Chapter Two, Boston, III, p 28 “the government did nothing to weaken [the Mormons’] doctrine and what happened? The Mormons were chased out by the people themselves. The church in which they thought to gather all mankind is now a pile of rubble, and they must seek escape from persecution in the far plains and deserts. The government wanted only that the sect, in occupying territory, recognize the higher authority of the Union; it was the people who persecuted the Mormon polygamists!”
Chapter Two, Boston, III, p 28, NOTE 5. The “pile of rubble” was the Mormon Temple ruins in Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mormons established a new community on the shores of Great Salt Lake in 1847.
Chapter Two, Boston, III, p 28 “Free in law, the Puritan is a slave to custom and public opinion.”
Chapter Two, Boston, VI, p 37 “In Boston schooling is paid for by the city. Special taxes are collected from the inhabitants for this purpose, sufficient to cover expenditures for support of the schools, salaries of the teachers, and the purchase, construction, and upkeep of school buildings. The people who share this burden are those who themselves or whose families benefit either directly from the advantages of education or indirectly from urban well-being and order. In this fashion the obligation to support the school is divided proportionately, and the rich with their excess wealth share in the education of the poor.”
Chapter Two, Boston, VI, p 41 “Much attention is paid to the drawing of maps; geography, like the other sciences, is taught by visual demonstration. Pupils are taught how to travel from America to all parts of the world. They must tell the route a steamship takes, what stops it makes, where anything remarkable is to be seen, and what one finds important in the country where it arrives.”
Chapter Two, Boston, VI, p 41 “Young people aged twelve to sixteen are taught ancient geography, general history, algebra, geometry, trigonometry as applied to measurement, surveying, navigation, astronomy, more on the United States Constitution, bookkeeping, drawing, French and Spanish. Finally, pupils who might desire to improve themselves further, especially in the mathematical sciences, may stay a year and take lessons in astronomy, philosophy, logic, Spanish, geology, mechanics, the engineering arts, and higher mathematics. Theology and instruction in religion are not offered in any of the various levels of schools. This is mainly because there is no established religion and each person can be a member of any church he chooses. Pastors are entrusted with providing religious instruction to the degree and to the age-level required by the rules of the sect.”
Chapter Three, New York, I, p 58 “When you tell an American about class divisions in other lands he becomes ecstatic about the equal state of each and all, without distinctions of wealth, origin, or connections, n his own country. In America he considers this equality absolutely natural, and he separates out only the colored (with whom whites want to have nothing in common, not even the air they breathe), and ladies (who are considered higher beings deserving esteem and general respect—an aristocracy, if you will). All others have the same rights, the best seat belongs not to the one who is rich and can pay more, but to the one who comes first.”
Chapter Three, New York, I, p 60 – 61 “I could at my own leisure more closely observe the faces of these people pondering, constantly calculating something, completely unsmiling and cold until the familiar dollar came into the picture.” Chapter Three, New York, II, p 64 “In the hotels there is a special table for ladies, special parlors, and special entrances. I leave it up to the ladies to decide whether they enjoy being isolated that way, or whether they are offended by the respect which is shown not to their personal qualities, their virtues and beauty, but to their sex, without any distinction.”
Chapter Three, New York, I, p 65 – 66 “Starting in the morning until late in the evening, Broadway and the adjoining streets are crowded with magnificently dressed women and with Americans rushing about on business. Despite the wide sidewalks, the crush is so great that one cannot take a step without poking someone with elbows or body. If you want to excuse yourself or if you wait for apologies, the American has long since flown by like an arrow. It dawns on you that an American cannot tell a lamp post from a person and you end up like him—forcing your way through all obstacles and pushing with no less effort. […] To count how many carriages and how many people pass by a given place on Broadway in one hour is positively impossible. Apparently no one pays any attention to the interests of anyone else. Here and there policemen are visible, dressed in the manner of English police. But the main part of their day, it seems, is spent in guiding ladies across the street from one sidewalk to another, protecting the spoiled American woman from jolts and bruises. But then the American, keeping order himself, sees to it, as it were, that his neighbor does not disturb the peace either. Hence there are no police in America for the preservation of quiet and tranquility.”
Chapter Three, New York, II, p 67 “No one better than the American can depict in an advertisement the beauty and sweetness of the most ordinary things. To praise them he will find room for poetry and prose, will call on history for help if only it can bring him a dollar, and will spare no money for spreading the information that there is only one thing on earh deserving attention and that this thing is at his disposal for ten or twenty-five cents.”
