WHAT THE FOUNDERS

REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

e White Consciousness of U.S. Statesmen

JARED TAYLOR
17 FEBRUARY 2012
THE NATIONAL POLICY INSTITUTE
Research & Analysis

TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

www. N P I A m e r i c a . o rg

Today, the United States ocially takes the

position that all races are equal.
Our country is also committedlegally and morallyto the view that race is not a fit
criterion for decision-making of any kind, except for promoting diversity or for the
purpose of redressing past wrongs done by Whites to non-Whites.
Many Americans cite the all men are created equal phrase from the Declaration of
Independence to support the claim that this view of race was not only inevitable but was
anticipated by the Founders. Interestingly, prominent conservatives and Tea Party favorites
like Michele Bachman and Glenn Beck have taken this notion a step further and asserted
that todays racial egalitarianism was the nations goal from its very first days.1
ey are badly mistaken.
Since early colonial times, and until just a few decades ago, virtually all Whites believed race
was a fundamental aspect of individual and group identity. ey believed people of dierent
1. Speaking at an Iowans for Tax Relief event in January, 2011, Rep. Bachmann claimed, It didnt matter
the color of their skin, it didnt matter their language, it didnt matter their economic status. Once you got
here, we were all the same. Isnt that remarkable? Taking up the slavery issue, Bachmann continued, We also
know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the
United States. She would later defend her position when questioned by journalists. Bachmanns speech can be
viewed on YouTube: http://youtu.be/hGSCF712FCA?t=9m.
Glenn Beck has been equally enamored with historical revisionism. roughout his Founding Fathers Fridays series on his (now discontinued) television program, Beck featured speakers who theorized that American history can be described as one long Civil Rights struggle and who told tales of the indispensable contributions of Blacks to the Revolutionary War as well as racially mixed churches in 18th-century. Such an episode can viewed on YouTube: http://youtu.be/um1uxsKG1_0.
Bachmann and Beck are representative of a broader tendency among conservatives. For instance, in 2011,
Tennessee Tea Party activists demanded that public schools teach children that the Founders brought liberty
into a world where it hadnt existed, to everybodynot all equally instantly. See e Commercial Appeal, 13
January 2011, http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jan/13/tea-parties-cite-legislative-demands/.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

races had dierent temperaments and abilities, and built markedly dierent societies. ey
believed that only people of European stock could maintain a society in which they would
wish to live, and they strongly opposed miscegenation. For more than 300 years, therefore,
American policy reflected a consensus on race that was the very opposite of what prevails
today.
ose who would impute egalitarianism to the Founders should recall that in 1776, the year
of the Declaration, race slavery was already more than 150 years old in North America and
was practiced throughout the New World, from Canada to Chile.2 In 1770, 40 percent of
White households in Manhattan owned Black slaves, and there were more slaves in the
colony of New York than in Georgia.3 It was true that many of the Founders considered
slavery a terrible injustice and hoped to abolish it, but they meant to expel the freed slaves
from the United States, not to live with them in equality.
omas Jeersons views were typical of his generation. Despite what he wrote in the
Declaration, he did not think Blacks were equal to Whites, noting that in general, their
existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.4 He hoped slavery would
be abolished some day, but when freed, he [the Negro] is to be removed beyond the reach of
mixture.5 Jeerson also expected whites eventually to displace all of the Indians of the New
World. e United States, he wrote, was to be the nest from which all America, North and
South, is to be peopled,6 and the hemisphere was to be entirely European: ...nor can we
contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on that surface.7
Jeerson opposed miscegenation for a number of reasons, but one was his preference for the
physical traits of Whites. He wrote of their flowing hair and their more elegant symmetry
of form, but emphasized the importance of color itself:
Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion
by greater or less suusions of colour in the one [whites], preferable to that

2. Davis, Inhuman Bondage, p. 142.

3. Ibid, p. 128.
4. Notes on the State of Virginia, Jeerson.
5. Ibid.; quoted in Nash and Weiss, e Great Fear, p. 24.
6. Papers of Jeerson, Vol. IX, p. 218; quoted in Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny, p. 86.
7. Lipscomb and Bergh, eds., e Writings of omas Jeerson, Vol. X, p. 296; quoted in Horsman, Race and
Manifest Destiny, p. 92.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of

black, which covers all the emotions of the other race?8

Like George Washington, Jeerson was a slave owner. In fact, nine of the first 11 Presidents
owned slaves, the only exceptions being the two Adamses. Despite Jeersons hope for
eventual abolition, he made no provision to free his slaves after his death.
James Madison agreed with Jeerson that the only solution to the race problem was to free
the slaves and expel them: To be consistent with existing and
probably unalterable prejudices in the U.S. freed blacks ought to
be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or
allotted to a White population.9 He proposed that the federal
government buy up the entire slave population and transport it
overseas. After two terms in oce, he served as chief executive of
the American Colonization Society, which was established to
repatriate Blacks.10
Benjamin Franklin wrote little about race, but had a sense of
racial loyalty that was typical of his time:
[T]he Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably [sic]
very small.... I could wish their Numbers were increased.... But perhaps I am
partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is
natural to Mankind.

