William Cowper Brann
"THE BUCK NEGRO"
from The Works of Brann the Iconoclast
(New York: Brann Publishers, 1898), vol. 2
I once severely shocked the pseudo-philanthropists
by suggesting that if the South is ever to rid herself of the negro
rape-fiend she must take a day off and kill every member of the
accursed race that declines to leave the country.I am not
wedded to my plan; but, like the Populists, I do insist that those who
object to it are in duty bound to offer something better.
We have tried the restraining influence of religion
and the elevating forces of education upon the negro without avail. We
have employed moral suasion and legal penalties; have incarcerated the
offenders for life at hard labor, and hanged them by the neck in
accordance with statutory law. We have hunted the black rape-fiend to
death with hounds, bored him with buckshot; fricasseed him over slow
fires and flayed him alive; but the despoilment of white women by these
brutal imps of darkness and the devil is still of daily occurrence. The
baleful shadow of the black man hangs over every Southern home like the
sword of Damocles, like the blight of death - an avatar of infamy, a
decree of damnation.
There is not to-day in all this land of Christ an
aged mother who is safe one single hour unless guarded by watchful
sons, a wife who may rest secure beyond the reachof her husband's rifle, a female infant but may be sacrificed to feed some black monster's lust the moment it leavesits father's breast.
In the name of Israel's God, what shall we do?
This condition of affairs is becoming intolerable. A man's first duty is not to an alien or inferior race, but tohis
family. It is much better to shoot a negro before he commits an
irreparable crime against the honor of a family than to hang him
afterwards.
Drive out the " n . . . [ a racist term for African
Americans] "—young and old, male and female - or drive him into the
earth! It may be urged that the " good negro " would suffer with the
bad. It is impossible to distinguish the one from the other until it is
too late. It were better that a thousand " good negroes " -if so many
there be- should suffer death or banishment than that one good white
woman should be debauched. We must consider ourselves first, others
afterwards. The rights ofthe white man are paramount, and if we do not maintain them at any cost we deserve only dishonor.
During the slavery regime the negro kept his place
like any other beast of the field. He no more dreamed of cohabitation
with white women than does the monkey of mating with the swan; but when
his shackles were stricken off and he was accorded political equality
with his old-time master he became presumptuous, insolent—actually
imagined that the foolish attempt of fanatics to humanize him had been
successful—that a law of nature had been repealed by act of Congress!
If we could but restore the Negro to his old ante-bellum condition of
involuntary servitude and give him time to forget the social fallacies
with which he has been inoculated by misguided theorists, all might be
well with Sambo; but that is out of the question. We do not want to
re-enslave him—he is not worth it. And if we desired to do so, the
world, which is crazed with its own foolish cackle of " equality and
fraternity," would not permit it.
No, we could not revive the old customs if we would.
There are too many long-haired men and short-haired women picking up a
more or less honest livelihood by experimenting with Sambo at our
expense, his wonderful "progress," his divine "rights" and his devilish
"wrongs," to permit serious consideration of what is really best for
him.
The negro is to the American social organism what a
pound of putty would be in the stomach of a dyspeptic. The sooner we
realize this fact and spew him out, the better. It were wise to make
the eagle and the crow tenants of the same eyre as the white and black
man of the same territory; as sensible to yoke Pegasus and a plow-horse
as to make the Caucasian and African co-rulers of the same country. The
attempts of sociologists to "harmonize the races" are as absurd as
trying to bring into thesame diapason the twanging of a
jew's-harp and the music of the spheres—the effort to make the negro an
element of strength to the nation's energy is as misdirected as the
labors of Gulliver's scientists at the Academy of Lagado. The American
nation would be billions of dollars better off today had Ham failed to
get into the ark. The negro has been the immediate cause of more
bitterness and bloodshed than his entire race, from its genesis to the
present, is worth, and he will continue the fruitful cause of troubleso long as he is permitted to remain.
The XIVth amendment to the Constitution is a flagrantviolation of natural law—of the law that the greater andless
cannot be equal, that matter must be subject unto mind, that wisdom was
born to rule and ignorance to obey. To deny that the greater shall
govern the lesser intellect is toabrogate man's right to rule the beast and God’sauthority over Adam's sons.
The greatest injury ever done the people of the South wasself-inflicted—the
introduction of negro slavery. The next greatest was the act of the
Federal Government in making the black man coordinate sovereign of the
State. It would have been a thousand times better for the Southern
people had they adopted paganism or polygamy instead of negro slavery—a
thousand times better for them and the nation at large had the Federal
Government confiscated every foot of soil in the insurgent States, put
the torch to every dwelling, destroyed every factory and filled every
harbor with the wreck of railroads and the debris of business blocks
instead of putting the ballot in the hands of the black. The ruin
wrought by torch and torpedo could have been quickly repaired; the
damage done by the XIVth amendment is well-nigh irreparable. Burning
with the accursed lust for political power, the Republican party, like
another shameless Tarquin, held the knife at the throat of the Southern
Lucrece while it robbed her of her honor, made her an object of
contempt, her name a byword and a reproach. Pitifullest blunder of all
the ages! Most damning infamy ever perpetrated since the dawn of Time!
