The organized populism of late-nineteenth-century America was predominantly an outgrowth of southern and midwestern agrarian movements during the 1870s and 1880s. Cooperative alliances emerged claiming to defend the interests of farmers in the face of railroad expansion, exploitative banking practices, and diminishing crop prices. Of key importance were groups such as the Farmers鈥� Alliance, the Agricultural Wheel, and the Grange. In the early 1890s, the Farmers鈥� Alliance and other groups reached out to northeastern labor to form the relatively short-lived Populist (or People鈥檚) Party. Among other things, the new party advocated the regulation and possible public ownership of the railroads, the abolition of national banking, the graduated income tax, reduced tariffs, abandoning the gold standard and embracing free silver, the initiative and referendum, the direct election of U.S. senators, and the eight-hour workday.

The Populist Party reached its zenith when it joined with the Democrats to nominate William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896. While the Democratic Party absorbed Jennings鈥� defeat and survived, the smaller Populist Party could not, especially when Bryan lost again in 1900. The Populist Party collapsed soon afterward. Various strands of the party were absorbed into other elements of the political landscape, among them an emerging movement we now call progressivism.

The American progressive movement lasted roughly from the early 1890s to the early 1920s, encompassing much more than the political party that sprang up around Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Yet, as with many such 鈥渕ovements,鈥� it 聽is difficult to reduce progressivism to a single defining concept or motivation. Among turn-of-the century progressives we find a hodgepodge of political and intellectual strains. Under the tent of progressivism one could find the remnants of the populist agrarians, a variety of Christian social activists, temperance advocates and suffragists, labor and industrial reformers, and university Ph.D.s in philosophy and the new behavioral and social sciences, just to name a few. Nevertheless, we might see in the movement some common themes, perhaps the most significant of which resides in the name attached to it鈥斺�減rogressivism.鈥� It might seem obvious, but one key element uniting many of these reformers, politicians, and intellectuals was their shared embrace of the doctrine of Progress with a capital 鈥淧.鈥� The particular engine of that progress, be it the internal dynamics of history itself or some notion of biological or social evolution, varied among thinkers. We might say, however, that a progressive is someone who likely adheres to some notion that the human condition, and the human being, are improving, developing, or evolving over time. Through social, political, and economic reform, we not only participate in that progress but might help speed it along. As the 鈥渋sm鈥� in the name suggests, progressivism is an ideology of progress. Distinguished from philosophy, which contemplates truth for its own sake, ideology tends to investigate and employ ideas for the expressed purpose of practical, political action, be it preservation or change. Whatever particular concerns might separate the various elements of the progressive movement, they were united in their dedication to changing American life in the name of progress.

In general, the progressives sought to reinterpret the American political order by giving the people more direct power over legislation and elected politicians, and in turn, giving administrative experts in state and federal agencies more power to regulate social and economic life. Progressive political scientists such as Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow distinguished politics from administration. Politics might determine the broad ends or purposes of government, but administration, they argued, deals with detailed policy and the particular, technical means by which we secure those ends. Many progressives argued that enlightened administration could be released from the restraints of elections, separation of powers, and checks and balances to help solve political and economic problems. This progressive vision was perhaps best realized a few years later in the form of Franklin Roosevelt鈥檚 New Deal. Political scientists sometimes refer to this as the rise of the 鈥渁dministrative state.鈥�

Key to the progressive project was the attempt to regulate certain sectors of the economy and redistribute wealth and private property in the name of 聽鈥渟ocial and industrial justice.鈥� But these policies, many progressives argued, would not be enacted as long as the political process was dominated by powerful special interests and as long as the Constitution presented supposedly antidemocratic obstacles to progressive reform (e.g., representation, a difficult method of constitutional amendment, federalism, separation of powers and checks and balances, and a cumbersome legislative process).

For many, the progressive project required an explicit, direct criticism of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Progressive thinkers understood that the natural rights and social contract thinking that informed the Declaration of Independence provided the basis for a limited government constitutionalism that often seemed to frustrate contemporary progressive reform. They often claimed that these founding principles had been swept aside in the march of progressive history or by the evolutionary science of Darwinism. Educated men, they asserted, now knew that there were no transhistorical truths or natural rights that applied to all human beings everywhere and always. Liberty ought not to be seen as natural to man, but as a product of history, a convention, or a dispensation of government. Moreover, if human nature and political wisdom can be improved through historical and scientific progress, perhaps limitations on government were no longer necessary. These admittedly abstract ideas had very practical consequences for America鈥檚 political development.

This document volume deviates from more common 鈥渢extbook鈥� approaches to the study of populism and progressivism in American history, not only because it focuses on primary sources but because it takes ideas seriously. Indeed, the leaders in these movements asked Americans to think about the proper ends and means of American democracy. This is especially true of the progressive movement. Insofar as it is a reaction to the founding, any real understanding of progressivism requires that we place its ideas and institutions in conversation with those of the Founders. We must weigh, balance, and ultimately judge what among their opinions is most reasonable. Necessarily limited in its scope, the present volume can only contribute to part of that dialogue. The reader might begin to construct that dialogue, however, by pairing this volume with others in the Core Documents series, perhaps those on the American Founding and the Constitutional Convention.

