An Appeal to Cæsar"Tourgée's book An Appeal to Caesar (1884) grew out of a White House conversation between the author and his boyhood friend, the newly elected president James A. Garfield. The conversation concerned the failure of Reconstruction-era legislation and the primary available remedy, which, in Tourgée's opinion, centered on federally supported education for the victims (white as well as black) of slavery. Tourgée had promised the president he would produce a book of analysis and advice on the subject. With this book he made good on his promise, but because Garfield was assassinated only four months into his presidency, Tourgée was forced to readdress the appeal alluded to in the title--no longer "to the dear, dead Caesar. . . but to that other and greater Caesar. . . the American People""--Peter C. Meyers, TeachingAmericanHistory.org. |
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Common terms and phrases
Alabama American appropriation ballot become believe Black Belt Cæsar census of 1880 cent centuries Christian citizen Colored Natives colored population colored race conflict consider consideration constitute danger doubt duty effect element emigration enfranchisement enlightenment equal evil exercise exist fact favor feeling Florida Fool's Errand force freedman fund Georgia hostility idea ignorance illiteracy illiterates increase individual influences instinct intelligence Judge Tourgee knowledge labor legislation less liberty Louisiana matter measure ment millions mind Mississippi Missouri native whites natural negro niggers North Number and Percentage peace perhaps peril political portunity present primary education privileges proportion prosperity question reason regard relations remedy republic Republican Party secure self-support sentiment simply slave slavery South Carolina Southern whites TABLE territory thing thought tion to-day Total twenty United Virginia voters West Virginia white population white race
Popular passages
Page 262 - A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or, perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Page 262 - Nor am I less persuaded that you will agree with me in opinion that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours, it is proportionably essential.
Page 262 - If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Page 262 - Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education and other great foundations of prosperity and union under the powers which congress may already possess, or such amendment of the constitution as may be approved by the states?
Page 413 - The intelligence of the nation is but the aggregate of the intelligence of the several States; and the destiny of the nation must be guided, not by the genius of any one State, but by the average genius of all.
Page 413 - ... not try to shuffle off the responsibility, nor cloak the danger. Honest ignorance in the masses is more to be dreaded than malevolent intelligence in the few. It furnished the rank and file of rebellion and the prejudice-blinded multitudes who made the Policy of Repression effectual. PoorWhites, Freedmen, Ku-Klux, and Bulldozers are all alike the harvest of ignorance. The Nation can not afford to grow such a crop.
Page 279 - ... against this Act, be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, and imprisoned not more than six months ; or if a free person of color, shall be whipped, not exceeding fifty lashes...
Page 265 - We have no standard by which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in the citizens when joined to corruption and fraud in the suffrage.
Page 301 - For the North and South alike there is but one remedy. All the constitutional power of the nation and of the States, and all the volunteer forces of the people should be summoned to meet this danger by the saving influence of universal education.
Page 266 - Union who make and unmake constitutions, and upon zvhose will hang the destinies of our governments, can transmit their supreme authority to no successors save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the .fall of the Republic will be certain and remediless.