Weekly Louisianian clipping

Distinction on Account of Color.

There is much sound truth in the following article from the Monthly Review, published and edited by Hon. James Lynch, at Jackson, Mississippi:

“We would advise those who believe it to be for the good of the country that distinction, in the public relations of life, should be made on account of color to be consistent. Consistency alone can protect it. Distinction on account of color, in private life, depends entirely on the will of individuals. None but a fool would call it in question.

“Distinction on account of color has one element of power to sustain it, that of prejudice, an almost universal feeling and sentiment among the whites. It has three elements of power opposing it: Reason, conscience, and policy. The fight will go on as long as these elements exist. Without taking a hand in it, we say: Let it go on. And in saying this, it is no more indicated that there should be, or will be a change of the identity of races, than that pine trees should become oak trees, or hickory become walnut, because each grows in the same forest or grove, and basks in the same sun with the others.

“It is as much a crime for a colored man not to be proud of his dark or black skin, as it is for a white man to despise it. It is as much a crime to seek to change the African race because it is black, as it is to despise or proscribe the African because he is black.”