I thank David Tucker for editorial advice and assistance. I am also grateful for the advice provided by two anonymous readers. In closing, I should also note that this volume is in part the result of a progressivism course I sometimes teach as a visiting faculty member in Ashland University鈥檚 MAHG program (Master of Arts in American History and Government). I wish to thank the students in those classes鈥攎ost of them teachers鈥攆or their conversation, insights, questions, and dedication to learning through primary source documents. I have also benefitted much from other faculty who have taught the course, among them Christopher Burkett, David Alvis, Ronald J. Pestritto, and William Atto. Pestritto and Atto鈥檚 excellent and frequently assigned reader on American progressivism originated in their iteration of the course. That volume should be required reading for anyone interested in the principles of American progressivism and is listed among the suggested readings in Appendix C.

Jason R. Jividen

Saint Vincent College

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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 boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of those, 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 bondholders; a vast public debt payable in legal tender 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, every 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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 tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

We declare that this Republic can only endure as a free government while built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the nation; that it cannot be pinned together by bayonets; that the civil war is over, and that every passion and resentment which grew out of it must die with it, and that we must be in fact, as we are in name, one united brotherhood of freemen.

Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is no 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 teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land.

While our sympathies as a party of reform are naturally upon the side of every proposition which will tend to make men intelligent, virtuous, and temperate, we nevertheless regard these questions, important as they are, as secondary to the great issues now pressing for solution, and upon which not only our individual prosperity but the very existence of free institutions depend; and we ask all men to first help us to determine whether we are to have a republic to administer before we differ as to the conditions upon which it is to be administered, believing that the forces of reform this day organized will never cease to move forward until every wrong is remedied and equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of this country.

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.”^[4] The interests of rural and civic 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 percent 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 medium 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.
5. 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, 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.

Expression 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 eight-hour 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.^[5] . . .
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.^[6]

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Rufus King to Colonel Pickering, November 4, 1803

Congress may admit new States, but can the Executive by treaty admit them, or, what is equivalent, enter into engagements binding Congress to do so? As by the Louisiana Treaty, the ceded territory must be formed into States, & admitted into the Union, is it understood that Congress can annex any condition to their admission? if not, as Slavery is authorized & exists in Louisiana, and the treaty engages to protect the property of the inhabitants, will not the present inequality, arising from the Representation of Slaves, be increased?

As the provision of the Constitution on this subject may be regarded as one of its greatest blemishes, it would be with reluctance that one could consent to its being extended to the Louisiana States; and provided any act of Congress or of the several states should be deemed requisite to give validity to the stipulation of the treaty on this subject, ought not an effort to be made to limit the Representation to the free inhabitants only? Had it been foreseen that we could raise revenue to the extent we have done, from indirect taxes, the Representation of Slaves wd. never have been admitted; but going upon the maxim that taxation and Representation are inseparable, and that the Genl. Govt. must resort to direct taxes, the States in which Slavery does not exist, were injudiciously led to concede to this unreasonable provision of the Constitution.

Timothy Pickering to Rufus King, March 4, 1804

Dear Sir, — I am disgusted with the men who now rule, and with their measures.  At some manifestations of their malignancy, I am shocked.  The cowardly wretch at their head, while, like a Parisian revolutionary monster, prating about humanity, would feel an infernal pleasure in the utter destruction of his opponents.  We have too long witnessed his general turpitude, his cruel removals of faithful officers, and the substitution of corruption and looseness for integrity and worth.  We have now before the Senate a nomination of Merriweather Jones, of Richmond, editor of the 鈥淓xaminer鈥� a paper devoted to Jefferson and Jacobinism ; and he is now to be rewarded.  Mr. Hopkins, commissioner of loans, a man of property and integrity, is to give room for this Jones.  The commissioner may have at once thirty thousand dollars in his hands to pay the public creditors in Virginia.  He is required by law to give bonds only in a sum from five to ten thousand dollars and Jones’s character is so notoriously bad that we have satisfactory evidence he could not now get credit at any store in Richmond for a suit of clothes!  Yet I am far from thinking, if this evidence should be laid before the Senate, that his nomination will be negatived!  I am therefore ready to say, 鈥淐ome out from among them and be ye separate.鈥�  Corruption is the object and instrument of the chief, and the tendency of his administration, for the purpose of maintaining himself in power and the accomplishment of his infidel and visionary schemes.  The corrupt portion of the people are the agents of his misrule.  Corruption is the recommendation to office ; and many of some pretensions to character, but too feeble to resist temptation become apostates.  Virtue and worth are his enemies, and therefore he would overwhelm them.  The collision of Democrats in your State promises some amendment : the administration of your government cannot well be worse. 

