The Condition, Elevation, Migration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States Politically Considered by Martin Robison Delany

First published: 1852

Type of work: Essay

Form and Content

The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States Politically Consideredis a political essay meant for two audiences—the entire nation and the free black community in the Northern states. It focuses on what Martin Delany called “truths” pertinent to race relations in the United States. Consisting of twenty-three chapters plus an appendix, it covers a wide range of themes on black-white relationships from the colonization of the New World to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850.

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act as part of a compromise package meant to diffuse the mounting sectional conflict over the admission of new states. The federal government pledged its resources to the apprehension of escaped slaves (fugitives). Since the law did not set down guidelines for identifying who was a fugitive, it threatened free African Americans with reenslavement. Many of them described the law as yet further evidence of the national capitulation to slave interests and of a nationwide attempt to keep black people in perpetual subordination. Two years earlier, at a state convention of the Colored Men of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, delegates concluded that “complexional intolerance” (racism), and not “conditional basis” (black poverty and backwardness), as hitherto assumed, determined white attitudes toward black people. This declaration signaled the demise of moral suasion, the dominant antislavery ideology of the 1830’s and 1840’s. Abolitionists (black and white) who subscribed to moral suasion preached that, through the cultivation of certain values that would improve their condition—industry, thrift, temperance, and education—black people would appeal favorably to the moral conscience of whites and win rights and privileges of citizenship. This was essentially an attempt to defer to the proslavery contention that black slaves were enslaved and marginalized as a result of their wretched condition. Delany was one of the foremost supporters of moral suasion. Moral suasion, however, failed to change white opinions, and the Fugitive Slave Act finally convinced many black people of the existence of a conspiracy to strengthen slavery and racism. Some turned immediately to politics. Some simply crossed the border into relatively safer Canada. Others chose to resist the law by organizing vigilante groups to frustrate the efforts of fugitive hunters. One such group emerged in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, directed by Delany and John Peck. For two years, Delany actively participated in forcibly securing the release of apprehended fugitives. Vigilantism, however, made very little dent on the law, and by 1852 Delany was ready to move on to something else. He defined the law as the very essence of the compromise, the part that united the nation. He impressed on black people the futility of resisting a law that, he insisted, united all whites. The Condition was his ideological response to the situation.

In The Condition, he criticized the United States for failing to live up to its democratic and republican ideals. He defined African Americans as “a nation within a nation” who (like other minorities in Europe) had been denied all the legitimate rights and privileges of citizenship, a situation he deplored, considering African Americans’ contributions to the settlement and development of the New World, especially in their role as laborers. He also drew attention to black participation in the nation’s wars as a demonstration of patriotism and a preparedness to die in defense of the nation. In spite of these contributions and qualities, black people remained marginalized. The Fugitive Slave Act finally stamped all of them with the badge of slavery and subjugation. Delany offered emigration as the only avenue left for black elevation and specified Central and South America and the West Indies as possible areas of relocation. These regions were rich in natural resources and governed by people of color, who, he opined, would gladly welcome and accommodate blacks.

In addition to racism, Delany uncovered an equally serious psychological obstacle to black elevation—a seeming satisfaction on the part of African Americans with menial and servile occupations. Black servants, maids, and laborers far outnumbered all other black professionals, a development Delany blamed on years of enslavement and subordination. He also assigned some responsibility to religion. Black people unduly relied on religion as a panacea for all their problems and consequently concentrated on devotions and prayers instead of actively assuming responsibility for their own elevation.

Delany identified three God-given natural laws for the resolution of human problems—“Physical Law,” “Moral Law,” and “Religious Law”—each with fixed and distinct spheres. He accused black people of erroneously applying Religious Law (prayers and devotion) to resolving fundamentally physical problems (slavery and racism). He urged the immediate adoption of Physical Law—industry and wealth accumulation—as the only means of catching up and legitimately contesting for equality with whites. In essence, he favored the adoption of those values (middle-class) that he estimated were responsible for white empowerment. The application of Physical Law was just one aspect of the process of reorientation that he advocated. The other aspect entailed the encouragement of practical and business education. “Our course is a just one,” he assured black readers, yet he added one caveat: “We must go away from our oppressors.”