Franklin therefore opposed bringing more Blacks to the United States:

[W]hy increase the Sons ofAfrica, by Planting them inAmerica? 11

John Dickinson was a Delaware delegate to the constitutional convention and wrote so
eectively in favor of independence that he is known as the Penman of the Revolution. As
was common in his time, he believed that homogeneity, not diversity, was the new republics
greatest strength:

8. Notes on the State of Virginia, omas Jeerson: Writings (New York: Library of America, 1984), pp.
264-65.
9. Letter from James Madison to Robert J. Evans, June 15, 1819, Writings 8:439-47.
10. Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro, pp. 105-107.
11. Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase in Mankind, (1751).
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

Where was there ever a confederacy of republics united as these states are...or,
in which the people were so drawn together by religion, blood, language,
manners, and customs?12

Dickinsons views were echoed in the second of e Federalist Papers, in which John Jay gave
thanks that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united
people,
a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language,
professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government,
very similar in their manners and customs.13

After the Constitution was ratified in 1788, Americans had to decide who they would allow
to become part of their new country. e very first citizenship law, passed in 1790, specified
that only free white persons could be naturalized,14 and immigration laws designed to keep
the country overwhelmingly white were repealed only in 1965.
Alexander Hamilton was suspicious even of European immigrants, writing that the influx of
foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and
corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign
propensities.15 John Quincy Adams explained to a German nobleman that if Europeans
were to immigrate, they must cast o the European skin, never to resume it.16 Neither man
would have countenanced immigration of non-Whites.
Blacks, even if free, could not be citizens of the United States until ratification of the 14th
Amendment in 1868. e question of their citizenship arose during the Missouri crisis of
1820 to 1821. e Missouri constitution barred the immigration of Blacks, and some
northern critics said that to prevent Blacks who were citizens of other states from moving to
Missouri deprived them of protection under the privileges and immunities clause of the
Constitution. e author of that clause, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, was still alive,
and denied that he, or any other Framer, intended the clause to apply to Blacks: I perfectly

12. Observations on the Constitution Proposed by the Federal Convention, No. 8, by Fabius (John Dickinson).
13. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, e Federalist Papers, p. 38.
14. Quoted in Brimelow, Alien Nation, p. xii.
15. Quoted Grant and Davison, e Founders of the Republic on Immigration, Naturalization, and Aliens, p.
52.
16. Quoted in Wattenberg and Buchanan, Immigration.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

knew that there did not then exist such a thing in the Union as a black or colored citizen, nor
could I then have conceived it possible such a thing could have ever existed in it.17

THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT

Today, it is common to think of the antebellum North as united in the desire to free the
slaves and to establish them as the social and political equals of Whites. Again, this is a
distorted view. First of all, slavery persisted in the North well into the post-Revolutionary
period. It was not abolished in New York State until 1827, and it continued in Connecticut
until 1848.18
Nor was abolitionist sentiment anything close to universal. Many Northerners opposed
abolition because they feared it would lead to race mixing. e easiest way to stir up
opposition to Northern abolitionists was to claim that what they were really promoting was
intermarriage. Many abolitionists expressed strong disapproval of miscegenation, but the fact
that speakers at abolitionist meetings addressed racially mixed audiences was suciently
shocking to make any charge believable. ere were no fewer than 165 anti-abolition riots in
the North during the 1820s alone, almost all of them prompted by the fear that abolition
would lead to intermarriage.19
e 1830s saw further violence. On July 4, 1834, the American Anti-Slavery Society read its
Declaration of Sentiments to a mixed-race audience in New York City. Rioters then broke up
the meeting and went on a rampage that lasted 11 days. e National Guard managed to
bring peace only after the society issued a Disclaimer, the first point of which was: We
entirely disclaim any desire to promote or encourage intermarriages between white and
colored persons.20

17. Annals of Congress. e Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States. History of Congress. 42 vols. Washington, D.C.: Gales & Seaton, 1834--56.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a4_2_1s15.html
18. Davis, Inhuman Bondage, p. 128.
19. Lemire, Miscegenation, p. 90. is count was reported by the three leading anti-slavery newspapers of
the period.
20. Ibid., pp. 59, 83.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