Chapter Three, New York, II, p 69 “A small sum of money collected through the sale of some land or personal property at great loss is brought here and serves as the base on which hotheads build castles in the air. But the dreams disintegrate with the first step on American soil, not because the land is inhospitable, but because the science of making money does not come easy anywhere. A European from Germany, indeed from anywhere (except England, of course), good-natured and hoping only for work, falls into the hands of an American who looks to see whether or not he can swindle the fellow. And he does so, because he wants to prove in practice the truth of the principle that money brought from Europe does not provide happiness and wealth in America; that, consequently, one must expend it, get to know all the wisdom of the Americans, and then start anew to work and toil until enough is acquired to begin a new life.”
Chapter Three, New York, II, p 71 “in 1857 when thousands of people needing bread and asking for work gathered in front of New York’s City Hall. […] The beggars and the poor grew in number, crime became more frequent, and the streets at night were not altogether safe. The matter ended with the City Council assigning $250,000 for developing the so-called Central Park, a project which could provide work for a thousand people.”
Chapter Three, New York, II, p 71, NOTE 9. Although plans for Central Park had been proposed as early as 1850, the property for it was not purchased until 1856. Actual work on the park began in the depression year of 1857, when the city instituted a program of work relief for the unemployed.
Chapter Three, New York, II, p 72 “It is sad that the rural population is decreasing and the area of uncultivated land is growing while the population of the cities is rising noticeably. America may in time reach the same state of affairs as have the manufacturing and commercial cities of England, that is, extreme poverty existing alongside extreme wealth. Americans pay too little attention to this.”
Chapter Four, New York, I, p 84 “At the time there were various explanations for an event that will be long remembered not only in America but in Europe as well. They sought for a way to alleviate the misery by limiting the right of bankers to issue paper money insufficiently backed by hard currency. But the reasons for the problem go much deeper; they are to be found in limitless credit, in enterprises begun without a financial base, and in the issuing of a huge amount of various stocks and bonds that were accepted by banks and placed in circulation as if they had some value. Meanwhile the demand for luxury imports from Europe began to grow, and there were too few American raw materials for export. The excess of imports over exports had to be paid for in hard cash, which in turn became insufficient to cover the demands of depositors. Even before the beginning of the so-called financial crisis it was evident from the accounts of the New York banks that nine dollars brought only one dollar in hard cash. Majority opinion, echoes of which were heard in Congress, the state legislatures, and the newspapers, was that there should be a decrease in the number of banks and a reduction in the amount of paper money not properly guaranteed, with a requirement that the reserves of hard cash be equal to at least one-fourth of the assignats issued. In other words, this meant curtailing the private enterprise of a people that knows no limit in its activity. But not three months had passed from the beginning of the crisis and business once again proceeded in orderly fashion. Some had suffered, others had gained, and banking principles in essence remained unchanged.”
Chapter Four, New York, II, p 86 “The duty of everyone to run to a fire is incomprehensible to a European. But in this lies the difference between American society and ours, that no one can, no one must, and no one wants to refuse labor for the common good. Labor is respected in all its aspects and forms and only idleness and parasitism are condemned by public opinion.”
Chapter Six, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Baltimore, V, p 128 – 129 “the American is convinced that only free general public education can have a beneficial influence on the well-being of the nation; it is that to which he feels he owes his rapid prosperity.”
Chapter Nine, Illinois and Wisconsin, II, p 177 “nowhere does the American betray the common principle of public education.”
Chapter Nine, Illinois and Wisconsin, II, p 178 “That there is no distinction here between rich and poor, that a rich man’s son sits next to the son of a worker in the rich man’s factory or wharf, goes without saying. But Chicago was unique in a way I had not encountered in other cities. What I have in mind is that Negroes receive an education in most of the free states, but they have separate schools. Although their schools have the same system and procedures as do the white schools, there is no desire to mix colored and white in the same building. This is not because Negroes cannot keep pace with white youngsters or are less talented or lazier, but because of an innate American detestation for blacks. In this sense Chicago proved to be a good example of the equality of races, and the children could not have gotten along more peacefully with each other.”
Chapter Nine, Illinois and Wisconsin, II, p 178 , NOTE 2. “The number of Negroes in Chicago grew from 323 in 1850 to 955 in 1860, which was still less than 1 percent of the city’s population. Had Lakier visited Chicago in 1863 instead of 1857 he would have been dismayed to learn that the city had abandoned integrated education. In the later year, “at a time when a war was being waged to free Negroes, one or more schools were required to care for colored children who were not to attend schools for white children after such schools were provided.” Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago, vol. 1, From Town to City, 1848 – 1871 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), p. 339
Chapter Eleven, St. Louis and Slavery, II, p 215 “In [Benjamin Gratz] Brown’s opinion […] concern for terminating slavery has as its goal the emancipation not of the Negroes but of the white race from competition with slave labor.”
