The Journal of Negro History, 1919, Vol. 4 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Journal of Negro History, 1919, Vol. 4 I am inclined to carry it back into the beginnings of the race, back to the period of pro-historic law and to that pey chological origin which antedates the records of history, in the strict sense, to that part of racial history indeed Where men commonly act rather than write. The idea of pre historic law is that obligation exists only between people of the same blood. Originally, charitable and decent con duct was expected only of people of the same family. Even though the family was by fact or fiction extended to include some hundreds or even thousands of people, the fact was still true. The law which bound a man limited his good conduct to a relatively few people. Outside the blood kin he was not bound. He must not steal from his relatives, but if he stole from another clan, his relatives deemed it virtue. If he committed murder, he should be punished Within his clan, but protected, if possible, by his clan, if be murdered someone outside it. The blood kin became the definite limitation of the ideas Of right and responsibility. This was true between Whites. All whites were not mem bers of any one man's blood kin. Palpably more true was this distinction between the Negro and the white man. The Negro could not by any fiction be represented as one of the blood kin. The Romans extended the legal citizenship to cover all white men in their dominions. It was the fictitious tie of the blood kin, but its plausibility was due to the fact that they were all white. I do not remember to have seen any proof that the Negro inhabitants of the Roman African colonies were considered Roman citizens. This is one of the oldest psychological lines in human history, the rights which a man must con cede to another are limited by the relationship of blood. Prima facie there could be no blood relationship between the Negro and the white man. There could therefore be no obligation on the white man's part to the Negro in pre historic law. This notion has, I think, endured in many ways down to the present day as a subconscious, uncon scious factor behind many very vital notions and ideas. Is it not true that international law has been, more often than not, a law between white men? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.