The Future of the Colored Race in America Being an article in the Presbyterian quarterly review of July, 1862 — A Closer Reading

Slavery as the Root of War

Aikman devotes his opening paragraphs to establishing slavery as the war's fundamental cause. He acknowledges General Andrew Jackson's view that the tariff was once the pretext for secession and that a desire for a separate confederacy was the true motive, but he reframes this: 'Had there been no slavery, there would have been no war.' For Aikman, slavery created a unique aristocracy of wealth and power in the South, one that 'bears with all the social forces.' He describes a society with only two effective classes—slaveholders and slaves—where non-slaveholders are 'completely lost and absorbed' into the dominant element. This analysis is not merely historical; it serves as the foundation for his argument that any resolution to the war must confront slavery directly.

The African Character and Capacity

Drawing on contemporary ethnology, Aikman argues that the African race possesses distinctive traits that make it capable of civilization. He describes the African character as 'tropical,' with 'passion deep and pervasive,' and 'ductile and plastic'—adapted to receive rather than give. This plasticity, he claims, explains the rapidity with which Africans advance under favorable influences. He contrasts Africans with American Indians, asserting that under the same civilizing influences, 'in a single generation the one is nearly at your side, the other is simply a savage still.' Aikman also cites the Mandingoes and other West African peoples as evidence of 'superior races of men in Africa,' arguing that the enslaved African in America is not a true type of the continent's potential.

Evidence from the West Indies

To support his optimism about emancipation, Aikman points to the British West Indies, particularly Jamaica, where former slaves, he claims, rose 'almost at once' from 'the barbarism of slavery' to a self-supporting, self-governing society. He references Sewell's 'West Indies' as an 'evidently dispassionate and disinterested view' that would relieve emancipation of its perceived difficulties. Aikman acknowledges that thirty years is a short period in the life of a people, but he insists the progress is 'without a parallel.' This external example is central to his argument that African Americans, given freedom and opportunity, could achieve similar results in the United States.

Aikman's article is a wartime intervention, blending political analysis, racial theory, and religious conviction. Readers should note that his arguments about African character and capacity are products of 19th-century ethnology, not modern science. The excerpts reveal a writer who is both a product of his time and a careful observer of contemporary debates. His focus on the West Indian example and his insistence on slavery as the war's root cause offer a specific, evidence-based perspective that rewards close reading.

I remember that old Presbyterian Quarterly Review, its grave talk of freedom’s cost. And beside it, I often think of Zone Policeman 88; a close range study of the Panama canal and its workers — Background and Themes, where workers toil for a different sort of passage. Both whisper of hard labor and uneasy hopes—voices from years when the future itself was being dug, and questioned.