Chapter Eleven, St. Louis and Slavery, II, p 216 “Of course no measures can compel planters to manumit their Negroes or can designate a fixed redemption price for slaves. Liberation is more likely to come about from the terrible rise in prices for Negroes and from the spreading belief that the labor of whites, to say nothing of their productivity, is ultimately cheaper, as is all free labor.”
Chapter Eleven, St. Louis and Slavery, II, p 217 – 219 “The American legislator, acting on the principle that the Negro is a chattel, has dispossessed the Negro of the right to have a family, wife, and children, and has given the white the right to beat, punish, and even deprive the man-chattel of life. The Negro does not even have the right to complain against the white, and if a matter were to go to court, the white judge would always side with the slaveowner against the Negro. In some ways the judge is an accomplice of the slaveowner, and by penalizing only the slave, he believes he is teaching his own slaves a lesson. But then the courts are seldom resorted to for punishing Negroes. If a slave is found outside the plantation without permission from his master, he can be stopped and punished on the spot; if he resists, he can be killed. As soon as a Negro is brought to court, no matter what the nature of the complaint might be, whether an insignificant theft or the most serious crime, every justice of the peace has the right to arrest him immediately and turn him over to a jury composed of neighboring landowners. Of course all of them are the natural enemies of the poor Negro and a simple majority is enough to impose even the death penalty. In general the determination of punishments is left to the discretion of the jury; they set the conditions and the length of time. In the case of a death penalty, the same court determines the manner of execution, and the landowner losing the slave is compensated from public funds. The Romans had already said that the escape of a slave was a special kind of theft and that a runaway was the thief of his own person. The slave in America who flees the province where he is settled is punished with death. The law punishes just as severely anyone who has helped a runaway and any accomplice in the crime. Furthermore if a slave runs away from the plantation and is gone for twenty days, he is subject to harsh corporal punishment. If an owner himself does not make use of this right, any judge can impose punishment on a criminal slave on behalf of the owner. Upon repetition of the crime the slave is branded on the right cheek with the letter R for runaway. Again, if the owner himself fails to carry out the commands of the law he is subject to a fine of ten pounds sterling and any justice of the peace can order the branding. For a third escape the slave’s ear is cut off, on a fourth other parts of the body are cut off. If the master does not carry out these cruel punishments within twenty days after the crime has been committed, he loses his property right to the slave, who is then transferred to the one who informed on the owner. In general a runaway slave is pursued as if he were a wild beast that escaped from its cage: the master himself, the organs of public power, and even outsiders join in the chase. Each one is promised a reward for the slave’s capture. In the event a person suffers losses, falls sick, or is wounded as a result of the zealous pursuit, he is guaranteed to be recompensed out of public funds. As precautionary measures against attempts at even thinking of running away, the Negro is denied any means of education. The idea of his humanity and human dignity, and notions about property or moral and religious enlightenment, are all suppressed. While in the very beginning Americans at least said that the advantages of transporting Negroes included, among other things, enlightening them through Christianity, so that they would not forever remains heathens living in Africa, now even that argument to excuse an evil business collapses in the face of sad reality. It is hard to speak indifferently about the treatment of Negroes, and what has been summarized from the Slave Code is sufficient to make one look with horror at this hateful ulcer in a free society. But if you carry on a conversation with any owner of Negroes, he starts talking about the care he lavishes upon the Negro and marvels at the “tales of nonsense” a European directs at the American planter. It is strange how a Frenchman or German who has immigrated to Mississippi forgets those ideas of freedom which were so sweet and dear to him in Europe. Now an owner of slaves living off their labor, he will say without a twinge of conscience that he takes care of the Negro as he does an expensive horse or precious furniture, and that he mates Negroes (a technical term used by the French here—placer les nègres) who are healthy and strong with healthy Negresses, not because they have a mutual liking for one another—indeed, he does not ask about their loves or attachments—but simply because they will have a healthy litter of children. This practice takes the place of marriage, and from whomever there might be a baby, whether from a black or a white man, the child of a Negress is a slave like its mother. It goes without saying that a Negress who can obtain the favor of her master receives some indulgence and respect. But her children, however much white blood may be in their veins, can look forward to the same fate that befalls the blackest Negro—being sold into eternal servitude at public auction. One of the most important factors compelling a European to censure the North American Union is slavery. Except for the slaveowners themselves, hardly anyone defends it.”
Chapter Eleven, St. Louis and Slavery, II, p 218, NOTE 10. Many of the basic Slave Codes in use by the individual southern states in 1857 were enacted in the eighteenth century, before independence, and fines were stated in pounds, shillings, and pence.
Chapter Eleven, St. Louis and Slavery, II, p 218, NOTE 11. Lakier’s notion that a single Slave Code existed for all southern states is incorrect. Each southern state had its own Slave Code, which varies from those of other southern states. However, Lakier’s brief summary of some of the key features of those codes is generally accurate.