The Federalists here in general anxiously desire the election of Mr. Burr to the chair of New York ; for they despair of a present ascendancy of the Federal party.  Mr. Burr alone, we think, can break your Democratic phalanx ; and we anticipate much good from his success.   Were New York detached (as under his administration it would be) from the Virginian, influence, the whole union would be benefited.  Jefferson would then be forced to observe some caution and forbearance in his measures.  And, if a separation should be deemed proper, the five New England States, New York, and New Jersey would naturally be united.  Among those seven States, there is a sufficient congeniality of character to authorize the expectation of practicable harmony and a permanent union, New York the centre. Without a separation, can those States ever rid themselves of negro Presidents and negro Congresses, and regain their just weight in the political balance?  At this moment, the slaves of the Middle and Southern States have fifteen representatives in Congress, and they will appoint that number of electors of the next President and Vice-President ; and the number of slaves is continually increasing.  You notice this evil.  But will the slave States ever renounce the advantage?  As population is in fact no rule of taxation, the negro representation ought to be given up.  If refused, it would be a strong ground for separation, though perhaps an earlier occasion may present to declare it.  How man Indian wars, excited by the avidity of the Western and Southern States for Indian lands, shall we have to encounter, and who will pay the millions to support them?  The Atlantic States.  Yet the first moment we ourselves need assistance, and call on the Western States for taxes, they will declare off, or at any rate refuse to obey the call.  Kentucky effectually resisted the collection of the excise ; and of the thirty-seven thousand dollars鈥� direct tax assessed upon her so many years ago, she has paid only four thousand dollars, and probably will never pay the residue.  In the mean time, we are maintaining their representatives in Congress for governing us, who surely can much better govern ourselves.  Whenever the Western States detach themselves, they will take Louisiana with them.  In thirty years, the white population on the Western waters will equal that of the thirteen States when they declared themselves independent of Great Britain.  On the census of 1790, Kentucky was entitled to two representatives ; under that of 1800, she sends six! . . . .

 P.S. I do not know one reflecting Nov-Anglian who is not anxious for the GREAT EVENT at which I have glanced.  They fear, they dread the effects of the corruption so rapidly extending ; and that, if a decisive step be long delayed, it will be in vain to attempt it.  If there be no improper delay, we have not any doubt but that the great measure may be taken, without the smallest hazard to private property or the public funds the revenues of the Northern States being equal to their portion of the public debt, leaving that for Louisiana on those who incurred it.

Believe me ever faithfully yours,

T.P.

The facility with which we have seen an essential change in the Constitution proposed and generally adopted will perhaps remove your scruples about proposing what you intimate respecting negro representation.  But I begin to doubt whether that or any other change we could propose, with a chance of adoption, would be worth the breath, paper, and ink which would be expended in the acquisition.

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At length the business of New-Orleans has terminated favourably to this country. Instead of being obliged to rely any longer on the force of treaties, for a place of deposit, the jurisdiction of the territory is now transferred to our hands and in future the navigation of the Mississippi will be ours unmolested. This, it will be allowed is an important acquisition, not, indeed, as territory, but as being essential to the peace and prosperity of our Western country, and as opening a free and valuable market to our commercial states. This purchase has been made during the period of Mr. Jefferson鈥檚 presidency, and, will, doubtless, give eclat to his administration. Every man, however, possessed of the least candour and reflection will readily acknowledge that the acquisition has been solely owing to a fortuitous concurrence of unforseen and unexpected circumstances, and not to any wise or vigorous measures on the part of the American government.

As soon as we experienced from Spain a direct infraction of an important article of our treaty, in withholding the deposit of New-Orleans, it afforded us justifiable cause of war, and authorised immediate hostilities. Sound policy unquestionably demanded of us to begin with a prompt, bold and vigorous resistance against the injustice: to seize the object at once; and having this vantage ground, should we have thought it advisable to terminate hostilities by a purchase, we might then have done it on almost our own terms. This course, however, was not adopted, and we were about to experience the fruits of our folly, when another nation has found it her interest to place the French Government in a situation substantially as favourable to our views and interests as those recommended by the federal party here, excepting indeed that we should probably have obtained the same object on better terms.

On the part of France the short interval of peace had been wasted in repeated and fruitless efforts to subjugate St. Domingo; and those means which were originally destined to the colonization of Louisiana, had been gradually exhausted by the unexpected difficulties of this ill-starred enterprize.

To the deadly climate of St. Domingo, and to the courage and obstinate resistance made by its black inhabitants are we indebted for the obstacles which delayed the colonization of Louisiana, till the auspicious moment, when a rupture between England and France gave a new turn to the projects of the latter, and destroyed at once all her schemes as to this favourite object of her ambition.

