Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)
This article was written in 1835, by Alexis De Tocqueville. He was from a prominent family of nobility. He also was a member of parliament where he defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade. He was a sort of world traveler. He traveled to Algeria, England, and various other countries. He criticized the French model of colonization, and preferred the British model of direct rule. After he got his law degree he was named auditor-magistrate at the court of Versailles. While there he met Gustave de Beaumont, and they were both sent to America to study the penitentiary system. After returning from the trip Tocqueville became a lawyer and wrote his master work, “Democracy in America”. Main Points: Democratic Government is basically the same thing as the majority. 2. The majority is always right. Like the King could do no wrong and passed blame to advisors, so does the majority blame everyone but themselves.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)
Main Points: 3. The majority can misuse power if not within boundary of moral and physical authority. This means the majority of the people having more intelligence. He says that quantity is more important than quality. 4. Branches of government exist, but they are not really effective. Tocqueville has his own idea. “ If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be o constituted as t represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions; an executive so as to retain a certain degree of uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as to remain independent of the two other powers; a government would be formed which would still be democratic, without incurring any risk of tyrannical abuse.”

Main Points: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)
5. People can have their own opinion, but the majority will make the decision if it is within bounds. They will make the decisions on the basis of the moral and physical authority. The majority would rule, because who would want to be the outsider. 6. Lawyers are the only ones to make sure the majority stays within he moral and physical boundaries. He compares lawyers to the aristocracy. This is because they are the highest educated, and in the highest circle of society. He says they have nothing to gain because they have it all. 7. The passions of the people make the democracy. The people are proud of their opinions, material things, monetary gain, and mainly physical prosperity. In America they valued these things more than political actions. The main mean of the passions is value what is right. This article was intended as his master work, and for anyone to view in France or abroad. This article was important because it explained American democracy to any reader the way it was then and they way it is now. The main points of the article are still as important as ever. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (1841) Main Points I. Independence of thought AND ACTION REGARDLESS OF SOCIETY’S REACTION. II. Existence of an inner divine force to give direction. III. Divine force supplies revelation of truth and beauty.

Quotes from Emerson’s Self-Reliance:
…To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thought: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

Do your thing, and I shall know you
Do your thing, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blind-man-bluff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. p. For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. To be great is to be misunderstood. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks…. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God spaketh, he should communicate not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole.

…in the universal miracle petty and particular miracles disappear.
Man is timid and apologetic. He is no longer upright. He dares not say “I think,” “I am,” but quotes some saint or sage. …man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time…. Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state…. He who has more soul than I, masters me, though he should not raise his finger. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. …you isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end, is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. The soul is no traveler: the wise man stays at home…. Insist on yourself; never imitate. Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson The Young American
Marlea Key

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 Born in Boston Son of a Minister
Studied at Harvard Transcendentalist Individualist that rejected traditional authority Poet One of the greatest orators

The Young American A lecture that Emerson read before the Mercantile Library Association in Boston on February 7, 1844. He claims that America wanted everything “British,” and that Americans can start making their own history. He stresses that it is great to be an American and that everyone should start acting like one and be proud of it.

Main Points “It is remarkable, that our people have their intellectual culture from one country, and their duties from another… This false state of things is newly in a way to be corrected. America is beginning to assert itself to the senses and to the imagination of her children, and Europe is receding in the same degree.” - America needs to make its own history and stop living in the shadows of Britain. He is stressing that everyone needs to act “American,” be proud of it, and pass it on for generations to come. “An unlooked for consequence of the railroad, is the increased acquaintance it has given the American people with the boundless resources of their own soil.” - The building of the railroad benefits Americans by contracting time and space. It facilitates transportation and travel, benefits commerce, creates wealth, and binds Americans together as a common people.

Main Points Continued “Commerce, is the political fact of most significance to the American at this hour…” “The history of commerce… is the record of this beneficent tendency… Trade, a plant which grows wherever there is peace, as soon as there is peace, and as long as there is peace.” “We plant trees, we build stone houses, we redeem the waste, we make prospective laws, we found colleges and hospitals, for remote generations. We should be mortified to learn that the little benefit we chanced in our own persons to receive was the utmost they would yield.” - Commerce will build America’s wealth by exploiting her many riches. It also forms American character by placing everything into the competitive market place: “talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself…”

Main Points Continued “Gentlemen, the development of our American internal resources, the extension to the utmost of the commercial system, and the appearance of new moral causes which are to modify the state, are giving an aspect of greatness to the Future, which the imagination fears to open.” -These (commerce, railroad & trade) are the elements that will make America “great” in the future, and allow Americans to make their own history rather than living in the shadow of Britain’s history.

Historical Significance
Emerson directed this speech to all Americans, in hopes that it would make them see what a bright future it held. Emerson also wanted his audiences to see that America has no history and they can make the history for themselves.

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1848)

IT IS MAN’S DUTY TO WASH HIS HAND OF WRONG. It is not man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any…wrong; he may still properly have other concern to engage him; but it is his duty at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him fist, that he may pursue his contemplations too. (p. 51.) DEMOCRACY SOMETIMES PREVENTS PEOPLE FROM DOING THE RIGHT THING. In a democracy, there are unjust laws, but people “think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them.” (p. 52.)

ANY MAN MORE RIGHT THAN HIS NEIGHBORS CONSTITUTES A MAJORITY BECAUSE HE HAS GOD ON HIS SIDE, AND HE SHOULD ACT IMMEDIATELY TO WASH HIS HAND OF WRONG. If a government is maintaining unjust laws, people should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government. They should “not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.” (p. 52) ONE HONEST MAN CAN CHANGE THE STATE. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. (p. 52) “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison…. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.” (p. 52)

“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.” (p. 52) IT IS GOOD TO BE A MARTYR RATHER THAN A SINNER. Suppose blood should flow when standing up to the government or the majority in refusal to consent to unjust laws. “Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.” (p. 52) THE STATE SHOULD HAVE TRUE RESPECT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual…. There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imaging a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men.” (p. 52)

The Mexican View of the War (1850) Ramon Alvarez Et Al.

Leading up to the War Manifest Destiny Mexico
Written by John O’Sullivan The belief that God intended for the United States to spread its political power over the entire continent. Mexico Just Emancipated from Spain Weak from several revolutions

Questions to Consider What, in the Mexican editor’s view, caused the war with the United States? Did they see a pattern in U.S. history? Was Mexico entirely blameless?

Main Points Mexico blames the War on the United States.
“To explain then in a few words the true origin of the war, it is sufficient to say that the insatiable ambition of the United States, favored by our weakness, caused it.” United States an “Alpha Male” “In throwing off the yoke of the mother country, the United States of the North appeared at once as a powerful nation.” United States had an Expansion Plan. “From the days of their independence they adopted the project of extending their dominions, and since then , that line of policy has not deviated in the slightest degree… They desired from the beginning to extend their dominion in such a manner as to become the absolute owners of most of all this continent.” Even after acquiring the land that the U.S. wanted all along, the U.S. felt to add insult by placing fault on Mexico. “Violence and insult were united: thus at the very time they usurped part of our territory, they offered to us the hand of treachery, to have soon the audacity to say that our obstinacy and arrogance were the real causes of the war…”

The United States gained what they believed was God’s will. The article gave light to how the Mexicans’ felt about the war. Allowed Americans to see the other side of the war.

Questions Was it always the goal of the United States to take over part of Mexico? If the United States had not taken over part of Mexico, what would the country be like today?

