APRIL 5, 1864:
Basil
L. Gildersleeve was a professor of Greek and Hebrew at the University of
Virginia from 1856 to 1873. In this editorial, appearing in the Richmond Examiner he criticized the
motives of Northern Abolitionists:
In the books of the
Mussulman we read that Mahomet had business in heaven one day and was at a loss
how to get there. The angels offered him the usual modes of conveyance, but he
refused the chariots of fire, the winged serpents, and the hippogriffs. "I
am used to my ass," said he. "I don't want to change. I will either
go to heaven on my ass or I will not go to heaven at all." And the
conclusion of the whole matter was that he went to heaven on his ass. We must
confess that the perusal of this passage has inspired us with a profound
respect for the typology of Islamism, and that we cannot sufficiently admire
the reach of prophetic vision, which annihilates the interval of the time
between the seventh century and the nineteenth, and the distance in space
between Aratia Felix and America Infelix. But every student of typology knows
how much danger there is of a false application, and we acknowledge, without
blushing, that at first we were tempted to make a wrong use of the significant
narrative. The Paradise of the Yankees is evidently the White House; the angels
are the party-leaders and the celestial chariots, the winged serpents and the
hippogriffs represent the usual Yankee machinery for an elevation to the abode
of the blessed.—But who is Mahomet? and who is the ass? At a hasty glance it
would seem that the best antitype of the False Prophet is Seward, and the most
marked congener of the ass is Lincoln; but closer study and deeper meditation
have convinced us that the Abolition party is symbolized under the figure of
Mahomet, and that the ass is the American citizen of African descent.
Already have the ass
and his rider made one successful trip. Other jockeys had failed.—The donkey
turned back with Birney and threw Fremont over his head. Lincoln entered the
celestial gates in triumph, and his partizans, of course, maintain that his
success was due to his superiour assmanship. Others contend that it was owing
to the increased vigour of his quadruped, and are disposed to let some one else
"run the machine." But all are agreed on the excellence of the mode
of conveyance, and, like Mahomet, do not want to change.—The whole Yankee
nation is in love with the ass, and the best of prospective provender is
lavished on the poor creature. If Johannes Buridanus, the old scholastic, who
first propounded the philosophic riddle of the ass and the two bundles of hay,
should come to life, he would, doubtless, be amused at the way in which his
theory of the will is illustrated.—Each faction is trying to make its bundle
larger and more fragrant than the other, and while nibbling now at this wisp of
hay and now at that, Jack will scarcely make a very hearty meal; and if he
does, his food is "doctored." Mahomet's object in going to heaven was
not to get his ass into good quarters, nor is it the object of the dominant
party at the North, in the race for the White House, to install the negro into
any other paradise than the paradise of the theatre—some shilling gallery, from
which he may look down on all the brave show beneath and revel in congenial
perfumes. Oh no! but they will make ample professions, and if the negro shows
any incredulity, as well he may after the treatment which he has thus far
received at their hands, after all the "walloping" they have given
him to make him go; if he demands any "material guarantees," they
will not be slow to advance him a part of the promised favour, and they will
begin—nay, they have already begun—with those privileges which they are right
to value least in their latitude, the privileges of social position. So long as
we condescended to associate with them on terms of equality, so long as
Southern gentlemen were not yet to be seen in Northern drawing-room, the
Yankees were deterred by a false shame from an open reception of their coloured
brethren. But now the restraint is removed, White House and Black House are
synonymous. "Yellow colonels," gingerbread surgeons and "black
Anglo Saxons" are the pets of every social circle; and a monstrous word of
Yankee coinage, Miscegenation, a word "that would have made Quintilian
stare and gasp," foreshadows the culmination of the "man and
brother" theory. We wish them joy of the name and joy of the thing. The
manners of the Southern dining-room servant are better than those of his
Northern patrons, and Mr. Jefferson Davis' butler, after exhausting his budget
of lies about the financial and political condition of the Confederacy, will do
well to give the citizens of Bangor, Maine, a few lessons in the Turveydrop art
of deportment. But our runaways will degenerate by social contact with the
Yankees, and in no case will they make model wives and husbands for the
descendants of the Puritans. Their "keep" will be too expensive, and
their "emotional capacities," now so much vaunted, will exhibit
themselves in such colossal proportions and in such fantastic forms that the
Yankees will be frightened at the native grandeur of the new inmates of their
hearts and homes. Yet, as we have said, this is the cheapest way of paying the
negro off, and hence it is the first that they have tried. If, however, their
African brethren wish to put to the test the sincerity of the professions which
have been made so profusely, let them try, while their hands are warm from
Massa Lincoln's cordial grasp, to put so much as a little finger into the
Federal plum pie, and they will see what they will see. Sambo may perfume their
saloons; Sambo may take to his sooty bosom their daughters and their sisters;
Sambo may eat at their tables; Sambo may lord it over the Irish and the Dutch;
Sambo may even buy, as at Beaufort, his old master's deserted mansion and hold
it until the Confederates come again; but as for a substantial share in any of
the present or future profits of the Great National Speculation, Sambo may
indulge his native genius in whistling for it.
In the meantime Sambo
is the favourite, and until the next election is over, every possible
distinction will be showered on the winning donkey. His head will be wreathed
with flowers; his sturdy frame will be covered with the lion's skin. There will
be a general scramble for the seat on his back, and no small rush for a good
hold on his tail. Nunc sidera ducit, as the Yankee motto hath it. Of course there are a few who grumble at
this negro-worship. So, for example the renegades of Kentucky bow the knee
under protest. Woolford does not like to fight for the negro and Prentice gibes
at the Administration. But Woolford declaims in vain, and Prentice's bead-roll
of bad jokes is nearly out. A few of the more decent papers at the North
protest in the name of the "good people" of the North against this
adoration of Coffee, but we will not listen to them; we ought not to listen to
them. "By their fruits ye shall know them." We judge the manners of
the North by their own expression, and we do well to despise them. They have no
right to claim our respect on the futile plea that the best elements of their
society are kept in the back-ground by the grand procession of the Festival of
the Ass. It has been said by a clever English letter writer that "it is
one of the stalest and sorriest devices of the Americans when a foreigner is
astounded at their many madnesses, and makes their frensy public in Europe, to
tell him that what he has seen or heard is held as of no account by sensible
persons in America—is ephemeral, and is valueless."
That stale and sorry
device is wasted on us, who have learned to know our foes but too well.
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