It was made known to Bonaparte, that among the first objects of England would be the seizure of New-Orleans, and that preparations were even then in a state of forwardness for that purpose. The First Consul could not doubt, that if an English fleet was sent thither, the place must fall without resistance; it was obvious, therefore, that it would be in every shape preferable that it should be placed in the possession of a neutral power; and when, besides, some millions of money, of which he was extremely in want, were offered him, to part with what he could no longer hold it affords a moral certainty, that it was to an accidental state of circumstances, and not to wise plans, that this cession, at this time, has been owing. We shall venture to add, that neither of the ministers through whose instrumentality it was effected, will ever deny this, or even pretend that previous to the time when a rupture was believed to be inevitable, there was the smallest chance of inducing the First Consul, with his ambitious and aggrandizing views, to commute the territory for any sum of money in their power to offer. The real truth is, Bonaparte found himself absolutely compelled by situation, to relinquish his darling plan of colonising the banks of the Mississippi: and thus have the Government of the United States, by the unforseen operation of events, gained what the feebleness and pusillanimity of its miserable system of measures could never have acquired. Let us then, with all due humility, acknowledge this as another of those signal instances of the kind interpositions of an over-ruling Providence, which we more especially experienced during our revolutionary war, & by which we have more than once, been saved from the consequences of our errors and perverseness.

We are certainly not disposed to lessen the importance of this acquisition to the country, but it is proper that the public should be correctly informed of its real value and extent as well as of the terms on which it has been acquired. We perceive by the newspapers that various & very vague opinions are entertained; and we shall therefore, venture to state our ideas with some precision as to the territory; but until the instrument of cession itself is published, we do not think it prudent to say much as to the conditions on which it has been obtained.

Prior to the treaty of Paris 1763, France claimed the country on both sides of the river under the name of Louisiana, and it was her encroachments on the rear of the British Colonies which gave rise to the war of 1755. By the conclusion of the treaty of 1763, the limits of the colonies of Great Britain and France were clearly and permanently fixed; and it is from that and subsequent treaties that we are to ascertain what territory is really comprehended under the name of Louisiana. France ceded to Great-Britain all the country east and south-east of a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi from its source to the Iberville, and from thence along that river and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea; France retaining the country lying west of the river, besides the town and Island of New-Orleans on the east side. This she soon after ceded to Spain who acquiring also the Floridas by the treaty of 1783, France was entirely shut out from the continent of North America. Spain, at the instance of Bonaparte, ceded to him Louisiana, including the Town and Island (as it is commonly called) of New-Orleans. Bonaparte has now ceded the same tract of country, and this only, to the United States. The whole of East and West-Florida, lying south of Georgia and of the Mississippi Territory, and extending to the Gulf of Mexico, still remains to Spain, who will continue, therefore, to occupy, as formerly, the country along the southern frontier of the United States, and the cast bank of the river, from the Iberville to the American line.

Those disposed to magnify its value will say, that this western region is important as keeping off a troublesome neighbour, and leaving us in the quiet possession of the Mississippi. Undoubtedly this has some force, but on the other hand it may be said, that the acquisition of New-Orleans is perfectly adequate to every purpose; for whoever is in possession of that, has the uncontrouled command of the river. Again, it may be said, and this probably is the most favourable point of view in which it can be placed, that although not valuable to the United States for settlement, it is so to Spain, and will become more so, and therefore at some distant period will form an object which we may barter with her for the Floridas, obviously of far greater value to us than all the immense, undefined region west of the river.

It has been usual for the American writers on this subject to include the Floridas in their ideas of Louisiana, as the French formerly did, and the acquisition has derived no inconsiderable portion of its value and importance with the public from this view of it. It may, however, be relied on, that no part of the Floridas, not a foot of land on the east of the Mississippi, excepting New-Orleans, falls within the present cession. As to the unbounded region west of the Mississippi, it is, with the exception of a very few settlements of Spaniards and Frenchmen bordering on the banks of the river, a wilderness through which wander numerous tribes of Indians. And when we consider the present extent of the United States, and that not one sixteenth part of its territory is yet under occupation, the advantage of the acquisition, as it relates to actual settlement, appears too distant and remote to strike the mind of a sober politician with much force. This, therefore, can only rest in speculation for many years, if not centuries to come, and consequently will not perhaps be allowed very great weight in the account by the majority of readers. But it may be added, that should our own citizens, more enterprizing than wise, become desirous of settling this country, and emigrate thither, it must not only be attended with all the injuries of a too widely dispersed population, but by adding to the great weight of the western part of our territory, must hasten the dismemberment of a large portion of our country, or a dissolution of the Government. On the whole, we think it may with candor be said, that whether the possession at this time of any territory west of the river Mississippi will be advantageous, is at best extremely problematical. For ourselves, we are very much inclined to the opinion, that after all, it is the Island of N. Orleans by which the command of a free navigation of the Mississippi is secured, that gives to this interesting cession, its greatest value, and will render it in every view of immense benefit to our country. By this cession we hereafter shall hold within our own grasp, what we have heretofore enjoyed only by the uncertain tenure of a treaty, which might be broken at the pleasure of another, and (governed as we now are) with perfect impunity. Provided therefore we have not purchased it too dear, there is all the reason for exultation which the friends of the administration display, and which all Americans may be allowed to feel.