John O'Sullivan, Manifest Destiny (1845)
Main Points It is God's will that the United States spread to dominate the entire continent. "...the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent alloted to us by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions" There should be no more discussion about the annexation of Texas. "It is time now for opposition to the Annexation of Texas to cease, all further agitation of the waters of bitterness and strife, at least in connexion with this question...It is time for the common duty of Patriotism to the Country to succeed; or if this claim will not be recognized, it is at least time for common sense to acquiesce with decent grace in the inevitable and the irrevocable." The Congress of Texas has already voted to join the union, therefore she is already part of America. "her convention has undoubtedly ratified the acceptance, by her Congress, of our proffered invitation into the Union" "Her star and her stripe may already be said to have taken their place in the glorious blazon of our common nationality"

Main Points The Mexican government has no claim to Texas because Texas was colonized by Americans and Texas has already won indepedence from Mexico. "If Texas became peopled with an American population, it was by no contrivance of our government, but on the express invitation of that of Mexico herself" "She was released, rightfully and absolutely released, from all Mexican allegiance...by the acts and faults of Mexico herself." The annexation of Texas and other Western areas is not a pro-slavery movement, in fact it will serve to ease the transition to the abolishment of slavery. --Texas offers an outlet for black migration towards a more racially diverse Mexico, aiding in the disappearance of the race from America after the abolishment of slavery. "it is undeniably much gained for the cause of the eventual voluntary abolition of slavery, that it should have been thus drained off towards the only outlet which appeared to furnish much probability of it the ultimate disappearance of the negro race from our borders"

Main Points The rapid population growth of America demands further expansion westward and along the whole line of the Northern border. "the general law which is rolling our population westward, the connexion of which with the ratio of growth in population which is destined within a hundred years to swell our numbers to the enormous population of two hundred and fifty millions(if not more)." Summation: In summation, Manifest Destiny became a rallying cry for the belief that is was the God given destiny of America to spread it's domain from the Atlantic in the East to the Pacific in the West and utilize every acre in between the two great oceans to it's full glorious potential.

George Bancroft The Progress of Mankind (1854)

Historical Context Father was a distinguished revolutionary soldier
Entered Harvard at age thirteen, then studied abroad Was expected to join the ministry, but was unsuccessful Became a statesmen and historian Leaned towards romanticism and humanist beliefs Gained favor with Polk and became Secretary of the Navy Established the United States Naval Academy Was assigned the position of Minister to Britain and Prussia Was a supporter of Jacksonian Democracy Was prolific writer, including his book History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent

Main Points Bancroft stresses the wisdom of the majority “The many are wiser than the few; the multitude than the philosopher; the race than the individual; and each successive generation than its predecessor.” This relays the idea that majority is always right, and coincides with the Jacksonian ideal. Addresses the role of the individual contributing to the whole consciousness saying “Common sense implies by its very name, that each individual is to contribute some share toward the general intelligence.” Bancroft suggests through the collective experiences of the past, the people understand what is best for all and constantly move forward. Believes truth and morality to be universal and unchangeable, saying “The relation of good to evil is from the beginning, and is unalterable.”

Main Points (cont.) States that Divine will constitutes progress…”and when any part of the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the ways of Providence vindicated,” which is his reference to a divine creator. Last section addresses women and their role in nature as a “lily among thorns” to be “not man’s slave, but his companion.” Bancroft places women in an inferior role with subtle hints of the superiority of men. In concluding his speech, he hopes that following generations will approach…”not only toward unity, but universality.” Meaning even more enlightenment and general consensus of good.

This speech speaks for a career dedicated to justifying democracy Bancroft’s ideas influenced many people, including the politicians which admired and awarded him with positions As a historian, his volume of United States history helped put the nation’s past in a comprehensive framework

Questions to Consider Does history ever demonstrate any retrograde motions? Who or what is responsible for human progress? What is the role of women in history?

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (July 5,1852) Frederick Douglass Main Points: The Declaration of Independence did not positively affect the African-Americans. “Why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?” “The Fourth of July is yours not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” A giant black hole will always consist between the Whites and Blacks. “The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me.” Of all the things the Whites have done or celebrated, they are not worse than Fourth of July. “I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.” The country was disillusioned to how they unjustly treated the African-Americans. “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.” The Whites knew in their hearts that slavery was wrong. “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.” America is so blind when it considered itself as the top country. “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practice more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.” The 4th of July is a mockery to the black slave. “…a day that reveals to him, more that all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

My Bondage And My Slavery (1887)
Frederick Douglas My Bondage And My Slavery (1887)

Frederick Douglass: Background
Was born Frederick Augustus Bailey in February of 1818. Son of a white father and Harriet Bailey (a slave of mixed African and American Indian descent. Taught himself to read, write, and study oratory. Escaped in 1838 at the age of 20. Married Anna Murray, a free black woman. Settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1841, gave his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass wrote three autobiographical narratives: First: “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” (1845) Published seven years after his escape. Second: “My Bondage and My Freedom” (1855) Written after he had established himself as a newspaper editor. Third: “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass” (1881). Married his second wife Helen Pitts, a white woman because during this time there were not many black women.

Frederick Douglass: Historical Context
Ex-slave who fought for the freedom of all slaves. He wanted to let America know how it felt not to have a true “family” or “father”. Douglass felt that “Slaveholders are only a band of successful robbers.” (Quote taken from, “Slavery in America from Colonial Times to the Civil War”) Slavery was wrong as well as the treatment of them. The early to mid eighteen hundreds in the South was extremely harsh on slaves. Slaves didn’t really belong to a family, they belong to their master’s like cattle, land, or crops. Douglass wanted to open America’s eyes because they had been closed far too long.

“My Bondage and My Freedom”: Main Points
Slavery makes families dysfunctional. “ … My poor mother, like many other slave-women, had many children, but NO FAMILY!” (68) “The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting …” (68) “Women—white women, I mean—are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these idols but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victims: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow.” (69) It has been noted throughout history that there was and maybe even today been “Southern Bells”. Why did we never hear of a “Northern Bell”. That seems to be term used only to describe the southern women of the south.

“My Bondage and My Freedom”: Main Points (cont.)
Even black individuals who are half-white, they are often considered to be simply black slaves. “He may be a freeman; and yet his child may be a chattel [movable property: an item of personal property that is not freehold land and is not intangible.]. He may be white, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood; and his child may be ranked with the blackest slaves.” (69) Many white masters did not acknowledge their mulatto children. “Men do not love those who remind them of their sins unless they have a mind to repent—and the mulatto child’s face is a standing accusation against him who is master and father to the child.” (69) They would many times repent for their sins by selling the mulatto child. In this way, they didn’t have to see them and be reminded; a case of out of sight out of mind. It may be important to point out that not all slave owners engaged in a sexual relationship with their slaves.

“My Bondage and My Freedom” :Main Points: (cont.)
White slave owners wanted to keep their black slaves ignorant to better insure their control over their slaves. “The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible … awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused my desire to learn.” (69) “he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it.” (68) “it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave…” (69) “His iron sentences–cold and harsh—sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought.” (69) “the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man … knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” (69)

Historical Significance:
The document had a great impact on society because it publicized America’s ugly secret. The groups within society which appeared to be impacted the most by the author’s document was the slave owners. After all, who had the most to loose. Because slavery was wrong, Douglass vowed to speak out so others would know by writing and giving speaches.

Frederick Douglass: Questions to Consider:
What is the importance for Douglass of his opening observation that slaves lack a family history? Why were slave owners so terrified by the idea of an education?

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Main Points Slavery was harmful to the stability and structure of many Southern families, and therefore destabilized the Southern society and culture as a whole. Slaves were thought to be property disregarded as a person with no emotions or thought, even the life of a child could escape the oppression of slavery. “He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny.” Slavery damaged family values. The white children were brought up to think slavery was right but saw the tensions that it caused within their family. The white women took their frustration out on the slave girl because they were more vulnerable to attack than their husbands were. “The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings toward her but those of jealousy and rage.”

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Harriet Jacobs ( ), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl The master would go to the slave girl for his guilty pleasure because she would be at his disposal. “My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belong to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him.” Southern women knew that their men had fathered slave children and saw them as property. “…Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation…”

Slavery and the Confederacy Alexander Stephens (1812-1883)
born February 11, 1812 near Crawfordsville, Georgia was orphaned and penniless at age 15 with the help of friends and by working, he graduated from the University of Georgia at Athens in 1832 studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1834 joined Whig party and became a member of the Georgia State House of Representatives from elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843 and served until 1858 later, he served as Vice President of the Confederate States he originally opposed Georgia’s secession after Georgia’s secession, he became an advocate for the cause This speech was delivered on March 21, 1861 in Savannah, Georgia.

