What are we Negroes of the present day to
be grateful for to the US, personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial
[116] Office exportations? We really believe, from what we know of
Englishmen, that very few indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach
otherwise than as a palpable adding of insult to injury. Obliged to
"us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude, who speaks of us as dogs and horses,
suggests that the same kindliness of treatment that secures the
attachment of those noble brutes would have the same result in our
case. With the same consistency that marks his utterances throughout
his book, he tells his readers "that there is no original or
congenital difference between the capacity of the White and the Negro
races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same chances and with
the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men would be
produced equally from both races." After this truthful testimony,
which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr. Froude, in
the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men, worthy of
the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not disgusted, at
being shunted out of bread in their own native land, which their
parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to afford
room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from beyond
the seas? Does Mr.
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