Critical Context

The publication of The Condition thrust Delany into the forefront of the emigrationist movement and officially dates his emergence as a leading Black Nationalist. It represents the shift from condition to race as a key factor in shaping the responses of African Americans to their experience. It was, in fact, the first part of an intellectual effort to provide an ideological conception of the black experience following the crises and confusion unleashed by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. It sounded the alarm and became the bible of Black Nationalism. Emigration quickly assumed a forceful dimension, reaching a climax at a national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in August, 1854.

The book is not merely a commentary on race relations in the United States. It is also a pioneering work in the evolution of slavery and racism, and many of its conclusions have been sustained by modern scholars. One example is Delany’s contention that practical necessity (the need for a dependable, cheap, and productive labor force), rather than racism, led to the enslavement of Africans. Racism developed later to justify and legitimize an accomplished fact.

Delany used the experience of free blacks in the Northern states and the Fugitive Slave Act to reveal a consensus on black inferiority that cut across sectional boundaries, thus debunking the myth of the free and open North. By emphasizing this national consensus, the book reveals striking similarities in the experience of free blacks and slaves. More than anything else, The Condition provides graphic insight into the complexities of the African American experience. Black people had contributed their labor, sweat, and blood to the development of the nation, yet they had been denied rights and privileges. Nevertheless, many refused to give up on America. This deep, emotional attachment to a society that denied African Americans their rights and trampled on their dignity was a peculiarity of nineteenth century Black Nationalism, and no black leader more perfectly epitomized this tendency than Delany himself. Toward the end of the book, he expressed deep love for the United States. Emigration suddenly seemed like a reluctant choice, with potential emigrants described as “adopted” children of their host nations.

Bibliography

Adeleke, Tunde. Without Regard to Race: The Other Martin Robison Delany. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003. Detailed political biography of Delany that emphasizes his willingness to modify or put aside the narrower cause of Black Nationalism in the service of the larger cause of racial equality.

Delany, Martin R. Martin R. Delany: A Documentary Reader. Edited by Robert S. Levine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Hefty volume collecting many of Delany’s journalistic and other writings. The collection is organized chronologically, allowing one to see the evolution of Delany’s thought and style over time and to assign The Condition its proper place within that evolution.

Griffith, Cyril E. The African Dream: Martin R. Delany and the Emergence of Pan-Africanist Thought. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975. Discusses the central themes of Delany’s book within the context of his development as a nationalist, emigrationist, and pan-Africanist.

Kahn, Robert. “The Political Ideology of Martin R. Delany.” The Journal of Black Studies 14 (June, 1984): 415-440. Summarizes the major issues in the book and discusses them within the context of Delany’s growing separatist consciousness.

Levine, Robert S. “Twelve Years with Martin Delany: A Confession.” In White Scholars/African American Texts, edited by Lisa A. Long. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Considered evaluation of Delany as a writer and thinker, based on Levine’s experience editing the 2003 collection of his work.

McAdoo, Bill. Pre-Civil War Black Nationalism. New York: David Walker, 1983. Presents The Condition as a reactionary Black Zionist document. Identifies Delany as the leading nineteenth century Black Zionist. Black Zionism had a dualistic character; it combined elements of revolutionary and reactionary nationalism. It dismissed and undermined the possibility of overthrowing slavery within the United States. Finally, it had no confidence in the revolutionary potentialities of the masses.

Miller, Floyd J. The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787-1863. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975. Describes The Condition as heralding the emergence of Delany as a nationalist and emigrationist and argues that some of the views advanced in the book contradict Delany’s earlier writings. Notes that the book synthesized several of Delany’s ideas into a coherent ideology.

Pinkney, Alphonso. Red, Black, and Green: Black Nationalism in the United States. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Defines The Condition as the first nationalist book to be published. The central themes in the book reflect Delany’s shifting perspective from condition to race. Among the major themes are the rejection of colonization and the characterization of the United States as a racist society.