Slavery and the Confederacy
Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy Main Points 1. “No citizen is deprived of life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, under the laws of the land. The great principle of religious liberty, which was the honor and pride of the old Constitution, is still maintained and secured. All the essentials of the old Constitution, which have endeared it to the hearts of the American people, have been preserved and perpetuated.” This statement ensures that each “citizen” will be afforded the rights and freedoms they are presently accustomed to. 2. “We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged in.” “The true principle is to subject commerce of every locality to whatever burdens may be necessary to facilitate it….This is again the broad principle of perfect equality and justice.” Under the Confederate Constitution, excess taxes and tariffs of every industry will be repealed or distributed equally. Local and business monies should be used to repair or improve local infrastructure instead of the National Treasury.

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy Main Points 3. “The new Constitution has put to rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” “Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” The institution of slavery is at the heart of the revolution. By not being equal, Africans must be subordinate to whites, and this is the first Government to recognize and follow this truth

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy Main Points 4. “Many Governments have been founded upon the principles of certain classes; but the classes thus enslaved, were of the same race, and in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. The negro by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.” “It is, indeed, in conformity with the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances or to question them. For His own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made ‘one star to differ from another in glory’”. As long as slaves are from the African race, then it conforms with the laws of God and nature. It is God’s divine wisdom why there is a difference between races, and that wisdom should not be questioned. “Our object is Peace, not only with the North, but with the world…. Rumors are afloat, however, that it is the result of necessity. All I can say to you, therefore, on that point is, keep your armor bright, and your powder dry.” The Confederacy wants to secede peacefully, but just in case, be prepared for a fight.

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy Main Points “….notwithstanding their (the Union) professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor…. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after—though they come from the labor of the slave. Through the taxes and tariffs collected from South, the Federal Treasury enriches itself by the use of slave labor.

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy Historical Significance In my opinion, this speech was made to justify the morality and justness of the institution of slavery. It was a tool of propaganda to further the Confederate cause and to recruit other southern States. It was an appeal to the nations of the world to recognize the Confederate States of America as an independent nation. Three weeks after Stephens delivered this speech, the Confederate Army attacked Ft Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. After the war, Stephens was arrested and imprisoned for five months. Later, he returned to serve again in the House of Representatives from After his service in the House, he was elected Governor of Georgia for four months until he died March 4, 1883.

Reverend Benjamin Morgan Palmer
Benjamin Morgan Palmer was born in Charleston, SC on January 25, 1818 to parents Edward and Sarah Bunce Palmer. He later attended Amherst College, , taught from , attended the University of Georgia in 1838 and Columbia Theological Seminary from He was licensed to preach in 1841 by Charleston Presbytery and ordained in 1842 by Georgia Presbytery. His first pastorate was at the First Presbyterian Church of Savannah, GA, From there he pastored the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, SC from , served as a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary from , and finally assumed the post of his last church, First Presbyterian of New Orleans, in 1856, serving there until his death in He was struck by a street car on 5 May 1902 and died on 25 May Dr. Palmer preached the opening sermon at the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S. and served as Moderator of that first Assembly (4 Dec 1861). His published works include: Life and Letters of J.H. Thornwell; the Family in Its Civil and Churchly Aspects; Theology of Prayer; the Broken Home or Lessons in Sorrow; Formation of Character; and two volumes of Sermons. Most of these titles remain in print to this day. Reverend Benjamin Morgan Palmer

Reverend Benjamin Morgan Palmer
Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate it The South’s providential trust “is to conserve and to perpetuate the institution of slavery as now existing….” White slave owners act as guardians of their black slaves. Blacks are like helpless children who the slave owner protects. “Freedom would be their doom.” Slaves “form parts of our households, even as our children….” The world should FEAR abolition. The world is more dependent on slavery for its wealth than ever, and if slavery ends, the world economy will totter. The South needs slavery to support its material interests. Slavery is a matter of self-preservation for the South. The South defends the cause of God and religion, since the “Abolition spirit is undeniably atheistic….” Benjamin Morgan Palmer, clergyman, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 25 September, 1781 ; died in Charleston, South Carolina, 9 October, He was graduated at Princeton in 1800, studied theology in Charleston, and was licensed to preach by the Congregational association of ministers in South Carolina, continuing with this body until it was merged into the Charleston union presbytery in He was pastor for several years of the Presbyterian church in Beaufort, South Carolina, and from 1817 till 1835 of a church in Charleston. He received the degree of D. D. from the College of South Carolina in In addition to numerous sermons, he published "The Family Companion" (1835).--His nephew, Benjamin Morgan, , clergyman, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 25 January, 1818, was the son of Reverend Edward Palmer, who, at his death in 1882, was the oldest minister of the southern Presbyterian church. He was graduated at the University of Georgia in 1838, and at the Theological seminary of Columbia, South Carolina, in He has held Presbyterian pastorates in Savannah, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina, and since 1856 has been in New Orleans, Louisiana In 1853-'6 he was professor of church history and polity in Columbia theological seminary, South Carolina, of which he was a director from 1842 till He has also been a director of the Southwestern Presbyterian university, Clarksville, Tennessee, since 1873, and of Tulane university, New Orleans, since its organization in He has frequently served as commissioner to the general assemblies of his denomination. He received the degree of D.D. from Oglethorpe university in 1852, and that of LL.D. from Westminster college, Fulton, Missouri, in Since 1847 he has been an editor and contributor to "The Southern Presbyterian Review," published in Columbia, South Carolina, of which journal he was a founder. In addition to numerous addresses and pamphlets, he is the author of " The Life and Letters of Reverend James Henley Thornwell, D.D., LL. D." (Richmond, 18'75) ; "Sermons" (2 vols., New Orleans, 1875-'6); and " The Family in its Civil and Churchly Aspects" (New York, 1876).

Bible View of Slavery Rabbi Morris J. Raphall POINT 1:
The Bible does not condemn slavery. However, it does condemn coveting another’s property, including another’s slaves. POINT 2: Abolitionists, such as Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, are inventing new sins when they claim that slavery is evil. By doing this they are insulting and exasperating “thousands of God-fearing, law-abiding citizens” and have pushed the country toward civil war. Morris Jacob Raphall, clergyman, born in Stockholm, Sweden, in September, 1798; died in New York city, 23 June, He was educated for the Jewish ministry in the college of his faith in Copenhagen, in England, where he went in 1812, and afterward in the University of Giessen, where he studied in 1821-'4. He returned to England in 1825, married there, and made that country his home. In 1832 he began to lecture on biblical Hebrew poetry, attaining a high reputation, and in 1834 he established the "Hebrew Review," the first Jewish periodical in England. He went to Syria in 1840 to aid in investigating persecutions of the Jews there, and became rabbi of the Birmingham synagogue in He was an active advocate of the removal of the civil disabilities of the Jews, aided in the foundation of the Hebrew national school, and was an earnest defender of his religion with voice and pen. In 1849 he accepted a call from the first Anglo-German Jewish synagogue in New York city, in Greene street, and several years later he became pastor of the congregation B'nai Jeshurun, with which he remained till his death. On leaving Birmingham for this country he was presented with a purse of 100 sovereigns by the mayor and citizens, and an address thanking him for his labors in the cause of education. Dr. Raphall was a voluminous writer, and also translated many works into English from Hebrew, German, and French. The University of Giessen gave him the degree of Ph.D. after the publication of his translation of the "Nishna," which he issued jointly with Reverend D. A. de Sola, of London (1840). His principal work was a "Post-Biblical History of the Jews," a collection of his lectures on that subject (2 vols., New York, 1855; new ed., 1866). His other books include "Festivals of the Lord," essays (London, 1839); "Devotional Exercises for the Daughters of Israel" (New York, 1852) ; "The Path to Immortality " (1859) ; and "Bible View of Slavery," a discourse (1861). He also undertook, with other scholars, an annotated translation of the Scriptures, of which the volume on "Genesis " was issued in (Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM)

