Modern History Sourcebook:
Andrew Carnegie:
The Gospel of Wealth, 1889
Andrew Carnegie (18351919) was a massively successful business man - his wealth was based on the
provision of iron and steel to the railways, but also a man who recalled his radical roots in Scotland before
his immigration to the United States. To resolve what might seem to be contradictions between the
creation of wealth, which he saw as proceeding from immutable social laws, and social provision he came
up with the notion of the "gospel of wealth". He lived up to his word, and gave away his fortune to socially
beneficial projects, most famously by funding libraries. His approval of death taxes might surprise modern
billionaires!
The problem of our age is the administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind
together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been
changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference
between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. . . . The
contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the
change which has come with civilization.
This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for
the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in
literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much
better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Maecenas [Note: a rich
Roman patron of the arts]. The "good old times" were not good old times . Neither master nor servant was
as well situated then as to day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both-not the least so to
him who serves-and would sweep away civilization with it....
...
We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but
which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be
surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises-and, if the foregoing be correct, it is the only
question with which we have to deal-What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon
which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few? And it is of this great question that I
believe I offer the true solution. It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums
saved by many years of effort, the returns from which are required for the comfortable maintenance and
education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence, which it should be the aim of all to acquire.
There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the
decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their lives
by its possessors. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the
few has hitherto been applied. Let us in turn consider each of these modes. The first is the most
injudicious. In monarchial countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first
son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend to
succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition of this class in Europe today teaches the futility of such
hopes or ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies or from the fall in the
value of land.... Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it
not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that
they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters
moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well
hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed oftener work more for the injury than
for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of
their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means.
...
As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a
means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of
much good in the world.... The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not
attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted....
The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of
the growth of a salutary change in public opinion.... Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men
who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for public ends would work good
to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be
deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the
selfish millionaire's unworthy life.
. . . This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth
during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful
for the people....
There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes: but in this way we have the true antidote for
the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor-a reign of
harmony-another ideal, differing, indeed from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution
of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the present most
intense individualism, and the race is prepared to put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under
its sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense,
the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through
the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had
been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to
agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellowcitizens and spent for public purposes, from which
the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through
the course of many years in trifling amounts.
...
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious
living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those
dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as
trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in
the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial result for the
community-the man of wealth thus becoming the sole agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing
to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer-doing for them better than they
would or could do for themselves.
Andrew Camegie, "Wealth," North American Review, 148, no. 391 (June 1889): 653, 65762
www.ourdocuments.gov
January 7, 2013
Transcript of Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
Fifty-first Congress of the United States of America, At the First Session,
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the second day of December, one thousand eight
hundred and eighty-nine.
An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled,
Sec. 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or other- wise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or
commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person
who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand
dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, at the discretion of the
court.
Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any
other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or
with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof; shall be
punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by
both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
Sec. 3. Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or
commerce in any Territory of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or in restraint of trade or
commerce between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory or Territories and any
State or States or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and
any State or States or foreign nations, is hereby declared illegal. Every person who shall make any such
contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and,
on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not
exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
Sec. 4. The several circuit courts of the United States are hereby invested with jurisdiction to prevent and
restrain violations of this act; and it shall be the duty of the several district attorneys of the United States, in
their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney-General, to institute proceedings in equity to
prevent and restrain such violations. Such proceedings may be by way of petition setting forth the case and
praying that such violation shall be enjoined or otherwise prohibited. When the parties complained of shall
have been duly notified of such petition the court shall proceed, as soon as may be, to the hearing and
determination of the case; and pending such petition and before final decree, the court may at any time
make such temporary restraining order or prohibition as shall be deemed just in the premises.
Sec. 5. Whenever it shall appear to the court before which any proceeding under section four of this act
may be pending, that the ends of justice require that other parties should be brought before the court, the
court may cause them to be summoned, whether they reside in the district in which the court is held or not;
and subpoenas to that end may be served in any district by the marshal thereof.
Sec. 6. Any property owned under any contract or by any combination, or pursuant to any conspiracy (and
being the subject thereof) mentioned in section one of this act, and being in the course of transportation
from one State to another, or to a foreign country, shall be- forfeited to the United States, and may be
seized and condemned by like proceedings as those provided by law for the forfeiture, seizure, and
condemnation of property imported into the United States contrary to law.
Sec. 7. Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by any other person or corporation by
reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act, may sue therefor in any circuit court of
the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found, without. respect to the amount in
controversy, and shall recover three fold the damages by him sustained, and the costs of suit, including a
reasonable attorney's fee.
Sec. 8. That the word "person," or " persons," wherever used in this act shall be deemed to include
corporations and associations existing under or authorized by the laws of either the United States, the laws
of any of the Territories, the laws of any State, or the laws of any foreign country.
Approved, July 2, 1890.
