Why Colored People in Philadelphia Are Excluded from the Street Cars — Key Ideas to Explore

A Committee's Frustrations and a Mayor's Candor

Hunt details the committee's polite but fruitless requests to railway presidents, who "finally settled on the subterfuge of referring the question to a car-vote of their passengers." The vote failed because "the self-respecting part of the community did not vote." When a colored man was ejected with police help, the committee asked Mayor Henry if it was by his order. Henry replied, "Not by my order, but with my knowledge and approbation," adding, "I do not wish the ladies of my family to ride in the cars with colored people." Hunt notes that at the time, three recent court decisions had ruled against exclusion, including one by Judge Allison. The committee then turned to the legislature, where a Senate-passed bill was "smothered" in the House Passenger Railway Committee, twelve of whose fifteen members were railway directors.

Moral Lunacy and the Legacy of Slavery

Hunt argues that Philadelphia's community has become "like a moral lunatic, utterly powerless, by the exercise of its own will, to resist or control the propensity" to wrong colored people. He traces this to the city's history: "Philadelphia once owned more slaves than any other northern city" and retains a larger proportion of colored people than any other such city except New Bedford. Emancipation was "left incomplete," and the city "most fears amalgamation." Hunt then compares the density of slavery's evils across regions, noting that in the United States, where whites outnumbered blacks, the slave population increased naturally, while in the West Indies the reverse occurred. He claims that contact with whites diluted African superstitions, replacing them with camp meetings and "emotional and religious" songs, unlike the "eating, satire and venery" themes of St. Domingo negroes.

A Comparative View of Slave Societies

Hunt extends his analysis to the West Indies, asserting that "the evils of slavery are in proportion to its density." In South Carolina, where slavery was densest, whites were "the most despotic" and first to secede. But in St. Domingo, where blacks vastly outnumbered whites, the evils were "infinitely greater." He cites the natural increase of slaves in the U.S. versus decrease in the West Indies as evidence. Hunt also notes that the first Christian influence on West Indian slaves came from U.S. slaves: Dr. Coke found in 1788 that "the Lord had raised up lately a negro slave named Harry, brought here from the continent to prepare our way." Similarly, the Baptists of Jamaica originated with George Lisle, a slave preacher taken from Georgia. These details illustrate Hunt's argument that the density of slavery shaped not only economic but cultural and religious outcomes.

Hunt's pamphlet is a tightly argued polemic that blends local political history with a broader comparative sociology of slavery. Readers should note that the excerpts break off mid-sentence during the West Indies discussion, so Hunt's full argument—including any proposed remedy—is not captured here. The text rewards attention to its rhetorical structure: Hunt moves from specific committee failures to a diagnosis of collective moral failure, then to historical causation, using court decisions, legislative maneuvers, and demographic comparisons as evidence.

That rain fell with the same tired persistence Hunt described in that Philadelphia summer of 1866, his calm outrage still warming my hands. When the pamphlet closed, I found myself wandering through old transit maps, and there it sat — The city — Edition Insights. A forgotten timetable, a familiar streetcar line. Our questions simply migrate, one era into another.