Peace, Be Still Reverend Henry Ward Beecher
POINT 1: “…The whole nation is guilty [regarding slavery]….” POINT 2: “Our civilization has not begotten humanity and respect for others’ rights, nor a spirit of protection to the weak….” Henry Ward Beecher, the eighth son of the Rev. Lyman Beecher, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on 24th June, The brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, he was educated at the Lane Theological Seminary before becoming a Presbyterian minister in Lawrenceburg ( ) and Indianapolis ( ). His pamphlet, Seven Lectures to Young Men, was published in Beecher moved to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn in By this time he had developed a national reputation for his oratorical skills, and drew crowds of 2,500 regularly every Sunday. He strongly opposed slavery and favoured temperance and woman's suffrage. Beecher condemned the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska bill from his pulpit and helped to raise funds to supply weapons to those willing to oppose slavery in these territories. These rifles became known as Beecher's Bibles. John Brown and five of his sons, were some of the volunteers who headed for Kansas. He supported the Free Soil Party in 1852 but switched to the Republican Party in During the Civil War Beecher's church raised and equipped a volunteer regiment. However, after the war, he advocated reconciliation. Beecher edited The Independent ( ) and the Christian Union ( ) and published several books including the Summer in the Soul (1858), Life of Jesus Christ (1871), Yale Lectures on Preaching (1872) and Evolution and Religion (1885). Henry Ward Beecher died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 8th March, 1887.

The Gettysburg Address 19th January 1863
Lincoln Himself He was born in a one room long cabin in Kentucky. At the age of twenty-four he was elected to the Illinois General Assembly. Lincoln was elected to the US House of Representatives to the Whig Party in 1846. Spoke against the Kansas-Nebraska Act Spoke against the Dread Scott decision in 1857 He was elected the 16Th President of the United States He issued the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves on January 1ST 1863. Delivered the Gettysburg Address for people of the present time and the future.

The Gettysburg Address 19th January 1863
Main Points 1. Equality Is Meant For All Mankind “Conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Lincoln took from the Declaration of Independence and hinted that the Civil War was not just about the union, but also to bring equality to all citizens. 2. The Gettysburg address heightens the soldiers, and that their deaths did not go in vain. “The word will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here.” 3. The cause is a good one. The soldiers did not die in vain. “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that these dead shall not have died in vain.” Lincoln believed that the present and the future generations must defend the union. 4. The Nation Is Worth Fighting For “That the union is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” This explains that Americans from now on should be proud and defend the union. That the people make it up, and should run the government

Frederick Jackson Turner (b. November 14, 1861-d. March 14, 1932)
“The Significance of the Frontier in American History” Historical Context: Frederick Jackson Turner (b. November 14, 1861-d. March 14, 1932) A Professor at Harvard and Wisconsin University, Turner’s collection of essays entitled The Significance of Sections in American History won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1933. Turner delivered this essay at the World Fair in Chicago on July 12, 1893 (not long after the Great Fire ravaged the city in October of 1871).

“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
Main Points 1. The study of the Western frontier reveals the truly American side of our history. “And to study this advance, the men who grew up under these conditions, and the political, economic, and social results of it, is to study the really American part of our history…” 2. One of America’s strong points is her ability to adapt to her surroundings. “The peculiarity of American institutions is the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people—to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier in the complexity of city life…” 3. The frontier Americanized the colonists, and defined their mental temperament. “Our history is the study of European germs developing in an American environment…The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization.” “Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines.” “From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual traits of profound importance…Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced upon them.”

Main Points 4. The Indian wars and skirmishes unified the American people under one cause. “This frontier stretched along the western border like a cord of union. The Indian was a common danger, demanding united action…” 5. Americans were no longer just English, but were made up of a variety of European settlers. “The frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people. The coast was preponderantly English, but the later tides of continental immigration flowed across to the free lands…” 6. Democracy was born out of the difficulties of the frontier. “But the most important effect of the frontier has been the promotion of democracy here and in Europe. As has been indicated the frontier is productive of individualism. Complex society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization, based on the family. The tendency is anti-social. It produces antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control…The frontier individualism has from the beginning promoted democracy…”

Main Points 7. The western frontier no longer exists. “And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.” The Significance of the Document This document gave Americans a strong sense of national pride and accomplishment. In just a short time since declaring freedom from Britain, Americans had “tamed” the wilderness; they had faced the challenges and difficulties of the frontier victoriously, and in so doing, they had developed their own sense of nationality and history. Turner, in effect, gave Americans a pat on the back. The first chapter of colonial history, though long and arduous in the making, had ended well, and offered a bright future to the hopeful Americans. Source for Historical Context: Wikipedia.com

The Strenuous Life (1900) Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt Born: October 27, 1858
Birthplace: New York, New York Died: January 6, 1919 (Arterial Blood Clot) in New York, New York Born into a wealthy and socially prominent New York family. Suffered from life-threatening asthma attacks throughout his childhood, but he overcame these attacks with strenuous exercise and became a model of physical courage and toughness. Wife: Alice Roosevelt, first wife (died on the same day as his mother); Edith Roosevelt, second wife (had 5 kids with her and one from previous marriage). Attended Harvard University and Columbia University Law School. Occupation(s) before Presidency: Officer in the National Guard, New York police commissioner. Other ways he served: Governor of New York, Vice President to McKinley, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. With the help of Leonard Wood, he organized The Rough Riders, an all-volunteer cavalry regiment. 26th President of the United States from Party Affiliation- Republican First President to ride in a car while President.

Theodore Roosevelt: Historical Context
Roosevelt never ceased to preach about virtues and consistently denounced civilized softness. Supported military and naval preparedness. Adopted the pet phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far.” He had an enormous popular appeal because the common people saw him as a champion. He was an advocate of American imperialism. “The Strenuous Life” speech was delivered months after the Senate had ratified the treaty with Spain that established the Philippines as a colony of the United States and at the beginning of the 3 year Philippine- America War. This speech defended American imperialism by focusing on economic self-interest, masculine pride, and the national destiny. During this time period, many worried that the American society was losing its masculine edge because of the closing of the frontier, the increasing dominance of women’s taste in art, literature, and culture, and the conflict between domestic value and the marketplace. “The Strenuous Life” addressed this worry and explored the foreign policy ideas. It also supported the philosophy that adversity builds character and that individuals should be tested by danger, hardship, and toil. Speech presented to the Hamilton Club, Chicago on April 10, 1899.

The Strenuous Life: Main Points
A true American is one who embraces the strenuous life and the hardships that come with it to ensure that we, as a society, do not become soft and yielding. “…I wish to preach, not the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife: to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.” A man should be glad to work and has a duty to teach his sons to work hard. If one is born rich, work where you are needed and where you can be successful to “reflect most honor upon the nation.” A woman should not be afraid of motherhood or her duty as a mother. This fear of motherhood for women or fear of work from men can doom the nation. “The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise and fearless of many healthy children.” If you choose an easy life, you lack desire and will not be satisfied with this life of ease. “A mere life of ease is not in the end a satisfactory life, and above all, it is not a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.”

View on the Civil War To not have fought in the Civil War would have been an easier choice. Lives would have been spared, money would have been saved, loved ones would not have been killed, “simply by shrinking from strife.” If we had chosen that route, the nation would have been considered “weaklings” and “unfit to stand among the great nations of the earth.” Thanks to the leadership and wisdom of Lincoln and Grant we were successful, even with the struggles and sacrifices that the nation faced, the results were overwhelmingly positive for the nation. The Union decided to follow the “wisdom of Lincoln and bore the sword or rifle in the armies of Grant!” We suffered through the many losses of the war, and “in the end the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the mighty American republic placed once more as a helmeted queen among nations.”