[Endorsements]
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Populist Party Platform (1892)
The People's party, more commonly known as the Populist party, was organized in St. Louis
in 1892 to represent the common folk—especially farmers—against the entrenched interests
of railroads, bankers, processers, corporations, and the politicians in league with such
interests. At its first national convention in Omaha in July 1892, the party nominated James
K. Weaver for president and ratified the so-called Omaha Platform, drafted by Ignatius
Donnelly of Minnesota.
Assembled upon the 116th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the People's
Party of America, in their first national convention, invoking upon their action the blessing of
Almighty God, put forth in the name and on behalf of the people of this country, the
following preamble and declaration of principles:
Preamble
The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in the midst of a
nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the
ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. 1
The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters
at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are
largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered
with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists.
The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported
pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our
laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European
conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for
a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn,
despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental
injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires. The national power to
create money is appropriated to enrich bond-holders; a vast public debt payable in legaltender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the
burdens of the people.
Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to
add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well
as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers,
bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been
organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and
overthrown at once it forebodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or
the establishment of an absolute despotism.
We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great
political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the
suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties
have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent
or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed
together to ignore, in the coming campaign, ever issue but one. They propose to drown the
outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that
capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of
silver and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice
our homes, lives, and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to
secure corruption funds from the millionaires.
Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the nation, and filled with the spirit of the
grand general and chief who established our independence, we seek to restore the
government of the Republic to the hands of the ''plain people,'' with which class it
originated. We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the National
Constitution; to form a more perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. . . .
Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is not precedent in the
history of the world; our annual agricultural productions amount to billions of dollars in
value, which must, within a few weeks or months, be exchanged for billions of dollars' worth
of commodities consumed in their production; the existing currency supply is wholly
inadequate to make this exchange; the results are falling prices, the formation of combines
and rings, the impoverishment of the producing class. We pledge ourselves that if given
power we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance
with the terms of our platform. We believe that the power of government—in other words,
of the people—should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as
far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teaching of experience shall justify, to
the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land. . . .
Platform
We declare, therefore—
First.—That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall
be permanent and perpetual; may its spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the
republic and the uplifting of mankind.
Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry
without an equivalent is robbery. ''If any will not work, neither shall he eat.'' The interests
of rural and civil labor are the same; their enemies are identical.
Third.—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own
the people or the people must own the railroads; and should the government enter upon
the work of owning and managing all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the
constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a
civil-service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent the increase of the
power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employees.
FINANCE.—We demand a national currency, safe, sound, and flexible issued by the general
government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the
use of banking corporations; a just, equitable, and efficient means of distribution direct to
the people, at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent, per annum, to be provided as set forth in the
sub-treasury plan of the Farmers' Alliance, or a better system; also by payments in
discharge of its obligations for public improvements.
1. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal
ratio of 16 to 1.
2. We demand that the amount of circulating medium2 be speedily increased to
not less than $50 per capita.
3. We demand a graduated income tax.
4. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible
in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all State and national
revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government,
economically and honestly administered. We demand that postal savings
banks be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings
of the people and to facilitate exchange.
TRANSPORTATION.—Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the
government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people. The
telegraph and telephone, like the post-office system, being a necessity for the transmission
of news, should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people.
LAND.—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people,
and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should
be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual
needs, and all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held
for actual settlers only.
Expressions of Sentiments
Your Committee on Platform and Resolutions beg leave unanimously to report the following:
Whereas, Other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the
following, not as a part of the Platform of the People's Party, but as resolutions expressive
of the sentiment of this Convention.
1. RESOLVED, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and pledge
ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without Federal Intervention, through the
adoption by the States of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot system.
2. RESOLVED, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be applied
to the reduction of the burden of taxation now levied upon the domestic industries of
this country.
3. RESOLVED, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union
soldiers and sailors.
4. RESOLVED, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the
present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the
world and crowds out our wage-earners; and we denounce the present ineffective
laws against contract labor, and demand the further restriction of undesirable
emigration.
5. RESOLVED, That we cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized workingmen
to shorten the hours of labor, and demand a rigid enforcement of the existing eighthour law on Government work, and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said
law.
6. RESOLVED, That we regard the maintenance of a large standing army of
mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and we
demand its abolition. . . .
7. RESOLVED, That we commend to the favorable consideration of the people and the
reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum.
8. RESOLVED, That we favor a constitutional provision limiting the office of President
and Vice-President to one term, and providing for the election of Senators of the
United States by a direct vote of the people.
9. RESOLVED, That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation
for any purpose.
10. RESOLVED, That this convention sympathizes with the Knights of Labor and their
righteous contest with the tyrannical combine of clothing manufacturers of
Rochester, and declare it to be a duty of all who hate tyranny and oppression to
refuse to purchase the goods made by the said manufacturers, or to patronize any
merchants who sell such goods.
1. A valuable white fur adorning the robes of some judges.
2. Currency and/or coin.
[From ''People's Party Platform,'' Omaha Morning World-Herald , 5 July 1892.]