As to the pecuniary value of the bargain; we know not enough of the particulars to pronounce upon it. It is understood generally, that we are to assume debts of France to our own citizens not exceeding four millions of dollars; and that for the remainder, being a very large sum, 6 per cent stock to be created, and payment made in that. But should it contain no conditions or stipulations on our part, no 鈥渢angling alliances鈥� of all things to be dreaded, we shall be very much inclined to regard it in a favorable point of view though it should turn out to be what may be called a costly purchase. By the way a question here presents itself of some little moment: Mr. Jefferson in that part of his famous electioneering message, where he took so much pains to present a flattering state of the Treasury in so few words that every man could carry it in his noddle and repeat it at the poll, tells us, that 鈥渆xperience too so far authorises us to believe, if no extraordinary event supervenes, and the expences which will be actually incurred shall not be greater than was contemplated by Congress at their last session, that we shall not be disappointed in the expectations formed鈥� that the debt would soon be paid, &c. &c. But the first and only measure of the administration that has really been of any material service to the country (for they have hitherto gone on the strength of the provisions made by their predecessors) is really 鈥�an extraordinary event,鈥� and calls for more money than they have got. According to Mr. Gallatin鈥檚 report, they had about 40.000 to spare for contingencies, and now the first 鈥�extraordinary event鈥� that 鈥�supervenes鈥� calls upon them for several millions. What a poor starvling system of administering a government! But how is the money to be had? Not by taxing luxury and wealth and whiskey, but by increasing the taxes on the necessaries of life. Let this be remembered.

But we are exceeding our allowable limits. It may be satisfactory to our readers, that we should finish with a concise account of New-Orleans itself.

The Island of New-Orleans is in length about 150 miles; its breadth varies from 10 to 30 miles. Most of it is a marshy swamp, periodically inundated by the river. The town of New-Orleans, situated about 105 miles from the mouth of the river, contains near 1300 houses, and about 8000 inhabitants, chiefly Spanish and French. It is defended from the overflowings of the river, by an embankment, or 濒别惫别茅, which extends near 50 miles.

The rights of the present proprietors of real estate in New-Orleans and Louisiana, whether acquired by descent or by purchase, will, of course, remain undisturbed. How they are to be governed is another question; whether as a colony, or to be formed into an integral part of the United States, is a subject which will claim consideration hereafter. The probable consequences of this cession, and the ultimate effect it is likely to produce on the political state of our country, will furnish abundant matter of speculation to the American statesman.

If reliance can be placed on the history given of the negotiation of Louisiana in private letters, from persons of respectability residing at Paris, and who speak with confidence, the merit of it, after making due allowance for the great events which have borne it along with them, is due to our ambassador, Chancellor Livingston, and not to the Envoy Extraordinary. 鈥淭he cession was voted in the Council of State on the 8th of April, and Mr. Munroe did not even arrive till the 12th.鈥滼udging from Mr. Munroe’s former communications to the French Government on this subject, we really cannot but regard it as fortunate, that the thing was concluded before he reached St. Cloud.

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The continued idleness of a great national investment in the Tennessee Valley leads me to ask the Congress for legislation necessary to enlist this project in the service of the people.

It is clear that the Muscle Shoals development is but a small part of the potential public usefulness of the entire Tennessee River. Such use, if envisioned in its entirety, transcends mere power development; it enters the wide fields of flood control, soil erosion, reforestation, elimination from agricultural use of marginal lands, and distribution and diversification of industry. In short, this power development of war days leads logically to national planning for a complete river watershed involving many States and the future lives and welfare of millions. It touches and gives life to all forms of human concerns.

I, therefore, suggest to the Congress legislation to create a Tennessee Valley Authority, a corporation clothed with the power of Government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise. It should be charged with the broadest duty of planning for the proper use, conservation and development of the natural resources of the Tennessee River drainage basin and its adjoining territory for the general social and economic welfare of the Nation. The Authority should also be clothed with the necessary power to carry these plans into effect. Its duty should be the rehabilitation of the Muscle Shoals development and the coordination of it with the wider plan.

Many hard lessons have taught us the human waste that results from lack of planning. Here and there a few wise cities and counties have looked ahead and planned. But our Nation has 鈥渏ust grown.鈥� It is time to extend planning to a wider field, in this instance comprehending in one great project many States directly concerned with the basin of one of our greatest rivers.

This in a true sense is a return to the spirit and vision of the pioneer. If we are successful here we can march on, step by step, in a like development of other great natural territorial units within our borders.

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The act of Congress entitled 鈥淎n act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes,鈥� approved April 20, A. D. 1871, being a law of extraordinary public importance, I consider it my duty to issue this my proclamation calling the attention of the people of the United States thereto, enjoining upon all good citizens, and especially upon all public officers, to be zealous in the enforcement thereof, and warning all persons to abstain from committing any of the acts thereby prohibited.

