On the record
Here, then, began that fatal policy toward slavery and the slave-trade that characterized the nation for three-quarters of a century, the policy of laissez-faire, laissez-passer.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois
Source
gutenberg.orgW.E.B. Du Bois: “Here, then, began that fatal policy toward slavery and the slave-trade that characterized the nation for three-quarters…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois critiques the historical approach of the United States towards slavery, highlighting a detrimental policy of inaction.
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Jan 1, 1903
To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes…
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Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.
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Thus we have two great and hardly reconcilable streams of thought and ethical strivings; the danger of the one lies in anarchy, that of the other in hypocrisy.
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It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.