'No Cross of Gold'
Excerpts from
Bryan's Address to the National
Democratic Convention
9 July 1896
For a full text of this speech, see the
Douglass Archives of American Public
Address
And now, my friends, let me come to the
paramount issue. If they ask us why it is
that we say more on the money question
than we say upon the tariff question, I
reply that, if protection has slain its
thousands, the gold standard has slain its
tens of thousands. If they ask us why we
do not embody in our platforms all the
things that we believe in, we reply that
when we have restored the money of the
Constitution, all other necessary reform
W.J. BRYAN CARRIES ON THE
SHOULDERS OF HIS ADMIRERS
AFTER HIS ORATION.
from Harper's Weekly, 18 July, 1896.
You come to us and tell us that the great
cities are in favor of the gold standard; we
reply that the great cities rest upon our
broad and fertile prairies. Burn down
your cities and leave our farms, and your
cities will spring up again as if by magic;
but destroy our farms and the grass will
grow in the streets of every city in the
country.
will be possible; but that until this is
done, there is no other reform that can be
accomplished.
Why is it that within three months such a
change has come over the country? Three
months ago when it was confidently
asserted that those who believed in the
gold standard would frame our platform
and nominate our candidates, even the
advocates of the gold standard did not
think that we could elect a President. And
they had good reason for their doubt,
because there is scarcely a State here
today asking for the gold standard which
is not in the absolute control of the
Republic Party. But note the change. Mr.
McKinley was nominated at St. Louis
upon a platform which declared for the
maintenance of the gold standard until it
can be changed into bimetallism by
international agreement. Mr. McKinley
was the most popular man among the
Republicans, and three months ago
everybody in the Republican Party
prophesied his election. How is it today?
Why, the man who was once pleased to
think that he looked like Napoleon-that
man shudders today when he remembers
that he was nominated on the anniversary
of the battle of Waterloo....
My friends, we declare that this nation is
able to legislate for its own people on
every question, without waiting for the
aid or consent of any other nation on
earth; and upon that issue we expect to
carry every state in the Union. I shall not
slander the inhabitants of the fair state of
Massachusetts nor the inhabitants of the
state of New York by saying that, when
they are confronted with the proposition,
they will declare that this nation is not
able to attend to its own business. It is the
issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors,
when but three million in number, had the
courage to declare their political
independence of every other nation; shall
we, their descendants, when we have
grown to seventy millions, declare that
we are less independent than our
forefathers?
No, my friends, that will never be the
verdict of our people. Therefore, we care
not upon what lines the battle is fought. If
they say bimetallism is good, but that we
cannot have it until other nations help us,
we reply, that instead of having a gold
standard because England has, we will
restore bimetallism, and then let England
have bimetallism because the United
States has it. If they dare to come out in
the open field and defend the gold
standard as a good thing, we will fight
them to the uttermost. Having behind us
the producing masses of this nation and
the world, supported by the commercial
interests, the laboring interests and the
toilers everywhere, we will answer their
demand for a gold standard by saying to
them: You shall not press down upon the
brow of labor this crown of thorns, you
shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of
gold.
"NO PUBLIC OFFICIAL WHO
CONSCIENTIOUSLY DISCHARGES
HIS DUTY WILL DESIRE TO DENY
THOSE WHOM HE SERVES THE
RIGHT TO DISCUSS HIS OFFICIAL
CONDUCT." from New York World, 13
August, 1896.
Homepage
© 2000, Rebecca Edwards, Vassar College
Plessy v. Ferguson (No. 210)
___
Syllabus
Opinion
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Dissent
[ Harlan ]
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Syllabus
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
163 U.S. 537
Plessy v. Ferguson
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
No. 210 Argued: April 18, 1896 --- Decided: May 18, 1896
The statute of Louisiana, acts of 1890, c. 111, requiring railway
companies carrying passengers in their coaches in that State, to
provide equal, but separate, accommodations for the white and
colored races, by providing two or more passenger coaches for each
passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition
so as to secure separate accommodations; and providing that no
person shall be permitted to occupy seats in coaches other than the
ones assigned to them, on account [p538] of the race they belong to;
and requiring the officer of the passenger train to assign each
passenger to the coach or compartment assigned for the race to
which he or she belong; and imposing fines or imprisonment upon
passengers insisting on going into a coach or compartment other than
the one set aide for the race to which he or she belongs; and
conferring upon officers of the train power to refuse to carry on the
train passengers refusing to occupy the coach or compartment
assigned to them, and exempting the railway company from liability
for such refusal, are not in conflict with the provisions either of the
Thirteenth Amendment or of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States.