This law of Congress applies to all parts of the United States and will be enforced everywhere to the extent of the powers vested in the Executive. But inasmuch as the necessity therefore is well known to have been caused chiefly by persistent violations of the rights of citizens of the United States by combinations of lawless and disaffected persons in certain localities lately the theater of insurrection and military conflict, I do particularly exhort the people of those parts of the country to suppress all such combinations by their own voluntary efforts through the agency of local laws and to maintain the rights of all citizens of the United States and to secure to all such citizens the equal protection of the laws.

Fully sensible of the responsibility imposed upon the executive by the act of Congress to which public attention is now called, and reluctant to call into exercise any of the extraordinary powers thereby conferred upon me except in cases of imperative necessity, I do, nevertheless, deem it my duty to make known that I will not hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the executive whenever and wherever it shall become necessary to do so for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws.

It is my earnest wish that peace and cheerful obedience to law may prevail throughout the land and that all traces of our late unhappy civil strife may be speedily removed. These ends can be easily reached by acquiescence in the results of the conflict, now written in our Constitution, and by the due and proper enforcement of equal, just, and impartial laws in every part of our country.

The failure of local communities to furnish such means for the attainment of results so earnestly desired imposes upon the National Government the duty of putting forth all its energies for the protection of its citizens of every race and color and for the restoration of peace and order throughout the entire country.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of May, A. D. 1871, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-fifth.

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Mr. Speaker, when a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, “Do you type?”

There is a calculated system of prejudice that lies unspoken behind that question. Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers, but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress?

The unspoken assumption is that women are different. They do not have executive ability, orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and they are too emotional.

It has been observed before, that society for a long time discriminated against another minority, the blacks, on the same basis – that they were different and inferior. The happy little homemaker and the contented “old darkey” on the plantation were both produced by prejudice.

As a black person, I am no stranger to race prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far oftener discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.

Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable although it will take years to eliminate it. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that it exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable. There is very little understanding yet of the immorality involved in double pay scales and the classification of most of the better jobs as “for men only.”

More than half of the population of the United States is female. But women occupy only 2 percent of the managerial positions. They have not even reached the level of tokenism yet. No women sit on the AFL-CIO council¹ or Supreme Court. There have been only two women who have held Cabinet rank, and at present there are none. Only two women now hold ambassadorial rank in the diplomatic corps. In Congress, we are down to one Senator and 10 Representatives.

Considering that there are about 3 1/2 million more women in the United States than men, this situation is outrageous.

It is true that part of the problem has been that women have not been aggressive in demanding their rights. This was also true of the black population for many years. They submitted to oppression and even cooperated with it. Women have done the same thing. But now there is an awareness of this situation particularly among the younger segment of the population.

As in the field of equal rights for blacks, Spanish-Americans, the Indians, and other groups, laws will not change such deep-seated problems overnight. But they can be used to provide protection for those who are most abused, and to begin the process of evolutionary change by compelling the insensitive majority to reexamine its unconscious attitudes.

It is for this reason that I wish to introduce today a proposal that has been before every Congress for the last forty years and that sooner or later must become part of the basic law of the land – the equal rights amendment.

Let me note and try to refute two of the commonest arguments that are offered against this amendment. One is that women are already protected under the law and do not need legislation. Existing laws are not adequate to secure equal rights for women. Sufficient proof of this is the concentration of women in lower paying, menial, unrewarding jobs and their incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs. If women are already equal, why is it such an event whenever one happens to be elected to Congress?

It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as “odd” and “unfeminine.” The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board, or a Member of the House, does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job and she wants to try.

A second argument often heard against the equal rights amendment is that it would eliminate legislation that many States and the Federal Government have enacted giving special protection to women and that it would throw the marriage and divorce laws into chaos.

As for the marriage laws, they are due for a sweeping reform, and an excellent beginning would be to wipe the existing ones off the books. Regarding special protection for working women, I cannot understand why it should be needed. Women need no protection that men do not need. What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs, and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need these things equally. That one sex needs protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myths that society is trying to cure itself of at this time.

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The notion that men and women stand as equals before the law was not the original understanding, nor was it the understanding of the Congress that framed the Civil War amendments. . . .

Mid-nineteenth century feminists, many of them diligent workers in the cause of abolition, looked to Congress after the Civil War for an express guarantee of equal rights for men and women.¹ But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment appalled the proponents of a sex equality guarantee. Their concern centered on the abortive second section of the amendment, which placed in the Constitution for the first time, the word “male.” Threefold use of the word “male,” always in conjunction with the term “citizen,” caused concern that the grand phrases of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment – due process and equal protection of the laws – would have, at best, qualified application to women.

