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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 4. Racial Beliefs - 1. Biology and Moral Equalitarianism - 2. The Ideological Clash in America
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84 An American Dilemma
against that particular extension of feudalism into modern times which
was represented in their home countries by the theories of mercantilism
and the social order of estates and privileges. Dissimilar minority races
were not much in the foreground of their political thinking, but social
classes were. The upper classes in England and France, as everywhere
else, developed a vague popular theory that the lower classes, urban
proletariat, and rural peasantry were less well endowed by nature.® It
was against this convenient belief that the radical philosophers of the
Enlightenment reacted. Their main interest was, however, not naturalistic
but moralistic. Equality in “natural rights of man,” rather than equality in
natural endowments, was central in their thought.
The former equality was, of course, not necessarily made dependent
upon the latter. Even if some people were weaker, the moral philosophers
did not think that this was a sound reason for giving them less protection
in their natural rights. But the radical and optimistic belief in the possibility
of social improvement, which they also held, did require the environment-
alistic assumption. Thus a strong tendency toward a belief in natural
equality became associated with the doctrine of moral equality in the
philosophy of the Enlightenment.
When transferred to America the equality doctrine became even more
bent toward the moral sphere. There are several reasons for this. Origin-
ally the doctrine had a function in the political disputes with the mother
country, England. These disputes concerned rights and not natural endow-
ments. The strong impact of religion in America following the Revolution
is another reason. A third reason was the actual presence within America
of a different “race.”
There is thus no doubt that the declaration that all men were “created
equal” and, therefore, endowed with natural rights has to be understood
in the moral sense that they were born equal as to human rights. Neverthe-
less, the moral equality doctrine carried with it, even in America, a tendency
toward a belief in biological equalitarianism. Among the educated classes,
race prejudice was low in the generation around the Revolution. This is
easily seen even by a superficial survey of the American political literature
of the age.
2. The Ideological Clash in America
When the Negro was first enslaved, his subjugation was not justified in
terms of his biological inferiority. Prior to the influences of the Enlighten-
ment, human servitude was taken as a much more unquestioned element
in the existing order of economic classes and social estates, since this way
* ll should he noted that just as a biological rationalization was then and is now invoked
to justify class, so arguments concerning the “social order" have always been employed
to justify Negro slavery and, later, color caste. (See Chapter 28, Section 5.)
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