This was a petition for writs of prohibition and certiorari, originally
filed in the Supreme Court of the State by Plessy, the plaintiff in
error, against the Hon. John H. Ferguson, judge of the criminal
District Court for the parish of Orleans, and setting forth in substance
the following facts:
That petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a resident of
the State of Louisiana, of mixed descent, in the proportion of seven
eighths Caucasian and one eighth African blood; that the mixture of
colored blood was not discernible in him, and that he was entitled to
every recognition, right, privilege and immunity secured to the
citizens of the United States of the white race by its Constitution and
laws; that, on June 7, 1892, he engaged and paid for a first class
passage on the East Louisiana Railway from New Orleans to
Covington, in the same State, and thereupon entered a passenger
train, and took possession of a vacant seat in a coach where
passengers of the white race were accommodated; that such railroad
company was incorporated by the laws of Louisiana as a common
carrier, and was not authorized to distinguish between citizens
according to their race. But, notwithstanding this, petitioner was
required by the conductor, under penalty of ejection from said train
and imprisonment, to vacate said coach and occupy another seat in a
coach assigned by said company for persons not of the white race,
and for no other reason than that petitioner was of the colored race;
that, upon petitioner's refusal to comply with such order, he was,
with the aid of a police officer, forcibly ejected from said coach and
hurried off to and imprisoned in the parish jail of [p539] New
Orleans, and there held to answer a charge made by such officer to
the effect that he was guilty of having criminally violated an act of
the General Assembly of the State, approved July 10, 1890, in such
case made and provided.
That petitioner was subsequently brought before the recorder of the
city for preliminary examination and committed for trial to the
criminal District Court for the parish of Orleans, where an
information was filed against him in the matter above set forth, for a
violation of the above act, which act the petitioner affirmed to be
null and void, because in conflict with the Constitution of the United
States; that petitioner interposed a plea to such information based
upon the unconstitutionality of the act of the General Assembly, to
which the district attorney, on behalf of the State, filed a demurrer;
that, upon issue being joined upon such demurrer and plea, the court
sustained the demurrer, overruled the plea, and ordered petitioner
to plead over to the facts set forth in the information, and that,
unless the judge of the said court be enjoined by a writ of prohibition
from further proceeding in such case, the court will proceed to fine
and sentence petitioner to imprisonment, and thus deprive him of his
constitutional rights set forth in his said plea, notwithstanding the
unconstitutionality of the act under which he was being prosecuted;
that no appeal lay from such sentence, and petitioner was without
relief or remedy except by writs of prohibition and certiorari. Copies
of the information and other proceedings in the criminal District
Court were annexed to the petition as an exhibit.
Upon the filing of this petition, an order was issued upon the
respondent to show cause why a writ of prohibition should not issue
and be made perpetual, and a further order that the record of the
proceedings had in the criminal cause be certified and transmitted to
the Supreme Court.
To this order the respondent made answer, transmitting a certified
copy of the proceedings, asserting the constitutionality of the law,
and averring that, instead of pleading or admitting that he belonged
to the colored race, the said Plessy declined and refused, either by
pleading or otherwise, to admit [p540] that he was in any sense or in
any proportion a colored man.
The case coming on for a hearing before the Supreme Court, that
court was of opinion that the law under which the prosecution was
had was constitutional, and denied the relief prayed for by the
petitioner. Ex parte Plessy, 45 La.Ann. 80. Whereupon petitioner
prayed for a writ of error from this court, which was allowed by the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Our Country (1885) by Josiah Strong
During the so-called Gilded Age, many social commentators worried about the effects of unchecked urban
development. Josiah Strong, a prominent Congregationalist minister from Ohio, was among the most concerned. In
1885 he published Our Country, a comprehensive critique of modern developments. Strong viewed the large city as a
menace to morals and to the social order. He also feared that the tenor of urban culture warred against the teachings of
Christianity.
The city is the nerve center of our civilization. It is also the storm center. The fact, therefore, that it is growing much
more rapidly than the whole population is full of significance. In 1790, one-thirtieth of the population of the United States
lived in cities of 8,000 inhabitants and over; in 1800, one twenty-fifth; in 1810, and also in 1820, one-twentieth; in 1830,
one sixteenth; in 1840, one-twelfth; in 1850, one-eighth; in 1860, one-sixth; in 1870, a little over one-fifth; and in 1880,
22.5 per cent, or nearly one-fourth. From 1790 to 1880 the whole population increased a little less than four fold, the
urban population thirteen fold. . . . In 1790 there were only six cities in the United States which had a population of
8,000 or more. In 1880 there were 286.
The city has become a serious menace to our civilization. . . . It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant. Our fifty
principal cities contain 39.3 per cent of our entire German population, and 45.8 per cent of the Irish. Our ten larger cities
only nine per cent of the entire population, but 23 per cent of the foreign. While a little less than one-third of the
population of the United States is foreign by birth or parentage, sixty-two per cent of the population of Cincinnati are
foreign, eighty-three per cent of Cleveland, sixty-three per cent of Boston, eighty- eight per cent of New York, and
ninety-one per cent of Chicago.