After close to a century’s effort, the suffrage amendment was ratified, according to female citizens the right to vote. The most vigorous proponents of that amendment saw it as a beginning, not as a terminal point. Three years after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the National Women’s Party succeeded in putting before Congress the equal rights amendment that has been reintroduced in every Congress since 1923. . . .

Persons unacquainted with the history of the amendment deplore its generality and the absence of investigation concerning its impact. The models of the due process and equal protection clauses should suffice to indicate that the wording of the amendment is a thoroughly responsible way of embodying fundamental principle in the Constitution. Before the amendment was proposed, the National Women’s Party, with the aid of a staff of lawyers and expert consultants, tabulated state and federal legislation and court decisions relating to the status of women. Advisory councils were formed, composed of different economic and professional groups of women – industrial workers, homemakers, teachers and students, federal employees. Each council conducted studies of the desirability of equal rights and responsibilities for men and women. Reading debates on the amendment in the law journals of the 1920s is enlightening. The objections still voiced in 1973 were solidly answered then.

Opponents of the amendment suggest the pursuit of alternate routes: particularized statutes through the regular legislative process in Congress and in the states, and test case litigation under the Fourteenth Amendment. Only those who have failed to learn the lessons of the past can accept that counsel. . . .

. . . A recent government computer search, the solicitor general told the Supreme Court this term, revealed that 876 sections in the United States Code contain sex-based references. Similar searches in some of the states have turned up hundreds of state statutes in need of revision.

Will major legislative revision occur without the impetus of the equal rights amendment? Probably not if past experience is an accurate barometer. . . .

A preview of the kind of revision that can be expected under the stimulus of the amendment has been provided by legislative analyses in some of the states. These analyses should reassure those who fear intolerable change in the wake of the amendment. They propose extension of desirable protection to both sexes; for example, state minimum wage laws would be extended to men; in no case do they propose depriving either sex of a genuine benefit now enjoyed.

As a sample of laws destined for the scrap heap if the amendment is ratified, consider these: Arizona law stipulates that the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer must be male. In Ohio only men may serve as arbitrators in county court proceedings. In Wisconsin barbers are licensed to cut men’s hair and women’s hair, but cosmeticians may attend to women only. Georgia law, still faithful to Blackstone, provides:

The husband is head of the family and the wife is subject to him; her legal civil existence is merged in the husband’s, except so far as the law recognizes her separately, either for her own protection, or for her benefit, or for the preservation of public order.

Another embarrassment from the same state reads: “Any charge or intimation against a white female of having sexual intercourse with a person of color is slanderous without proof of special damages.” Legislative inertia keeps laws of this kind on the books. Prof. Thomas Emerson summarized the situation this way: “It is not a weakness but a strength of the amendment that it will force prompt consideration of changes that are long overdue.” . . .

In the 1971 term, a new direction was signaled when the Supreme Court responded affirmatively to two complaints of unconstitutional sex discrimination. In Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), the Court . . . relied on the due process clause to hold that an unwed father who wished to retain custody of his children had to be given a hearing of the kind that would be accorded to any mother or any married father. The opinions in both cases were laconic; they provided an uncertain basis for predicting the Court’s future course.

On May 14, 1973, in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, the Court moved forward more swiftly than many had anticipated; in effect, it served notice that sex discrimination by law would no longer escape rigorous constitutional review. . . .

. . . If the equal rights amendment is adopted, the hard task of revision will be undertaken in earnest; absent ratification, comprehensive revision may continue to be regarded as “premature and unnecessary.”

Reasoned appraisal of the amendment requires consideration of the realities of life for an increasing population of women in the latter half of the twentieth century. . . . [O]ver the last fifty years the percentage of working women in the population has approximately doubled, and the projection is that this trend will accelerate. . . .

With the disappearance of home-centered economic activity, and the possibility now open to women to determine whether and when to bear children, perceptive persons of both sexes recognize that there is no justification for confining women to a role of their own.

Some aspects of the traditional arrangement disfavor men, and some exact a toll from both sexes. Women who have paid serious attention to laws that appear to disfavor men agree with the position stated by Sarah Grimke, noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. She said in 1837: “I ask no favors for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Favors rarely come without an accompanying detriment. Too often men of the law fail to grasp this basic point.

A number of “horribles” have been raised in opposition to the amendment. Four of them dominate the literature of amendment opponents.

First horrible. Women will lose the benefit of protective labor laws. Today, challenges to these laws rarely emanate from male employers who wish to overwork women. Since the passage of Title VII,² they have come overwhelmingly from blue-collar working women to overcome what they regard as a system that protects them against higher paying jobs and promotions. In the vast majority of Title VII employment discriminations cases, courts have understood these challenges. Legislatures are beginning to abandon disingenuous protection for women and to extend genuine protection to all workers. Models are ample. In Norway, for example, where opposition to “special protection for women only” came predominantly from women’s organizations, a 1956 workers protective act assures safe and healthy conditions for employees of both sexes. Moreover, extension rather than invalidation of laws that benefit only one sex is a route recently traveled by the Supreme Court. In Frontiers v. Richardson, fringe benefits for married male members of the military were extended to married female members. The National Women’s Party put it this way decades ago in 1926: protective legislation that is desirable

Should be enacted for all workers. . . . Legislation that in-cludes women but exempts men . . . limits the woman worker’s scope of activity . . . by barring her from econ-omic opportunity. Moreover, restrictive conditions [for women but not for men] fortifies the harmful assump-tions that labor for pay is primarily the prerogative of the male.

