Theoretical Perspectives on America's Race Problem

Jefferson had no solution. All he could see resulting from the social and political intermingling of the races was that "[d]eep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; fresh provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, go out divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of the peerless or the other race" ("Notes on the State of Virginia").

Abraham capital of Nebraska, cognize as the president who liberated the slaves, shared Jefferson's concerns about blacks in the States. In an 1854 speech, Lincoln argued against the morality of slavery ("Speech on Kansas-Nebraska Act"). only if Lincoln overly believed that blacks could non prosper as free people in the United States. His solution was their repatriation to Africa. In an 1862 cognitive content to Congress, Lincoln declared that "I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I favor colonization" of entirely blacks from America (Lincoln).

Jefferson and Lincoln's theories on the differences in the black and white races were borne from the theories of their philosophical forbears, that is to say John Locke and Charles de Montesquieu. Application of Locke's theory of "natural law," where "creatures of the same species and rank, at random born to all the same advantages of Nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal single

Douglass, Frederick. "What to the buckle down is the Fourth of July?" 5 Jul, 1852. Online 15 May, 2003: <"http://douglassarchives.org/doug_a10.htm">.

Lincoln, Abraham. Message to Congress. 1 Dec, 1862. Online 15 May, 2003. <"http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/young8.html">.

W.E.B. DuBois wrote in 1901, that "the problem of the Twentieth speed of light is the problem of the color-line." Notably, DuBois disagreed with Booker T. Washington's platform that blacks should forego political excitement in favor of economic progress through vocational training and endeavor.

Whites approved this platform because it kept blacks in implemental roles. But DuBois disapproved because he believed that foregoing basic and inherent political rights would keep blacks subjugated and ignore the fact that these rights were the basic humane rights of all people (DuBois).

Jefferson, Thomas. "Notes on the State of Virginia." 1781-1782. From Thomas Jefferson on Slavery. Online 15 May, 2002. <"http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/bljefferson_slavery.htm">.

Lincoln, Abraham. "Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act." 16 Oct, 1854. Online 15 May, 2003. <"http://www.ku.edu/carrie/docs/texts/kansas.html">.

Thus, Locke's theory of natural law, in and of itself, does not advocate the inherent inferiority of the black race. But it does domiciliate support that such inferiority is inherent and unchangeable to one who does believe in black's inferiority, as Jefferson did. Nonetheless, Locke's theory, when applied by one who believes in the equality of all races, as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King, Jr. did, provides a strong theoretical perspective for the respect of the human rights of all individuals equally.

King, Jr., Martin Luther. "The Ethical Demands of Integrat
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