A Word to Messrs. Wickliffe and Mallory — What The Forefathers Thought of the Military Capacity of the Blacks.

It is perhaps too much to expect of our enlightened Congressmen that they shall inform themselves of what their predecessors in the National Legislature thought and said on subjects they are now discussing. If they would take this trouble, however, it would often, certainly, save a great deal of time that might be otherwise better employed. For instance, the House of Representatives consumed the best part of Saturday last in debating the military capacity of the Blacks. Now, this whole question was thoroughly discussed in the very first Congress held in 1790; and if the honorable members had taken the pains to consult their files of GALES & SEATON, they might have saved themselves a good deal of pulmonary exercitation, without leaving the country any less wise than it was before. The using of the Blacks is a question of practical policy which may or may not be adopted, as exigencies shall demand; but speculations on the military capacity of the negroes are abstractions that can lead to nothing. Meanwhile, we commend to Messrs. WICKLIFFE, MALLORY & Co., who think “negroes are naturally afraid of guns,” and that “one shot from a cannon would disperse thirty thousand of them,” the views of another Southern member some seventy-two years ago. Mr. SMITH, member from South Carolina, in the House of Representatives 1790, in the course of an elaborate debate on the question, said:

"Negroes, it was said, would not fight; but he would ask whether it was owing to their being black, or to their being slaves? If to their being black, then emancipating them would not remedy the evil, for they would still remain black; If it was owing to their being slaves, he denied the position; for it was an undeniable truth that in many countries slaves made excellent soldiers. * * Had experience proved that the negroes would not make good soldiers? He did not assert that they would, but they had never been tried. Discipline was everything; white militia made but indifferent soldiers before they were disciplined. It was well known that, according to the present art of war, a soldier was a mere machine, and he did not see why a black machine was not as good as a white one; and in one respect the black troops would have the advantage — in appearing more horrible in the eyes of the enemy.”

SOURCE: The New York Times, New York, New York, Monday, July 7, 1862, p. 4