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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 4. Racial Beliefs - 2. The Ideological Clash in America - 3. The Ideological Compromise
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88 An American Dilemma
between whites and Negroes offered the most convenient solution? The
logic forcing the static and conservative ideology of the South to base itself
partly on a belief in natural inequality is parallel but opposite to the ten-
dency of the original philosophy of Enlightenment in Europe and the
American Revolution to evolve a doctrine of natural equality in order to
make room for progress and liberalism.^®
3. The Ideological Compromise
After the War and Emancipation, the race dogma was retained in the
South as necessary to justify the caste system which succeeded slavery as the
social organization of Negro-white relations. In fact, it is probable that
racial prejudice increased in the South at least up to the end of Reconstruc-
tion and probably until the beginning of the twentieth century.’^
The North never had cleansed its own record in its dealing with the
Negro even if it freed him and gave him permanent civil rights and the
vote. In the North, however, race prejudice was never so deep and so
widespread as in the South. During and after the Civil War it is probable
that the North relaxed its prejudices even further. But Reconstruction was
followed by the national compromise of the 1870’s when the North allowed
the South to have its own way with the Negroes in obvious contradiction to
what a decade earlier had been declared to be the ideals of the victorious
North and the polity of the nation. The North now also needed the race
dogma to justify its course. As the North itself did not retreat from most of
the Reconstruction legislation, and as the whole matter did not concern the
average Northerner so much, the pressure on him was not hard, and the
belief in racial inequality never became intense. But this period was, in this
field, one of reaction in the North, too.
The fact that the same rationalizations are used to defend slavery and
caste is one of the connecting links between the two social institutions. In
the South the connection is psychologically direct. Even today the average
white Southerner really uses the race dogma to defend not only the present
caste situation but also ante-bellum slavery and, consequently, the righteous-
ness of the Southern cause in the Civil War. This psychological unity of
defense is one strong reason, among others, why the generally advanced
assertion is correct that the slavery tradition is a tremendous impediment
in the way of improvement of the Negro’s lot. The caste system has
inherited the defense ideology of slavery.
The partial exclusion of the Negro from American democracy, however,
has in no way dethroned the American Creed. This faith actually became
strengthened by the Victorious War which saved the Union and stopped
the Southerners from publicly denouncing the cherished national principles
that all men are born equal and have inalienable civil rights. The question
can be asked: What do the millions of white people in the South and in
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