Navy and Army Roosevelt was a supporter of the military. He praised those who supported the Navy, and told his audience to “keep in mind those who opposed its building up.” Once the naval needs had been met by Congress, the Navy was considered one of the most “brilliant and formidable fighting navies in the entire world.” The Army, however, was in need of “complete reorganization, - not merely enlarging.” Roosevelt claimed that the responsibility for blood shed in the Philippines and failure of any kind would be put on those who didn’t take action and who were more concerned with “mock humanitarianism of the prattlers who sit at home in peace.”

Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines Issues must be taken care of in his own country, but a man’s responsibility doesn’t stop there. One must face his duties to the world and govern those that cannot govern themselves. “A man’s first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty it is under penalty of ceasing to be a freeman.” The West Indies and the Philippines had numerous problems, but they had to be faced and solved in the proper way. If we are unable to do it, a “bolder and abler people must undertake the solution.” Reasons for the U.S.’s need to intervene: Porto Rico is not large enough to stand alone. Cuba is entitled to decide for itself if it will be an independent state or a part of the United States. The Philippines had a bigger problem because the population included “half-castes and native Christians, warlike Moslems, and wild pagans.” Roosevelt felt that these people were” utterly unfit for self-government and show no signs of becoming fit.”

Great Benefit for the U.S. and Philippines England’s rule in India and Egypt had been beneficial to all parties involved, yet above all else it had “advanced the cause of civilization.” If the U.S. succeeds in the Philippines, then they will “add to that national renown which is the highest and finest part of national life, will greatly benefit the people of the Philippines island, and above all, we will play our part well in the great work of uplifting mankind.” To accomplish this goal, we must stop any resistance and be prepared for the “even more difficult task” of governing the Philippines.

Conclusions In the face of these challenges, Roosevelt says “that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor.” We cannot support a life of peace, because if we do other stronger countries will pass us by and dominate the world. “Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness but deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.” Questions: 1.) Is Roosevelt concerned that vigorous activity could produce evil as well as good? 2.) What would Roosevelt say about our world today when it comes to woman and motherhood and men and working?

Roosevelt’s Foreign Policy Due to the amendment of the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, America was able to intervene into Latin American nation’s affairs. This allowed Latin America to be a way to expand U.S. commercial interests AND to intervene in Latin America conflicts exercising an international police power. Roosevelt gained intense criticism in the U.S., as well as in Congress, due to his changed from an isolationist policy to an interventionist and imperialistic policy. This speech was a way for Roosevelt to justify any expansions and towards imperialism so that he could rally support from the people of the nation because he was not popular with his peers at the time due to his policies.

What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883)
William Graham Sumner, What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883) Main Points Only the select few can solve society’s problems and create problems. “Those who are bound to solve problems are the rich, comfortable, prosperous, virtuous, respectable, educated and healthy; those whose right it is to set the problems are those who have been less fortunate or less successful in the struggle for existence.” It is not your fault in society that you are better than me, and it is not your responsibility to help me become like you and be your burden. “A man who is present as a consumer, yet who does not contribute either by land, labor, or capital to the work of society, is a burden. On no sound political theory ought such a person to share in the political power of the state.” The crumbling of a society by a social class. “Those whom humanitarians and philanthropists call weak are the ones through whom the productive and conservative forces of society are wasted. They constantly neutralize and destroy the finest efforts of the wise and industrious, and are a dead-weight on the society in all its struggles to realize better things.”

What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883)
William Graham Sumner, What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883) Take care of your own business and not everyone else’s. “Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty.” “the legislation are kept constantly busy, by the people who have made up their minds that it is wise and conducive to happiness to live in a certain way, and who want to compel everybody else to live in their way.” The government gets its money from you to help reform society. It gives it to me to help make me like you. “the right to claim and the duty to give one man’s efforts for another man’s satisfaction. We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.” “prejudice that a man who gives a dollar to a beggar is generous and kind-hearted, but that a man who refuses the beggar and puts the dollar in a savings-bank is stingy and mean. The former is putting the capital where it is very sure to be wasted, and where it will be a kind of seed for a long succession of future dollars, which must be wasted to ward off a greater strain of the sympathies than would have been occasioned by a refusal in the first place. Inasmuch as the dollar might have been turned into capital and given to a laborer who, while earning it, would have reproduced it, it must be regarded as taken from the latter.” I have as much right as you to have as much success as you do, but I expect to have it handed to me without the sacrifices that you have made. “We each owe it to the other to guarantee rights. Rights do not pertain to results, but only to chances. They pertain to the conditions of the struggle for existence, not to any of the results of it; to the pursuit of happiness, not to the possession of happiness.” “The men who have not done their duty in this world never can be equal to those who have done their duty more or less well.”

William Graham Sumner Main Points A person that doesn’t contribute to society is a burden on society “a man who is present as a consumer, yet who does not contribute either by land, labor, or capital to the work of society, is a burden” Every person has a responsibility to take care of themselves, to mind their own business “every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty.”.

William Graham Sumner Main Points Cont. The state can not make any money, they can only give money to one person by taking it away from another “these conflicts are rooted in the supposed reality that one group wins on the expense of another group. The gains of some imply the losses of others. The path of achievement in society is trod over the well being of others.”

The social structure is based on contract
William Graham Sumner The social structure is based on contract “A society based on contract is a society of free and independent men, who form ties without favor or obligation, and co-operate without cringing or intrigue.”

And that of the Forgotten Man
William Graham Sumner And that of the Forgotten Man “He is not, technically, “poor” or “weak”; he minds his own business, and makes no complaint. Consequently the philanthropists never think of him, and trample on him…..”

Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
Veblen was the son of Norwegian immigrants, and he grew up in rural Minnesota. He did not learn to speak English until he was a teenager. He received a B.A. from Carleton College in 1880 and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale in At Yale, he developed a friendship with his sociology professor, William Graham Sumner, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Immanuel Kant in the area of Moral Philosophy. In 1882, he started to teach political economy at the University of Chicago. He became known as a brilliant and eccentric thinker and an unconventional teacher. At the University of Chicago he gained a reputation as an insightful social critic, and it was during his years in Chicago that he wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class. He taught political economy and later became editor of the Journal of Political Thought. He taught at Stanford from and at the University of Missouri from In 1919 he became a founding member of the New School for Social Research in New York. He died in 1929 of heart disease.

Main Point 1: The leisure class is conservative, finding no reason to support changes, because they enjoy the status quo and are little affected by economic pressures. The exigencies of the struggle for means of life are less exacting for [the leisure] class than for any other; and as a consequence of this privilege position we should expect to find it one of the least responsive of the classes of society to the demands which the situation makes for a further growth of institutions and a readjustment to an altered industrial situation. The leisure class is the conservative class. …exigencies do not readily produce in the members of this class, that degree of uneasiness with the existing order which alone can lead any body of men to give up views and methods of life that have become habitual to them. The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent….

Main Point 2: Conservatism is decorous and respectable
Main Point 2: Conservatism is decorous and respectable. Innovation is vulgar. This conservatism of the wealthy class is so obvious a feature that it has even come to be recognized as a mark of respectability. Since conservatism is a characteristic of the wealthier and therefore more reputable portion of the community, it has acquired a certain honorific or decorative value. It has become prescriptive to such an extent that an adherence to conservative views is comprised as a matter of course in our notions of respectability; and it is imperatively incumbent on all who would lead a blameless life in point of social repute. Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. …progress is hindered by underfeeding and excessive physical hardship, no less effectually than by such a luxurious life as will shut out discontent by cutting off the occasion for it. The abjectly poor, and all those persons whose energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today. From this proposition it follows that the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance, and so reducing their consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make them incapable of the effort required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought.