Second horrible. Wives will lose the right to support. Only if our legislatures or courts act capriciously, spitefully, without regard for the public welfare, and in flagrant disregard of the intent of the Amendment’s proponents. In a growing number of states the equal rights amendment will occasion no change whatever in current support law. In these states, and under the amendment in all states, either husband or wife can be awarded support depending on the couple’s circumstances. Who pays in any particular family will depend upon the division of responsibilities within that family unit. If one spouse is the breadwinner and the other performs uncompensated services at home, the breadwinning spouse will be required to support the spouse who works at home.

Underlying the amendment is the premise that a person who works at home should do so because she, or he, wants to, not because of an unarticulated belief that there is no choice. The essential point, sadly ignored by the amendment’s detractors, is this: the equal rights amendment does not force anyone happy as a housewife to relinquish that role. On the contrary, it enhances that role by making it plain that it was chosen, not thrust on her without regard to preference.

Third horrible. Women will be forced to serve in the military. Only if men are, and assignments would be made on the basis of the individual capacity rather than sex. With the draft terminated, it is high time for consideration of the other side of that coin. Women who wish to enlist must meet considerably higher standards than men; women in service are denied fringe benefits granted men and do not receive equal vocational training opportunities. The reason for higher standards for women was given by an Air Force colonel in a deposition taken in December, 1972. He explained: “We have had and we continue to have roughly twice as many women apply[ing] as we are able to . . . take. . . . We don’t have an excess of men over what we can take.”

Young women’s groups uniformly testified during congressional hearings on the amendment that they did not wish exemption from responsibility for service. Conspicuous among these groups was the 200,000 member Intercollegiate Association of Women Students, a group appropriately characterized as “middle American.”

In 1948, long before women and the military became an emotion-charged issue in connection with the equal rights amendment, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower observed:

Like most old soldiers I was violently against women sol-diers. I thought a tremendous number of difficulties would occur, not only of an administrative nature . . . but others of a more personal type that would get us into trouble. None of that occurred. . . . In the disciplinary field, they were . . . a model for the Army. More than this their influence throughout the whole command was good. I am convinced that in another war they have got to be drafted just like the men.

Final horrible. Rest rooms in public places could not be sex separated. Emphatically not so, according to the amendment’s proponents in Congress, who were amused at the focus on the “potty problem.” Apart from referring to the constitutional regard for personal privacy, they expressed curiosity about the quarter from which objections to current arrangements would come. Did the people who voiced concern suppose that men would want to use women’s rest rooms or that women would want to use men’s? In any event, the clever solution devised by the airlines suggests one way out of the problem.

Some people have expressed fear of a “flood of litigation” in the wake of the equal rights amendment. But the dramatic increase in sex discrimination litigation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in the 1970s is indicative that, if anything, ratification of the amendment will stem the tide. The amendment will impel the comprehensive legislative revision that neither Congress nor the states have undertaken to date. The absence of long overdue statutory revision is generating cases by the hundreds across the country. Legislatures remain quiescent despite the mounting judicial challenges, challenges given further impetus by the Supreme Court’s decision in Frontiero v. Richardson. Ratification of the amendment, however, would plainly mark as irresponsible any legislature that did not undertake the necessary repairs during the two-year period between ratification and effective date.

To date, three fifths of the states have ratified the amendment; these thirty states represent a clear majority of the country’s population. One state, Nebraska, has attempted to withdraw its ratification. But New Jersey and Ohio took the same action with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment, and New York ratified and then withdrew its ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress at that time evidently concluded that ratification, once accomplished, could not be undone. New Jersey and Ohio counted to constitute the requisite three fourths for promulgation of the Fourteenth Amendment. New York was counted among the states that ratified the Fifteenth Amendment.

The equal rights amendment, in sum, would dedicate the nation to a new view of the rights and responsibilities of men and women. It firmly rejects sharp legislative lines between the sexes as constitutionally tolerable. Instead, it looks toward a legal system in which each person will be judged on the basis of individual merit and not on the basis of an unalterable trait of birth that bears no necessary relationship to need or ability. As the Federal Legislation Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York explained:

[T]he Amendment would eliminate patent discrim-ination, including all laws which prohibit or discourage women from making full use of their political and economic capabilities on the strength of notions about the proper “role” for women in society. Any special exemptions or other favorable treatment required by some women because of their physical stature or family roles could be preserved by statutes which utilize those factors – rather than sex – as the basis for distinction.

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