Because our cities are so largely foreign, Romanism1 finds in them its chief strength. For the same reason the saloon,
together with the intemperance and the liquor power which it represents, is multiplied in the city. East of the Mississippi
there was, in 1880, one saloon to every 438 of the population; in Boston, one to every 329; in Cleveland, one to every
192; in Chicago, one to every 179; in New York, one to every 171; in Cincinnati, one to every 124. Of course the
demoralizing and pauperizing power of the saloons and their debauching influence in politics increase with their
numerical strength.
It is the city where wealth is massed; and here are the tangible evidences of it piled many stories high. Here the sway of
Mammon2 is widest, and his worship the most constant and eager. Here are luxuries gathered—everything that dazzles
the eye, or tempts the appetite; here is the most extravagant expenditure. Here, also, is the congestion of wealth
severest. Dives and Lazarus3 are brought face to face; here, in sharp contrast, are the ennui of surfeit and the
desperation of starvation. The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city than elsewhere; and, as a rule, the
greater are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor. Not only does the proportion of the poor increase with the
growth of the city, but their condition becomes more wretched. The poor of a city with 8,000 inhabitants are well off
compared with many in New York; and there are no such depths of woe, such utter and heart-wringing wretchedness in
New York as in London. . . .
Socialism not only centers in the city, but is almost confined to it; and the materials of its growth are multiplied with the
growth of the city. Here is heaped the social dynamite; here roughs, gamblers, thieves, robbers, lawless and desperate
men of all sorts, congregate; men who are ready on any pretext to raise riots for the purpose of destruction and plunder;
here gather foreigners and wage-workers; here skepticism and irreligion abound; here inequality is the greatest and
most obvious, and the contrast between opulence and penury the most striking; here is suffering the sorest. As the
greatest wickedness in the world is to be found not among the cannibals of some far off coast, but in Christian lands
where the light of truth is diffused and rejected, so the utmost depth of wretchedness exists not among savages, who
have few wants, but in great cities, where, in the presence of plenty and of every luxury men starve. . . .
"During the past three years, 220,976 persons in New York have asked for outside aid in one form or another." Said a
New York Supreme judge, not long since: "There is a large class—I was about to say a majority—of the population of
New York area Brooklyn, who just live, and to whom the rearing of two or more children means inevitably a boy for the
penitentiary, and a girl for the brothel." Under such conditions smolder the volcanic fires of a deep discontent.
As a rule, our largest cities are the worst governed. It is natural, therefore, to infer that, as our cities grow larger and
more dangerous, the government will become more corrupt, and control will pass more completely into the hands of
those who themselves most need to be controlled. If we would appreciate the significance of these facts and
tendencies, we must bear in mind that the disproportionate growth of the city is undoubtedly to continue, and the
number of great cities to be largely increased. . . .
But the supreme peril, which will certainly come, eventually, and must probably be faced by multitudes now living, will
arise, when, the conditions having been fully prepared, some great industrial or other crisis precipitates an open
struggle between the destructive and the conservative elements of society. As civilization advances, and society
becomes more highly organized, commercial transactions will be more complex and immense. As a result, all business
relations and industries will be more sensitive. Commercial distress in any great business center will the more surely
create widespread disaster. Under such conditions, industrial paralysis is likely to occur from time to time, more general
and more prostrating than any heretofore known. When such a commercial crisis has closed factories by the ten
thousand, and wageworkers have been thrown out of employment by the million; when the public lands, which hitherto
at such times have afforded relief, are all exhausted; when our urban population has been multiplied several fold; and
our Cincinnatis have become Chicagos, our Chicagos and our New Yorks, Londons; when class antipathies are
deepened; when socialistic organizations, armed and drilled, are in every city, and the ignorant and vicious power of
crowded populations has fully found itself; when the corruption of city governments is grown apace; when crops fail, or
some gigantic "corner" doubles the price of bread; with starvation in home; with idle workingmen gathered, sullen and
desperate, in the saloons with unprotected wealth at hand; with the tremendous forces of chemistry within easy reach;
then with the opportunity, the means, the fit agents; the motive, the temptation to destroy, all brought into evil
conjunction, THEN will come the real test of our institutions, then will appear whether we are capable of selfgovernment
[From Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York: The American Home
Missionary Society, 1885), pp. 128-43.]
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
by W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission; but
adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his programme unique. This is an age of unusual
economic development, and Mr. Washington's programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming
a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the
higher aims of life. Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are coming in closer
contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is therefore intensified; and Mr.
Washington's programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our
own land, the reaction from the sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against
Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and American
citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro's tendency to self-assertion has been
called forth; at this period a policy of submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races
and peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more than
lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it,
are not worth civilizing.
In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through submission. Mr.
Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things,-First, political power,
Second, insistence on civil rights,
Third, higher education of Negro youth,--
and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the
conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously and insistently advocated for over fifteen
years, and has been triumphant for perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch,
what has been the return? In these years there have occurred:
1. The disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington's teachings; but his
propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment. The question then
comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic
lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre
chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these
questions, it is an emphatic No. And Mr. Washington thus faces the triple paradox of his career:
1. He is striving nobly to make Negro artisans business men and property-owners; but it is utterly
impossible, under modern competitive methods, for workingmen and property-owners to defend
their rights and exist without the right of suffrage.
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a silent submission to civic
inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates institutions of higher
learning; but neither the Negro common-schools, nor Tuskegee itself, could remain open a day
were it not for teachers trained in Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates.
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington's position is the object of criticism by two classes of colored
Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Toussaint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and
Turner, and they represent the attitude of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and
distrust the white race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the Negro's
only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And yet, by the irony of fate,
nothing has more effectually made this programme seem hopeless than the recent course of the
United States toward weaker and darker peoples in the West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines,--for
where in the world may we go and be safe from lying and brute force?
The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington has hitherto said little aloud. They
deprecate the sight of scattered counsels, of internal disagreement; and especially they dislike making
their just criticism of a useful and earnest man an excuse for a general discharge of venom from
small-minded opponents. Nevertheless, the questions involved are so fundamental and serious that it
is difficult to see how men like the Grimkes, Kelly Miller, J. W. E. Bowen, and other representatives of
this group, can much longer be silent. Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three
things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.
They acknowledge Mr. Washington's invaluable service in counselling patience and courtesy in
such demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men vote when ignorant whites are debarred,
or that any reasonable restrictions in the suffrage should not be applied; they know that the low
social level of the mass of the race is responsible for much discrimination against it, but they also
know, and the nation knows, that relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than a result of
the Negro's degradation; they seek the abatement of this relic of barbarism, and not its systematic
encouragement and pampering by all agencies of social power from the Associated Press to the
Church of Christ. They advocate, with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro common
schools supplemented by thorough industrial training; but they are surprised that a man of Mr.
Washington's insight cannot see that no such educational system ever has rested or can rest on
any other basis than that of the well-equipped college and university, and they insist that there is
a demand for a few such institutions throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as
teachers, professional men, and leaders.
This group of men honor Mr. Washington for his attitude of conciliation toward the white South;
they accept the "Atlanta Compromise" in its broadest interpretation; they recognize, with him,
many signs of promise, many men of high purpose and fair judgment, in this section; they know
that no easy task has been laid upon a region already tottering under heavy burdens. But,
nevertheless, they insist that the way to truth and right lies in straightforward honesty, not in
indiscriminate flattery; in praising those of the South who do well and criticising
uncompromisingly those who do ill; in taking advantage of the opportunities at hand and urging
their fellows to do the same, but at the same time in remembering that only a firm adherence to
their higher ideals and aspirations will ever keep those ideals within the realm of possibility.
They do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be educated, will come
in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices of years disappear at the blast of a
trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is
not by voluntarily throwing them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for
a people to gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to
modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as
well as white boys.
In failing thus to state plainly and unequivocally the legitimate demands of their people, even at
the cost of opposing an honored leader, the thinking classes of American Negroes would shirk a
heavy responsibility,--a responsibility to themselves, a responsibility to the struggling masses, a
responsibility to the darker races of men whose future depends so largely on this American
experiment, but especially a responsibility to this nation,--this common Fatherland. It is wrong to
encourage a man or a people in evil-doing; it is wrong to aid and abet a national crime simply
because it is unpopular not to do so. The growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between
the North and South after the frightful differences of a generation ago ought to be a source of
deep congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the war; but if that
reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civic death of those same black men,
with permanent legislation into a position of inferiority, then those black men, if they are really
men, are called upon by every consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by
all civilized methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker T.
Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest
of disaster to our children, black and white.
From Chapter Three, "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others," in The Souls of Black Folk,
by W.E.B. Du Bois (1903), revised from "The Evolution of Negro Leadership," The Dial (July
16, 1901).
Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta
Compromise Speech
On September 18, 1895, African-American spokesman and leader Booker T. Washington spoke
before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in
Atlanta. His “Atlanta Compromise” address, as it came to be called, was one of the most
important and influential speeches in American history. Although the organizers of the
exposition worried that “public sentiment was not prepared for such an advanced step,” they
decided that inviting a black speaker would impress Northern visitors with the evidence of racial
progress in the South. Washington soothed his listeners’ concerns about “uppity” blacks by
claiming that his race would content itself with living “by the productions of our hands.”
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material,
civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the
highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of
my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been
more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at
every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the
two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial
progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we
began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more
sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had
more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the
unfortunate vessel was seen a signal,“Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the
friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the
signal, “Water, water; send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered,
“Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for water was answered,
“Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the
injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of
the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land
or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white
man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”—
cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are
surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions.
And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called
to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a
man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in
emphasizing this chance. 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; shall prosper in proportion
as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws
of life and the useful. 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. Nor should
we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue
and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own
race,“Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes
whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved
treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who
have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your
railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make
possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your 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 sick-bed 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, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and
religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that
are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to
mutual progress.