Main Points 3: The example of the leisure class fosters conspicuous consumption, which diverts resources away from sustenance of the lower classes. The prevalence of conspicuous consumption as one of the main elements in the standard of decency among all classes is of course not traceable wholly to the example of the wealthy leisure class, but the practice and the insistence on it are no doubt strengthened by the example of the leisure class. The requirements of decency in this matter are very considerable and very imperative; so that even among classes whose pecuniary position is sufficiently strong to admit a consumption of goods considerably in excess of the subsistence minimum, the disposable surplus left over after the more imperative physical needs are satisfied is not infrequently diverted to the purpose of a conspicuous decency, rather than to added physical comfort and fullness of life. Moreover, such surplus energy as is available is also likely to be expended in the acquisition of goods for conspicuous consumption or conspicuous boarding. The result is that the requirements of pecuniary reputability tend (1) to leave but a scanty subsistence minimum available for other than conspicuous consumption, and (2) to absorb any surplus energy which may be available after the bare physical necessities of life have been provided for.

Main Point 4: Since the leisure class discourages change, it hinders evolutionary progress.
…the leisure class, in the nature of things, consistently acts to retard that adjustment to the environment which is called social advance or development. The characteristic attitude of the class may be summed up in the maxim: "Whatever is, is right" whereas the law of natural selection, as applied to human institutions, gives the axiom: "Whatever is, is wrong." Not that the institutions of today are wholly wrong for the purposes of the life of today, but they are, always and in the nature of things, wrong to some extent. They are the result of a more or less inadequate adjustment of the methods of living to a situation which prevailed at some point in the past development The institution of a leisure class, by force or class interest and instinct, and by precept and prescriptive example, makes for the perpetuation of the existing maladjustment of institutions, and even favors a reversion to a somewhat more archaic scheme of life; a scheme which would be still farther out of adjustment with the exigencies of life under the existing situation even than the accredited, obsolescent scheme that has come down from the immediate past.

Seneca Falls Convention, Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
Main Points Women declared their independence and inalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “We insist that [women] have immediate admission to the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.” “…Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.”

Seneca Falls Convention, Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
Main Points Men have created a social and political tyranny over women by not recognizing their civil liberties. “He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.” “He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.” “He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.” “He has withheld from her rights which are given the most ignorant and degraded men- both natives and foreigners.” “He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.” “He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.” “In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master.” …if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.” 1

Horatio Storer, The Origins of the Insanity in Women (1865)
Historical Context Horatio Robinson Storer ( ) was an American physician and campaigner against abortion. Storer was born in Boston, Massachusetts and attended the Boston Latin School, Harvard College, and the Boston (Harvard) Medical School. After obtaining his M.D. in 1853 he traveled to Europe and spent a year studying with James Young Simpson at Edinburgh. He began medical practice in Boston in 1855 with emphasis on obstetrics and gynecology. In 1857, he started the "physicians' crusade against abortion" both in Massachusetts and nationally, when he persuaded the American Medical Association to form a Committee on Criminal Abortion. The Committee Report was presented at the AMA meeting in Louisville, Kentucky in 1859 and accepted by the Association. As a result, the AMA petitioned the legislatures of the states and territories to strengthen their laws against elective abortions. By 1880 most states and territories had enacted such legislation. Although abortion continued to be a common, if clandestine practice,[1] some women were persuaded to refrain from abortion by these new laws, and also by physician persuasion. In 1865, Storer won an AMA prize for his essay aimed at informing women about the moral and physical problems of induced abortion. It was published as Why Not? A Book for Every Woman. It was widely sold and many physicians distributed it to their patients who requested abortion. Storer started the Gynaecological Society of Boston, the first medical society devoted exclusively to gynecology, in It quickly moved to publish the first gynecology journal, the Journal of the Gynaecological Society of Boston. In many respects, Storer can be considered the Father of American Gynecology. Information provided by:

Main Points Main Point – Storer said he knew the answer to certain mental illnesses found in women because of a defect in that some women have in their ovaries. He came to these conclusions without much scientific research and is very troubling. The quote below illustrates this: "I believe, by the experience, however, of every unbiased observer, we advance to (ask)…To what extent can the insanity of women be medically or surgically treated?" Another quote about this topic follows: “That in women mental disease is often, perhaps generally, dependent upon functional or organic disturbance of the reproductive system. That in women the access or exacerbation of mental disease is usually coincident with the catamenial (menstrual) establishment.” As a woman, my take on Dr. Storer’s writing was that no woman could be trusted to be truly rational because our own ovaries may have certain defects that have the ability to make us crazy. Main Point -- Storer contends that he has found a way to help alleviate, in some cases remove, insanity that a defect in the ovaries might cause. He states: "It is just as unscientific here, and generally as futile, to treat merely or primarily the mental disturbance, which is usually a symptom only or a consequence, as it has been to amputate an hysterical knee. The necessity of removing a cause to prevent or to cure its effect is as decided in mental pathology as in physical. Thus we have a reasonable hope of success, nearly as great, perhaps, as in relieving the other reflex disturbances to which the female is confessedly so prone."

Main Point – Nymphomaniacs Are Crazy In the nineteenth century nymphomania was believed to be a specific organic disease, classifiable, with an assumed set of symptoms, causes, and treatments. Like alcoholism, kleptomania, and pyromania--diseases that were identified in the mid-nineteenth century--a diagnosis of nymphomania was based on exhibited behavior. "Excessive" female sexual desire is, however, a much more ambiguous concept than habitual drunkenness, shoplifting, or setting fires. Consider the following cases of nymphomania diagnosed in the second half of the nineteenth century. One Specific Case - "Mrs. B.," age twenty-four and married to a much older man, sought the help of Dr. Horatio Storer, a gynecologist and the future president of the American Medical Association, because of lascivious dreams. He reported that she "can hardly meet or converse with a gentleman but that the next night she fancies she has intercourse with him,...though thinks she would at once repel an improper advance on the part of any man" (Storer 1856, 384). In fact, she "enjoys intercourse greatly" (with her husband) and has had sex with him nightly for the seven years of their marriage. The husband "has of late complained that he found physical obstruction to intercourse on her part, though she thinks it rather an increasing failure by him in erection" (Storer 1856, 384). In this "Case of Nymphomania," Storer directed Mrs. B. to separate temporarily from her husband as well as to restrict her intake of meat and abstain from brandy and all stimulants to lessen her sexual desire, to replace the feather mattress and pillows with ones made of hair to limit the sensual quality of her sleep, and to take cold enemas and sponge baths and swab her vagina with borax solution to cool her passions. "If she continued in her present habits of indulgence," Storer argued, "it would probably become necessary to send her to an asylum" (Storer 1856, 385). At the time he presented the case before the Boston Society for Medical Observation in 1856, the woman's husband was still absent and her lascivious dreams had not occurred for several days. The doctor was "hopeful as regards the mental symptoms, which, however, will for some time require decided enforcement of very strict laws" (Storer 1856, 386). The Victorian Era was a very Romantic period. Women were relegated mainly to the private sector of life. They were expected to be virtuous, chaste and pure. Women who were promiscuous or enjoyed sex with their husbands to exuberantly were considered nymphomaniacs. This was inconsistent with men's views about women at this time. There is a clear double standard between men and women at this time. Men were allowed to pride himself on his conquests but women were kept in a very strict mode of behavior they had to follow. This deviant behavior was dealt with in various treatments "crazy women" were given to force them back into society's expected "role".