Fearfullest penalty brave menever paid for daring death for conscience's sake!
This is a republic. The supreme power is, ostensibly
at least, vested in the people. The voter is the sovereign. Suppose
that it were an absolute monarchy: Would it not be a mistake
unparalleled, a crime unspeakable to takefrom an ignorant, brutal slave his shackles and place uponhis stupid head a crown? The Republican party did evenworse. A sovereign cannot long oppress a brave and spirited people. Let him issue an edict that meets withgeneral
disapproval and it is laughed to scorn. Should he attempt to enforce it
he is dragged from the throne. But the Republican party corrupted a
sovereign from whose edict there is no appeal. It has debased the greatarmy of voters, poisoned the political organism by injecting into it a vast mass of ignorance destitute of even thesaving grace of virtue.
Had the negro been naturally the intellectual peer ofthe
white man, it would have been a grievous blunder to give him the
ballot, to force political responsibility upon him until at least a
generation after his emancipation. He was an untutored savage in his
native land, making no appreciable progress. He was captured, like any
other wild beast, brought to America and sold into slavery. Here hewas
taught, not how to wisely rule, but to servilely obey. It required a
thousand years of education to fit the thoughtful Saxon and the
quick-witted Celt for the duties and responsibilities of American
sovereignty; the stupid Ethiopian was fitted for them by the scratch of
a pen and a partisan vote! Transformed from semi-savagery to
super-civilization by the power of a political fiat! From slave to
sovereign by the magic wand of a genie! Fitted for American
sovereignty! He was not fitted for it. Ten thousand years of
civilization and education could no more qualify the negro for
self-government than it could raise to the intellectual level of a
lousy ape the piebald *37* who presides over the destinies of the
Houston Post. True it is that there are some negroes with a
suggestion of intellect; but they are usually negroes only in name—
mongrels in whose veins flows the blood of some depraved Caucasian bum.
The pure blood blacks who have exhibited intellectual and moral
qualities superior to those of the monkey are few and far between. And
yet the pure blood Ethiop is generally a much better and safer member
of society than the " yaller n . . . [a racist term for African
Americans]," who appears to inherit the vices of both races and the
virtues of neither.
The negro vote is dangerous because of its
ignorance, doubly so because of its venality. It is utterly
irresponsible, altogether reckless, knows little of principle, cares
less, and will follow wherever the most blatant demagogue or the most
liberal purse will lead. Is it any wonder that there is occasional "
bulldozing " at the polls in the Black Belt—that men whose ancestors
wrung Magna Charta from King John and recognition of American
independence from King George, should decline to be dominated by the
*** spawn of white bummers and black bawds?
The presence of the negro in the South has kept this
section a century in arrears of what it would otherwise be. It has
prevented white immigration; it has kept out capital; it has bred a
contempt among the Southern whitesfor labor; it has fomented
strife between sections and is still fostering provincial prejudice,
fanning the fires of sectional hate.The South could afford to give the negro, black and " yaller," a hundred millions of money to leave the country and never return. The negro is, for a verity, the Bete noire of
the South, a millstone about her neck, tending ever to drag her down
into the depths of social and political degradation. Every Southern
man, every man of whatever clone, long resident here, and not sans eyes, ears and understanding knows this to be true.
Does the Southern press proclaim it? Not at all. The
Southern press, believing the black man a fixture—that the disease is
incurable—with a burst of optimism that discounts that of the man who
thanked God for the itch because of the luxury of scratching, proclaims
his presence an inestimable boon, a transcendent blessing. Every day we
are told that the negro is " the natural laborer of thecotton,
cane and rice field "—whatever that novel economic theorem may mean. If
it meant thereby that white labor is not adaptable to those industries,
it needsno further refutation than a glance at existing
conditions. In every Southern State and county white men are performing
identically the same kind of labor as the black, and performing it
better. There is not a spot within the broad confines of the United
States where the African can live and labor that the Caucasian cannot
live as well andlabor with more effect.
Remove the negro from the South and this section
will quickly become the most populous, prosperous and progressive
portion of the American Union. But will the negro be removed? Not at
all. The two great political parties need him in their manufacturing
industry—the making of political " issues."
The negro will remain right where he is, wear the
cast-off clothes of the white man, steal his fowls, black his boots,
rape his daughters, while the syphilitic " yaller gal " corrupts his
sons. Yes, the negro will stay, stay until he is faded out by
fornication—until he is absorbed by the stronger race, as it has
absorbed many a foul thing heretofore.
Scanned by Michael Van *76*
Research by Mark Krasovic
H-Net, Humanities & Social Sciences Online
Michigan State University
1998
NlGGERS AREN'T HUMAN