There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development
of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these
efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent
citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These efforts will be
twice blessed—blessing him that gives and him that takes. There is no escape through law of
man or God from the inevitable:
The laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined We march to fate abreast...
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 [of] 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.
Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our
progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there
in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the
path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies,
steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug stores
and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in
what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our
part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has
come to our educational life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern
philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the
extremest 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. No race that has
anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important
and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared
for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth
infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and
encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the
Exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles
of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in
your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the
South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this he
constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of
forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond
material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of
sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer
absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, coupled
with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.
Source: Louis R. Harlan, ed., The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3, (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1974), 583–587.
The Significance of the Frontier in American
History Frederick Jackson Turner (1893)
Introduction No academic paper has ever had an impact equal to that of Frederick Jackson
Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." Turner's essay was initially delivered at
the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's first
voyage to the Western Hemisphere. The essay provided the leading paradigm for understanding
American history over the next several decades. Turner built his thesis on the revelation in the 1890
census that the United States no longer had a clear line of frontier— nation had filled up its continental
borders. Thus, a long period of American expansion had come to a close, but not without leaving
permanent marks on the American character…. Questions
to Consider
1. Explain the importance of 1890 in Turner's Thesis.
2. Why did Turner believe that the American frontier was different from the European
frontier?
3. According to Turner, how had the frontier shaped American life? Do you agree? Why or
why not?
4. Explain why Turner's ideas about the frontier might be considered controversial in the
1890s as well as today.
5. Does America have any frontiers left? If so, describe them and explain what impact they
have on American life.
In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words:
"Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled
area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to
be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it can not,
therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports." This brief official statement marks the
closing of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American history has been in a large
degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land,
its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American
development. . . . 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 into the complexity
of city life. . . . The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European frontier—
fortified boundary line running through dense populations. The most significant thing about the
American frontier is, that it lies at the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated
as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the square mile. The term
is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition. . . . In the settlement of
America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America
modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe. Our early history is the study of
European germs developing in an American environment. . . . The frontier is the line of most
rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a
European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad
car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the
hunting shirt and the moccasin. It
puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him.
Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the
war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short, at the frontier the environment
is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and
so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. . . . At first, the frontier
was the Atlantic coast. It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the
frontier became more and more American. As successive terminal moraines result from
successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a
settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. 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. 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. . . . The effect of the Indian frontier as a consolidating agent in our history is
important. From the close of the seventeenth century various inter-colonial congresses have
been called to treat with Indians and establish common measures of defense. Particularism was
strongest in colonies with no Indian frontier. This frontier stretched along the western border like
a cord of union. The Indian was a common danger, demanding united action. . . . . . . [T]he
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. . . . The legislation which most developed the powers of the national government,
and played the largest part in its activity, was conditioned on the frontier. Writers have
discussed the subjects of tariff, land, and internal improvement, as subsidiary to the slavery
question. But when American history comes to be rightly viewed it will be seen that the slavery
question is an incident. In the period from the end of the first half of the present century to the
close of the Civil War slavery rose to primary, but far from exclusive, importance. . . . The
growth of nationalism and the evolution of American political institutions were dependent on the
advance of the frontier. . . . But the most important effect of the frontier has been in 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. . . . 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. He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive
character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and,
unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a
wider field for its exercise. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. . . . 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.
Source: http://college.hmco.com/history/us/resources/students/primary/sigfront.htm
FROM HELEN HUNT JACKSON, A CENTURY OF DISHONOR
(NEW YORK, 1881)
"There are within the limits of the United States between two hundred and fifty and three hundred
thousand Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska. The names of the different tribes and bands, as
entered in the statistical table so the Indian Office Reports, number nearly three hundred. One of the
most careful estimates which have been made of their numbers and localities gives them as follows:
"In Minnesota and States east of the Mississippi, about 32,500; in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian
Territory, 70,650; in the Territories of Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, 65,000; in Nevada and
the Territories of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, 84,000; and on the Pacific slope, 48,000."
Of these, 130,000 are self-supporting on their own reservations, "receiving nothing from the
Government except interest on their own moneys, or annuities granted them in consideration of the
cession of their lands to the United States."
. . . Of the remainder, 84,000 are partially supported by the Government-the interest money due them
and their annuities, as provided by treaty, being inadequate to their subsistence on the reservations
where they are confined. . . .
There are about 55,000 who never visit an agency, over whom the Government does not pretend to
have either control or care. These 55,000 "subsist by hunting, fishing, on roots, nuts, berries, etc.,and
by begging and stealing"; and this also seems to dispose of the accusation that the Indian will not
"work for a living." There remains a small portion, about 31,000, that are entirely subsisted by the
Government.