Horatio Storer, The Origins of the Insanity in Women (1865) Historical Significance - This philosophy completely contradicts Thoreau, who was a firm believer in acting as an individual and not following conventions. He would have not have wanted men or women to play any kind of "role". However, during this time, individualism, especially in women, was not a highly prized attribute. A Victorian Idea About What Makes a “Good” Woman - The legal rights of married women were similar to those of children; they could not vote or sue or even own property. Also, they were seen as pure and clean. Because of this view, their bodies were seen as temples which should not be adorned with jewelry nor used for physical exertion or pleasurable sex. The role of women was to have children and tend to the house. They could not hold a job unless it was that of a teacher or a domestic servant, nor were they allowed to have their own checking accounts or savings accounts. In the end, they were to be treated as saints, but saints that had no legal rights. - This article, written by Dr. Horatio Storer, was meant to impact other doctors who had women under their care. This article achieved what it was intended for. “Following Storer’s advice, American doctors performed tens of thousands of ovariectomies, the removal of the ovaries, over the next fifty years as a treatment for neuroses of various kinds. The relationship between the ovaries and mental health eludes most modern medical researchers.” - Basically, in the Victorian Era, a woman being chaste was greatly prized. Any woman too interested in sex was probably considered a slut or worse. Men, however, were not viewed as “crazy nymphos” if they liked to sow their wild oats, as long as they were discreet. I believe Dr. Storer to have been a product of this Era and found ways to confirm his views that women should be chaste, not sensual. Seen, not heard.

Bradwell v. The State of Illinois (1873)
U.S. Supreme Court Historical Context: Myra Colby Bradwell was Born on February 12, 1831 in Manchester Vermont. She attended schools in Kenosha Wisconsin and later enrolled in Elgin Female Seminary in Illinois. Bradwell completed her formal education by the age of twenty four. In 1852 she married James Bradwell. In 1855 they moved to Chicago where James was admitted tho the Chicago Bar. He became a successful lawyer, judge, and in 1873 he was elected to the State Legislature. Myra Bradwell, a Vermont attorney, attempted to exercise her profession in Illinois, she was rejected from the bar because of her gender. She sued for her rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. ( “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Myra Bradwell died on February 14, 1894 of cancer. Just two years after she received her license to practice law.

Main Points: The right to practice law in a State is granted by the qualifications of the applicant. Citizenship does not give someone that right. "The right to admission to practice in the courts of a state is not a privilege or immunity belonging to citizens of the United States. The right to practice as an attorney in no sense depends on citizenship of the United States. It has not, as far as we know, ever been made in any State, or in any case, to depend on citizenship.” ( Mr Justice Miller ) $ Men and women have many differences that are recognized by civil law and nature. Men are women's protector and defender. Women are timid and delicate and makes them unfit for many occupations. "The civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life." (Mr Justice Bradley ) $ A married woman is incapable of performing the duties of a lawyer without the consent of her husband. "A woman has no legal existence separate from her husband. Supreme Court of Illinois deemed important in rendering a married woman incompetent fully to perform the duties and trusts that belong to the office of an attorney and counselor." ( Mr Justice Bradley ) $ It is God's will that women be wives and mothers. This being the natural law, we should adapt and cannot be based upon exceptional cases. "The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and begin offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things, and cannot be based upon exceptional cases." ( Mr Justice Bradley )

Fourteenth Amendment to The U.S. Constitution:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. “

Myra Colby Bradwell Born in 1831 in Manchester, Vermont.
James Bradwell Myra Colby Bradwell Born in 1831 in Manchester, Vermont. In 1852 Myra married James B. Bradwell, an Englishman who had immigrated to the United States and studied law in Memphis Tennessee. In 1854, the Bradwells moved to Chicago, where James opened a law office and eventually became a judge of the Cook County Court. Myra began to study law to help her husband as his assistant. She later decided to open a practice of her own. In 1868 Myra founded a weekly legal newspaper called the Chicago Legal News. With Bradwell servicing as both editor and business manager, the Chicago Legal News quickly became a success. In 1869, after passing the state bar examination, Bradwell applied to the Illinois Supreme Court for admission to the bar. The court rejected her application on the grounds that as a married woman she “would be bound neither by her express contracts nor by those implied contracts which it is the policy of the law to create between attorney and client.” She reapplied, but the court rejected her again, this time because she was a woman, regardless of her marital status. She appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1873 upheld the Illinois decision, saying that it could not interfere with each state’s right to regulate the granting of licenses within its borders.

Bradwell v. The State of Illinois (1873), U.S. Supreme Court
Main Point 1 (Majority Decision written by Justice Miller): Citizenship does not give one the right, under the fourteenth amendment, to practice law in the courts of a state. “We agree with [counsel] that there are privileges and immunities belonging to citizens of the United States, in that relation and character, and that it is these and these alone which a State is forbidden to abridge. But the right to admission to practice in the courts of a State is not one of them. This right in no sense depends on citizenship of the United States.” p. 84. Myra Bradwell Justice Samuel Freeman Miller

Main Point 2 (Concurring Opinion by Justice Bradley): Men and women are very different. Women are naturally timid and delicate and there are many occupations for which they are unfit. Man is woman’s protector and defender. …[T]he civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. p. 85. Main Point 3 (Concurring Opinion by Justice Bradley): Women belong to the domestic sphere, and should not adopt a career distinct and independent from that of her husband. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. p. 85. Justice Bradley

Main Point 4 (Concurring Opinion by Justice Bradley): God has given women the role of wives and mothers. This is a natural law to which we must adapt, and not be persuaded by exceptional cases. The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things, and cannot be based upon exceptional cases. p. 85.

In the 1875 case Minor V. Happersett, the Court ruled against women suffrage in Missouri on the basis that the Fourteenth Amendment does not add to the privileges and immunities of a citizen, and that historically “citizen” and “eligible voter” have not been synonymous. About a hundred years later, the Court began employing the Fourteenth Amendment as a way of overturning gender-discriminatory state laws. In doing so, however, it would typically use the "equal protection" clause, rather than the clause cited in Bradwell, "privileges and immunities." In 1882, the Illinois legislature passed a law guaranteeing all persons, regardless of sex, the right to select a profession as they wished. Although Bradwell never reapplied for admission to the bar, the Illinois Supreme Court informed her that her original application had been accepted. As a result, she became the first woman member of the Illinois State Bar Association; she was also the first woman member of the Illinois Press Association. On March 28, 1892, she was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to her efforts to win admission to the bar, Bradwell played a role in the broader women's rights movement. She was active in the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association and helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association. She was also influential in the passage of laws by the Illinois legislature that gave married women the right to keep wages they earned and protected the rights of widows. Bradwell died February 14, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois.

Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (1920)

Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (1920)
Main Point 1: Much of humankind’s misery can be attributed to women’s ignorance about reproductivity, women’s acceptance of inferior status, and women’s willingness to unthinkingly submit to the will of their men and have numerous children. The result has been the cheapening of life through over-population. Whether it was the tyranny of monarchy, an oligarchy or a republic, the one indispensable factor of its existence was, as it is now, hordes of human beings—human beings so plentiful as to be cheap, and so cheap that ignorance was their natural lot. Upon the rock of an unenlightened, submissive maternity have these been founded; upon the product of such a maternity have they flourished. No period of low wages or of idleness with their want among the workers, no peonage or sweatshop, no child-labor factory, ever came into being, save from the same source. Nor have famine and plague been as much “acts of God” as acts of too prolific mothers. Unknowingly, women replenish the poor insane criminal hungry ranks of prostitutes legions of soldiers to die in foreign conquests (due to pressures of overpopulation) [In the mass, women] went on breeding with staggering rapidity those numberless, undesired children who become the clogs and the destroyers of civilizations. In her submission lies her error and her guilt. By her failure to withhold the multitudes of children who have made inevitable the most flagrant of our social evils, she incurred a debt to society. War, famine, poverty, and oppression of the workers will continue while woman makes life cheap. They will cease only when she limits her reproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted. Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (1920)

…she must emerge from her ignorance and assume her responsibility.
Main Point 2. Through sex education and birth control, women will gain free motherhood and become liberated. They will also be remaking the world into a more humane and less miserable place. The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood. ...she may, by controlling birth, lift motherhood to the plane of a voluntary, intelligent function, and remake the world. Millions of women are asserting their right to voluntary motherhood. They are determined to decide for themselves whether they shall become mothers, under what conditions and when. This is the fundamental revolt referred to. It is for women the key to the temple of liberty. Even as birth control is the means by which woman attains basic freedom, so it is the means by which she must and will uproot the evil she has wrought through her submission. …she must emerge from her ignorance and assume her responsibility. She can do this only when she has awakened to a knowledge of herself and of the consequences of her ignorance. The first step is birth control. Through birth control she will attain to voluntary motherhood. Having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, she will cease to enslave herself and the mass of humanity Birth control is woman’s problem. The quicker she accepts it as hers and hers alone, the quicker will society respect motherhood. The quicker, too, will the world be made a fit place for her children to live.

