meant, exclusively and fundamentally, precisely not restoration of the old, of what had been, but change into a new and supernatural form of being, because ‘resurrection’, as he saw it, appertained to those fundamental events, in which, since and by virtue of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the passing of the old and the advent of the new aeon were fulfilled” (p. 289). Paul’s idea of the End Time was a two-stage or two-age resurrection.

However, the Church had abandoned Paul’s doctrine and had substituted a new doctrine. According to the Church’s new doctrine, the Resurrection resulted in “the exact restitution and conservation, at the End of the Days, of that which belonged to the old aeon” (p. 289).

In response to Paul’s claim that the saved would attain a spiritual body, the Catholic theologians interpreted his claim “to mean that physical with which the Holy Spirit had united itself” (p. 290). However, the heretics replied by citing 1 Corinthians 15:50, where Paul declares, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” 

Another dispute arose over the fate of the saved dead before the Second Coming. Paul addressed this question in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4. He did not envision this intermediate state to last long, as he expected the Second Coming to occur in his lifetime or soon afterward. However, with the long delay of the Second Coming, the Church moved away from Paul’s teaching on this issue.

This delay caused the Church to place more importance on the final destiny of the individual than on the ultimate fate of the present world. Using Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19-21), the Catholic theologians developed the doctrine that the saved would enjoy some of the blessings that awaited them after the Resurrection. Thus, this new doctrine of the Church conflicted with Paul’s.

Before this change in doctrine, the Final Judgment occurred after the Resurrection. With the new doctrine, a judgment had to occur directly after the individual died. Paul had taught that the saved would be resurrected and judged with the Second Coming — this was the First Judgment. Now, the Church’s doctrine of a judgment of the individual immediately after death replaced Paul’s doctrine of the First Judgment.

Moreover, the Church’s new doctrine of the soul of the saved going to Paradise or Heaven immediately after death replaced the Hebrew concept of the soul with the pagan Greek concept. The Hebrews held that the soul was so united with the physical body that it had no conscious existence once the body died. On the other hand, the pagan Greeks held that the soul was independent of and trapped in the physical body. Once the body died, the soul was liberated and continued  conscious existence in another state.

When the new doctrines of the Church were combined, the soul of a dead believer went to Heaven where it remained until the Resurrection. When the Resurrection occurred, the soul would be united with its resurrected natural physical body.

By now, Paul was a heretic and his doctrines on the End Times and the Resurrection and the fate of the dead before these events were heresy. Although the Church never overtly declared him a heretic or his doctrines as heresy, it did so covertly by condemning as heretics those who used Paul’s doctrines in opposing the Catholic doctrines on these issues. However, the Church did destroy the truth to avoid overtly making Paul a heretic by asserting that its doctrines were consistent with Paul’s, although they were not.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Time to Emancipate the Negro

Time to Emancipate the Negro

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: This article was submitted in 1998 to the “Southern National Newsletter” of the Southern National Party. The quotations are from How the World Was Peopled: Ethnological Lectures by Edward Fontaine(New York, 1872).]

Reverend Edward Fontaine was a New York professor of theology and natural science during the nineteenth century. He was a Negrophile, but unlike twentieth-century Negrophiles, he had a realistic and loving attitude towards Negroes instead of the politically correct maudlin and paternalistic attitude of the twentieth century. He had “tough love” for Negroes instead of an over mothering attitude that treats them as an infantile race as is done today.

In a lecture that he gave in 1872, we said the following about the Negroes who were emancipated following the War:

The immediate effect of their emancipation in the Southern States has been to diminish their number fearfully. On one healthy plantation in Hinds County, Mississippi, from 1860 to 1865, there had occurred among fifty of the negro slaves only six deaths in five years. They were generally pious members of different churches, and had been the slaves of the same Christian family, as their ancestors had been before them for several generations. They were emancipated, and left their owners in May, 1865, and, before January, 1868, only nineteen of the original fifty were alive. The [sic] most of the children had died, and only a few others were born. They were generally excellent servants. But their condition was changed. They were in competition with the whites, and they died; how, and by what causes, I cannot say. I mention this as a representative, and not an exceptional, case of many others which have occurred under my own observation. (p. 176.)

According to his observations, most Negroes fared better under the cruelty of slavery than under the compassion of federal welfare.

After describing the price in wealth and lives expended to emancipate the Negro slaves, he describes all that had been done following their emancipation:

They are not only emancipated from slavery, after having been taught practically every kind of labor in agriculture, in mechanics, and in all the arts of our country, and instructed in all the forms and doctrines of Christianity, but they have been clothed with all the rights of citizens of the United States, and favored with peculiar and extraordinary privileges, such as were never conferred before upon any of the freemen of America. Special and liberal grants of money are made from the public Treasury for their education. They are now subjected to the fearful experiment of a competition in the race of life, for all its prizes, with the white people among whom they are mingled, with all the advantages in their favor. In addition to the strong support of the United States Government, they are also favored with the prayers and heart-felt good wishes of the Christians of every land for their success, and it may be safely asserted that they also have the sympathy and aid of their former masters. Surely they ought, under these favorable circumstances, to redeem the character of their race, and become a great and prosperous people. If they have been wronged by the people of the United States, all their wrongs have been thoroughly redressed. Never, since the emancipation of the Israelites and their settlement in the land of Canaan, have any people been so highly favored and abundantly blessed. (pp. 182-183.)

Never have a people since ancient times been more blessed than the American Negro. This Negrophile of 125 years ago [now 145 years ago] felt that the time had come to cut the apron strings and let the Negro stand on his own two feet. Instead the Negro has been pampered like a spoiled brat. Until the Negro stands on his own without special consideration, aid, or privileges, and in spite of any discrimination, real or perceived, he can never be a true man. The time is long past to do what Mr. Fontaine suggested should have been done 125 years ago [now 145 years ago]. The emancipation of the Negro is way overdue.

Copyright © 1998, 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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