Emancipation and its Results. 

SPEECH OF Hon. S. S. COX, of OHIO, 

IN THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 3, 1862

 IS OHIO TO BE AFRICANIZED?

 The London Times gives a truthful picture of the freed negro of Hayti, which has its counterpart here already: 

"The negro is a lazy animal, without any foresight, and therefore requiring to be led and compelled. He is decidedly inferior, very little raised above a mere animal. He is void of self-reliance, and is the creature of circumstances, scarcely fitted to take care of himself; has no care for tomorrow; has no desire for property strong enough to induce him to labor; lives from hand to mouth. In Jamaica emancipation has thrown enormous tracts of land out of cultivation, and on these the negro squats, getting all he wants with very little trouble, and sinking, in the most absolute fashion, back to savage state." 

But it may be urged that there were too many blacks for the whites in the West Indies, and the experiment failed in consequence. Then let us go to Carada, where our slaves are under English laws, and in the midst of people not specially prejudiced.

The testimony is that settlements at Chatham, Dawn, Amherstburg, Buxton, Dresden, and other points are utter failures. It was soon discovered that the blacks preferred charity to labor. The blacks proved lazy, shiftless, improvident, "there not being more than three or four families of a different character out of the one hundred and fifty which comprised the settlement at Buxton. They suffer terribly in winter for want of clothing. The Dresden settlement, planned on the principle of the Socialists, proved a total failure. A few years since Chathham was a bright and prosperous village; but now more than a quarter of its population are negroes, and three-fourths of them are worthless idlers and petty thieves."

 But it may still be urged that in the North—in Ohio—the free negro will work, will rise, will add to the security of the State and the prosperity of the people. I select one from a string of black gems. I select it from the district of my friend, [Mr. Harrison,] who will avouch its correctness. Greene county, Ohio, has nearly fifteen hundred negroes.

The following extract from the Xenia (Ohio) News, (a Republican paper in Greene County,) will give some idea of their condition: "There, are about one hundred negroes in Greene County who are always out of employment. A part of these are those who have lately been freed by their masters, and furnished with a bonus, on which they are now gentlemanly loafing. Our jail is continually filled with negroes committed for petty offenses, such as affrays, petty larceny, drunkenness, assault and battery, for whose prosecution and imprisonment the town of Xenia has to pay about five hundred dollars per annum. And to such persons going to jail is rather pleasure than a disgrace. They are better fed and lodged there than when vagabondizing around our streets.

"We have seen the negro prostitutes flaunting down Main Street, three or four abreast, sweeping all before them indiscriminately. We have seen ladies of respectability running upon the cellar doors, and even into gutters, to avoid being run over by these impudent hussies. It was only the other evening that we saw a lady completely turned around by some black girls, who never deviated from their path in the middle of the sidewalk, and our own cheek has burned with indignation at the lecherous smile of invitation which has been flung into our faces by these swarthy demoiselles. Other gentlemen have complained of the insulting boldness of their address. sickened with the recital.

It is a disagreeable task to lance the sore which has so long been gathering unheeded; and it is equally so to probe this evil, which unawares is growing in our midst. As we have in a former number already said, we feel no prejudice again t the black man on account of color, or for mere degradation; but, at the same time, we are unwilling that we should be m rally infected by contact with an interior race, the result of which contact is in no way beneficial to the black, and highly injurious to the white.” Some years ago, there was a negro colony established in Brown County, Ohio, as to which the Cincinnati Gazette said that "in a little while the negroes became too lazy to play." A Senator in Ohio characterized the colony as follows: “The black settlement in Brown County was made in 1819, the original number located there being ** "" * ** - ..... , ______ o _______ ____ - — www voing four hundred and twenty, for whom about two thousand acres of land were procured. From the commencement there has been no improvement in their morals or habits. Idleness and vice are the prevailing concomitants. The cost of criminal prosecutions has been very large in proportion to the number of inhabitants and keeps up a proportionate average with their increase.

In the vicinity of this settlement there is not a family within two miles who are not kept in constant dread of depredations or injury of some sort. Everything valuable that can be removed is stolen. They are absolutely compelled to confine themselves to what is merely necessary to support life, for anything beyond from hand to mouth must inevitably fall a prey to the lurking vagrants, who, far worse than a gang of gypsies, are hovering around seeking literally what they may devour. And this state of things is not confined to any section alone; it extends, in a greater or less degree, wherever this portion of the population is permanently located." It might be a profitable calculation to ascertain what will be the depreciation of property in.Ohio, if the numberless itinerant blacks from the South are to be admitted to the State. The House will member the ineffectual efforts of Gerritt Smith make a black agricultural colony in New York __ was obliged to confess that "the mass of them rot both physically and morally." I could produce similar evidence from the New York Tribune, but the strength of the statement would not be increased by quoting from such a cesspool of iniquity.

I lay down the proposition that the white and black races thrive bast apart; that a commingling of these races is a detriment to both; that it does not elevate the black, and it only depresses the white; that the history of this continent, especially in Hispano-America, shows that stable, civil order and government are impossible with such a population. In Peru their commingling has led to the decay and degradation of their progeny. Dr. Tschu- di, in his travels in Peru, enumerates some dozen crosses of the negro, Indian, and white, with their various and vicious products. The character these mixed races is that of brutality, cowardice and crime, which has no parallel in any age or land.

you permit the dominant and subjugated races to remain upon the same soil, and grant them any approach to social and political equality, amalgamation, more or less, is inevitable. It has invariably followed this blending of people, however opposite the original stocks. In illustration, let me quote the remark of a distinguihed divine, Dr. McGill:

 "Look at Mexico where the proud Castillian, the subjugate of the Indian, and the barbarous African slave were all made free and equal just about one generation, or thirty two years ago, by a single decree to meet what was considered ‘a military necessity.’ More than half of the whole population is already mixed blooded; and just as amalgamation advances, degradation deepens; anarchy prevails; laws, constitutions, and the ballot box are a mockery; wave after wave of military despotism has left that republic, of more than eight millions of souls, one of the fairest regions under heaven for the acquisition of wealth and glory, without money, without credit, without commerce, without union, without religion, until at length the ambition of Spain herself seeks to remand the abject people to their old repudiated thralldom ".