Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
MATTER MORE IMPORTANT THAN SPIRIT IN SOME
MATTER TRUMPS SPIRIT IN ENGLISH AND AMERICANS
Property takes precedence over many people. Things matter more than lives. Such is the true Anglo-American legacy and value system.
Stated otherwise, matter trumps spirit in Anglo-American law/life. Property predominates over virtue. The sacred does obeisance to the secular; and religion to economics.
"Mr. Cunard is a man of business; so are the mass of Englishmen. What interferes with or threatens a diminution of the gains of business must be avoided. What is right or wrong, if not set aside altogether , must at least be merged in or be subservient to business considerations. What is peculiar to an Englishman 's feelings, what is accordant with the spirit of British law, what is included with a British subject 's rights, in my case, must all give way to the mere question of business...Yankees are frequent customers; Negroes are not....That is the business view of the matter--that is the view of Mr. Cunard; and I am sorry to say, about ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishmen in America view such matters in the same light. What is a Negro made for, but to be kicked about for a white man 's convenience?"
P.162-163, "Great Britain "
The above observations were noted by Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward in his classic book, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FUGITIVE NEGRO (1855, 1970), after he embarked upon an antislavery voyage to England for the Antislavery Society of Canada .