Main Point 3: Women need to value themselves for who they are
Main Point 3: Women need to value themselves for who they are. They also need to educate themselves (know thyself). The problem of birth control has arisen directly from the effort of the feminine spirit to free itself from bondage. Woman herself has wrought that bondage through her reproductive powers and while enslaving herself she enslaved the world. Her mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities. She goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it. That right to decide imposes upon her the duty of clearing the way to knowledge by which she may make and carry out the decision.

Thousands gathered in Paris, Texas, for the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.

MAIN POINTS For more than thirty years Negroes were killed without due process. “During these years more than ten thousand Negroes have been killed in cold blood, without the formality of judicial trial and legal execution.” The government did nothing to stop brutal lynchings of Negroes. “The government which had made the Negro a citizen found itself unable to protect him. It gave him the right to vote, but denied him the protection which should have maintained that right.”

Main Points Continued After Negroes were given emancipation, White women from the north began teaching the negroes despite allegations by southern white women that these negroes were violent. “ Before the world adjudges the Negro a moral monster, a vicious assailant of womanhood and a menace to the sacred precincts of home, the colored people ask the consideration of the silent record of gratitude, respect, protection, and devotion of the millions of the race in the South, to the thousands of northern white women who have served as teachers and missionaries since the war…”

Main Points Continued The Negroes were helpless in the fight against the white men. “The white man’s victory soon became complete by fraud, violence, intimidation, and murder. The franchise vouchsafed to the Negro grew to be a “barren ideality,” and regardless of numbers, the colored people found themselves voiceless in the councils of those whose duty it was to rule.”

Spectacle lynching. The Burning and Lynching of Jesse Washington, Waco Texas 1916.
Although accurate figures on the lynching of blacks are lacking, one study estimates that in Texas between 1870 and 1900, extralegal justice was responsible for the murder of about 500 blacks—only Georgia and Mississippi exceeded Texas’s numbers in this grisly record. Between 1900 and 1910, Texas mobs murdered more than 100 black people. In 1916 at Waco, approximately 10,000 whites turned out in holiday-like atmosphere to watch a mob mutilate and burn a black man named Jesse Washington. (Source: Calvert, De Leon and Cantrell, The History of Texas, pp. 189, )

The lynching of Lige Daniels. August 3, 1920, Center, Texas.
White individuals employed vigilante-style violence to keep blacks “in their place,” and even law enforcement agencies helped uphold the separate and unequal society. Sadly, Texas ranked third nationally in the lynching of black persons, as mobs murdered more than 100 black people between 1900 and In 1916 at Waco, approximately 10,000 whites turned out in a holiday-like atmosphere to watch a mob mutilate and burn a black man named Jesse Washington.

Main Point: We should concentrate on work and progress
Main Point: We should concentrate on work and progress. Blacks and whites need stop fighting, agitating and relocating. The South will progress if we work together. We only hurt ourselves by fighting. Brooker T. Washington, Atlantic Exposition Address (1895)

THE MESSAGE FOR BLACKS: Work hard, and do not agitate for equality
THE MESSAGE FOR BLACKS: Work hard, and do not agitate for equality. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. …when it comes to business…, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world…. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life…. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. However, working together does not necessary include socializing together.

THE MESSAGE FOR WHITES: We are a loyal and humble people who serve you well if you treat us well. It is in your interest to encourage and help black people. Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested….. Cast down your bucket among these people who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, just to make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sickbed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives,…. [We will interlace ] our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one.

THE MESSAGE FOR WHITES: If white people insist on keeping the Negro down, they will only be hurting themselves. Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body, of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic. Stamp commemorating Booker T. Washington Issue Date: April 7, 1940

SIGNIFICANT FINE POINT FOR BOTH RACES: We do not have to socialize together, but we should work together for the common cause of development. In all things that are purely social we call be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

W.E.B. Du Bois, Strivings of the Negro People (1897)
Main Points: 1. Being a problem [i.e. being an black person in 19th c. America] is a strange experience. [T]he Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. 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. (p. 88)

2. The African American feels his duality of being both African and American.
One ever feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa; he does not wish to bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he believes — foolishly, perhaps, but fervently — that Negro blood has yet a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without losing the opportunity of self-development. (p. 88)

3. Prejudice and discrimination keep the freedman oppressed.
The freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of lesser good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people…. (p. 88) 4. Americans, including white Americans, should appreciate the Negro race. Work, culture, and liberty,--all these we need, not singly, but together; for to-day these ideals among the Negro people are gradually coalescing, and finding a higher meaning in the unifying ideal of race,--the ideal of fostering the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to, but in conformity with, the greater ideals of the American republic, in order that some day, on American soil, two world races may give each to each those characteristics which both so sadly lack. (p. 88)

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Niagara Movement, (1905)
1. We should meet, despite the existence of other organizations for Negroes. 2. We must complain about common wrongs toward blacks. We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong—this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty, and we must follow it. (p. 100) 3. In not a single instance has the justice of our demands been denied, but then come the excuses.

Abrams v. United States (1919)
U.S. Supreme Court Background:  Abrams and the other defendants were all born in Russia. They were intelligent and had considerable schooling.  Three of them testified as witnesses in their own behalf, and called themselves revolutionists and they did not believe in government of any form and said they had no interest in the government of the United States.  The fourth said he was a socialist and believed in a proper form of government that was not capitalistic and in his opinion the U.S. government was capitalistic.  The leaflets were printed in English and Yiddish criticizing American intervention in the Russian Revolution. They met in rooms rented by Abrams, who bought a printing outfit, and installed it in a basement where the work was done at night. Some of the leaflets were distributed by throwing them from a window where one of the defendants was employed.  WWI was still in progress.

Main Points:  Abrams and his colleagues were charged on 4 counts of conspiring: 1) “disloyal and abusive language about the form of Government of the United States” 2) the language “intended to bring the form of Government of the United States into contempt” 3) the language "intended to incite, provoke, and encourage resistance to the United States in said war” 4) “when the United States was at war with the Imperial German Government…unlawfully and willfully ... to urge, incite and advocate curtailment of production of…ordnance and ammunition, necessary and essential to the prosecution of the war”  Although it was argued that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional and in conflict with the First Amendment, it was argued briefly and proven otherwise: On the record thus described it is argued, somewhat faintly, that the acts charged against the defendants were not unlawful because within the protection of that freedom of speech and of the press which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and that the entire Espionage Act is unconstitutional because in conflict with that Amendment. This contention is sufficiently discussed and is definitely negative in Schenck v. United States.

Main Points:  According to Holmes there was not enough evidence to promote danger or hinder the success of the government: “Now nobody can suppose that the surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man, without more, would present any immediate danger that its opinions would hinder the success of the government arms or have any appreciable tendency to do so.”  They were found guilty by the original court: “by bringing upon the country the paralysis of a general strike, thereby arresting the production of all munitions and other things essential to the conduct of war...Thus ...the defendants were guilty as charged...and...the judgment of the District Court must be Affirmed.”  If in the event the threat poses no “clear and present danger,” the best place to dismiss dangerous or disagreeable ideas is in the market place of ideas. Persuasion is more persistent than imprisoning people with dangerous and disagreeable ideas. “But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon, which their wishes safely can be carried out.”

Abrams v. United States was during the time while America intervening into the Russian Revolution The case involved the 1918 amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917 which made it a criminal offense to criticize the U.S. Federal Government. The case was overturned during the Vietnam War Era in Brandenburg v. Ohio. The decision was based on Holmes’ argument of “clear and present danger”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

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