Chapter Twelve, Down the Mississippi to New Orleans, II, p 233 “the mixing of white and black races is quite frequent and mulattoes are not uncommon. The fourth generation of this mixture, the so-called quadroons, live in the same alienation from whites as do Negroes. They are often wealthy and have been educated in Paris or in some other city. They love to dress well and throw their money around, and in vengeance for the fact that whites hold them in contempt, quadroons do not let whites enter their society. An exception is made for a European and the doors to the quadroons’ social receptions are more easily opened to a foreigner.”
Chapter Twelve, Down the Mississippi to New Orleans, II, p 238 “A gentleman who evidently was the proprietor of the establishment, thinking that I was looking for a slave, insisted that I come in. There was a long room with benches along two walls. Upon my entering everyone got up. I was uncomfortable wearing a hat among those people with their bare heads, but the smile that lit up every black face revealing rows of white teeth was a thousand times sadder for me than the tears and groans I would have wished to hear as a protest against this base treatment of human beings. The proprietor, to his shame, was a German. If we stopped in front of a Negress, he turned her around, displayed her charms and spoke in my ear about her various recommendations. The poor woman, forgetting her natural shame, smiled and asked that I buy her. If young, she was dressed more coquettishly than the others, and the seller, it was clear, counted on her attire to sell her off more quickly and profitably at the depot.”
Chapter Twelve, Down the Mississippi to New Orleans, II, p 240 “The church owns the Negro preachers as property and their preaching is limited to exhortations for humility and patience, to which their black listeners reply with heartrending sighs and weeping.”
Chapter Twelve, Down the Mississippi to New Orleans, II, p 241 “I myself was a witness to how sadly an unsold Negro stepped down from the platform. A woman is more shy here, too, perhaps more proud than a man, and for her such disregard from the buyers is even more painful. I thought that during my stay in New Orleans I would attend these auctions more often, but they so revolted my soul that I did not go back again. I regret that the respect I developed for the institutions of the northern states was poisoned by the true ulcer of America.”
Chapter Twelve, Down the Mississippi to New Orleans, II, p 241 “[a wealthy planter in New Orleans] found time to introduce me to several wealthy merchants and planters. For the most part their office furniture gave evidence of exquisite luxury and a passion for spending lots of money which, as the fruit of someone else’s labor, was not valued highly.”
Chapter Twelve, Washington, I, p 243 – 244 “A session of Congress is an epoch for Washington but even more for the entire Union of the United States, because Congress serves as a visible link for the states. At all other times they live their own autonomous lives, having their own legislators, courts, educational systems, even their own money, and are governed by officials elected by the people. Were it not for Congress one might fear for the unity of the United States and predict its disintegration.”
Chapter Twelve, Washington, I, p 244, NOTE 2. A national currency did not come into existence until the Bank Act of 1863. Before then state-chartered banks issued their own bank notes.
Chapter Twelve, Washington, I, p 247 “the National Democratic party wants to preserve the unity of both the individual states and the nation as a whole; it therefore endeavors insofar as possible to see to it that no single city, state, or class of people has more political rights than another, so that peace and harmony may prevail in the entire Union. The Republican party endeavors to strengthen the federal government at the expense of the individual states and is prepared to sacrifice the basic unity of the nation for the predominance of one single principle, for example, the abolition of slavery.”
Chapter Twelve, Washington, I, p 248 “Instead of all the splendor of the English court and council, the clerk of Congress reads the president’s long message which calls the members, simply, fellow citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives. Nothing superfluous, nothing dazzling, and immediately after the reading of the message, someone will very likely begin to refute the justice of the principles expressed by the president.”
Chapter Twelve, Washington, I, p 248, NOTE 5. George Washington and John Adams personally read their annual messages to Congress. Thomas Jefferson, fearful of an imperial presidency, was the first president to send his annual message to Congress to be read by a clerk. This practice was followed until Woodrow Wilson reinstituted Washington’s custom of the president’s personally reading his annual State of the Union message to Congress.”
Chapter Twelve, Washington, II, p 250 “The president considered the causes of the crisis and the measures to be taken to eliminate this problem in the future. As the head of the Union saw it, disorder in the financial affairs of American commercial cities was produced by an extraordinary amount of paper money issued by some four thousand irresponsible banking institutions in various states without sufficient backing in hard currency for the holders of such paper money. […] Instances of personal bankruptcy do not serve as a lesson for those who still have money and who can afford to continue a speculation they have already undertaken. True, nowhere is there so much paper money as in the United Sates, and Americans are so used to it that the executive branch cannot, and does not have the authority to, abolish it all at once.”