There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the
hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more
helpless the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected. This is
especially true of the bands on the Pacific slope. These Indians found themselves of a sudden
surrounded by and caught up in the great influx of gold-seeking settlers, as helpless creatures on a
shore are caught up in a tidal wave. There was not time for the Government to make treaties; not
even time for communities to make laws. The tale of the wrongs, the oppressions, the murders of the
Pacific-slope Indians in the last thirty years would be a volume by itself, and is too monstrous to be
believed.
It makes little difference, however, where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every
page and every year has its dark stain. The story of one tribe is the story of all, varied only differences
of time and place; but neither time nor place makes any difference in the main facts. Colorado is as
greedy and unjust in 1880 as was Georgia in 1830, and Ohio in 1795; and the United States
Government breaks promises now as deftly as then, and with an added ingenuity from long practice.
One of its strongest supports in so doing is the wide-spread sentiment among the people of dislike to
the Indian, of impatience with his presence as a "barrier to civilization" and distrust of it as a possible
danger. The old tales of the frontier life, with its horrors of Indian warfare, have gradually, by two or
three generations' telling, produced in the average mind something like an hereditary instinct of
questioning and unreasoning aversion which it is almost impossible to dislodge or soften. . . .
President after president has appointed commission after commission to inquire into and report upon
Indian affairs, and to make suggestions as to the best methods of managing them. The reports are
filled with eloquent statements of wrongs done to the Indians, of perfidies on the part of the
Government; they counsel, as earnestly as words can, a trial of the simple and unperplexing
expedients of telling truth, keeping promises, making fair bargains, dealing justly in all ways and all
things. These reports are bound up with the Government's Annual Reports, and that is the end of
them. . . .
The history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties
and unfulfilled promises. The history of the border white man's connection with the Indians is a
sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs committed by the former, as the rule, and
occasional savage outbreaks and unspeakably barbarous deeds of retaliation by the latter, as the
exception.
Taught by the Government that they had rights entitled to respect, when those rights have been
assailed by the rapacity of the white man, the arm which should have been raised to protect them has
ever been ready to sustain the aggressor.
The testimony of some of the highest military officers of the United States is on record to the effect
that, in our Indian wars, almost without exception, the first aggressions have been made by the white
man. . . . Every crime committed by a white man against an Indian is concealed and palliated. Every
offense committed by an Indian against a white man is borne on the wings of the post or the
telegraph to the remotest corner of the land, clothed with all the horrors which the reality or
imagination can throw around it. Against such influences as these are the people of the United States
need to be warned.
To assume that it would be easy, or by any one sudden stroke of legislative policy possible, to undo
the mischief and hurt of the long past, set the Indian policy of the country right for the future, and
make the Indians at once safe and happy, is the blunder of a hasty and uninformed judgment. The
notion which seems to be growing more prevalent, that simply to make all Indians at once citizens of
the United States would be a sovereign and instantaneous panacea for all their ills and all the
Government's perplexities, is a very inconsiderate one. To administer complete citizenship of a
sudden, all round, to all Indians, barbarous and civilized alike, would be as grotesque a blunder as to
dose them all round with any one medicine, irrespective of the symptoms and needs of their diseases.
It would kill more than it would cure. Nevertheless, it is true, as was well stated by one of the
superintendents of Indian Affairs in 1857, that, "so long as they are not citizens of the United States,
their rights of property must remain insecure against invasion. The doors of the federal tribunals
being barred against them while wards and dependents, they can only partially exercise the rights of
free government, or give to those who make, execute, and construe the few laws they are allowed to
enact, dignity sufficient to make them respectable. While they continue individually to gather the
crumbs that fall from the table of the United States, idleness, improvidence, and indebtedness will be
the rule, and industry, thrift, and freedom from debt the exception. The utter absence of individual
title to particular lands deprives every one among them of the chief incentive to labor and exertionthe very mainspring on which the prosperity of a people depends."
All judicious plans and measures for their safety and salvation must embody provisions for their
becoming citizens as fast as they are fit, and must protect them till then in every right and particular in
which our laws protect other "persons" who are not citizens. . . .
However great perplexity and difficulty there may be in the details of any and every plan possible for
doing at this late day anything like justice to the Indian, however, hard it may be for good statesmen
and good men to agree upon the things that ought to be done, there certainly is, or ought to be, no
perplexity whatever, on difficulty whatever, in agreeing upon certain things that ought not to be
done, and which must cease to be done before the first steps can be taken toward righting the
wrongs, curing the ills, and wiping out the disgrace to us of the present conditions of our Indians.
Cheating, robbing, breaking promises-these three are clearly things which must cease to be done. One
more thing, also, and that is the refusal of the protection of the law to the Indian's rights of property,
"of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
When these four things have ceased to be done, time, statesmanship, philanthropy, and Christianity
can slowly and surely do the rest. Till these four things have ceased to be done, statesmanship and
philanthropy alike must work in vain, and even Christianity can reap but small harvest."