Philadelphia suered a serious riot in 1838 after abolitionists, who had had trouble renting
space to hold their meetings, built their own building. On May 17, the last day of a threeday dedication ceremony, several thousand peoplemany of high social standinggathered
at the hall and burned it down while the fire department stood by and did nothing.21
Sentiment against Blacks was so strong that many Northern Whites supported abolition only
if it was linked, as Jeerson and Madison had proposed, to plans to deport or colonize
Blacks. Most abolitionist activism therefore reflected a deep conviction that slavery was
wrong, but not a desire to establish Blacks as social and political equals. William Lloyd
Garrison and Angelina and Sarah Grimk favored equal treatment for Blacks in all respects,
but theirs was very much a minority view. Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher
Stowe who wrote Uncle Toms Cabin, expressed the majority view: Do your duty first to the
colored people here; educate them, Christianize them, and then colonize them.22
e American Colonization Society was only the best known of many organizations founded
for the purpose of removing Blacks from North America. At its inaugural meeting in 1816,
Henry Clay described its purpose: to rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not
dangerous portion of the population.23 e following prominent Americans were not just
members but served as ocers of the society: James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Daniel
Webster, Stephen Douglas, William Seward, Francis Scott Key, Winfield Scott, John
Marshall, and Roger Taney.24 James Monroe, another President who owned slaves, worked so
tirelessly in the cause of colonization that the capital of Liberia is named Monrovia in
recognition of his eorts.
Early Americans wrote their opposition to miscegenation into law. Between 1661 and 1725,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and all the southern colonies passed laws prohibiting interracial marriage and, in some cases, fornication.25 Of the 50 states, no fewer than 44 had laws
prohibiting inter-racial marriage at some point in their past.26 Many Northern Whites were
horrified to discover that some Southern slave owners had Black concubines. When
21. Ibid., pp. 87-91.
22. Quoted in Fredrickson, e Black Image in the White Mind, p. 115.
23. Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro, p. 133.
24. Ibid., p. 132.
25. Elise Lemire, Miscegenation, p. 57.
26. Ibid., p. 2.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

Bostonian Josiah Quincy wrote an

account of his 1773 tour of South
Carolina, he professed himself
shocked to learn that a gentleman
could have relations with a negro or
mulatto woman.27
Massachusetts prohibited
miscegenation from 1705 to 1843,
but repealed the ban only because
most people thought it was
unnecessary.28 e new law noted
that inter-racial relations were
evidence of vicious feeling, bad taste,
and personal degradation, so were
unlikely to be so common as to
become a problem.29

Liberia College, established in Monrovia 20 years after the

American Colonization Societys first settlement of African
American emigrants in Liberia. In 1951, the college became the
University of Liberia. (Photo: Library of Congress)

e northern free-soil movement of

the 1840s is often described as friendly to Blacks because it opposed the expansion of slavery
into newly acquired territories. is is yet another misunderstanding. Pennsylvania Democrat
David Wilmot started the movement when he introduced an amendment banning slavery
from any territories acquired after the Mexican-American War. e Wilmot Proviso was
certainly anti-slavery, but Wilmot was not an abolitionist. He did not object to slavery in the
South; only to its spread into the Western territories. During the congressional debate,
Wilmot asked:
whether that vast country, between the Rio Grande and the Pacific, shall be
given up to the servile labor of the black, or be preserved for the free labor of
the white man? . . . e negro race already occupy enough of this fair
continent; let us keep what remains for ourselves, and for our children.

27. Ibid., p. 11.

28. Legal opposition to miscegenation lasted many years. In 1967, when the Supreme Court finally ruled
anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia, 16 states still had them on the books. e laws
were only sporadically enforced, but state legislatures were unwilling to rescind them.
29. Ibid., p. 139.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

Wilmot called his amendment the white mans proviso.30

e history of the franchise reflects a clear conception of the United States as a nation ruled
by and for Whites. Every state that entered the Union between 1819 and the Civil War
denied Blacks the vote. In 1855, Blacks could vote only in Massachusetts, Vermont, New
Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island, which together accounted for only four percent of the
nations Black population. e federal government prohibited free Blacks from voting
in the territories it controlled.31
Several states that were established before the Civil War hoped to avoid race problems by
remaining all White. e people of the Oregon Territory, for example, voted not to permit
slavery, but voted in even greater numbers not to permit Blacks in the state at all. In language
that survived until 2002, Oregons 1857 constitution provided that [n]o free negro, or
mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come,
reside, or be within this State, or hold any real estate.32
Despite Charles Pinckneys confirmation in 1821 that no Black could be an American
citizen, the question was taken up in the famous Dred Scott decision of 1857. e seven-totwo decision held that although they could be citizens of states, Blacks were not citizens of
the United States and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. Roger Taney, the
chief justice who wrote the majority decision, noted that slavery arose out of an ancient
American conviction about Negroes:
ey had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an
inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in
social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which
the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and
lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.33

Abraham Lincolns time was well beyond the era of the Founders, but many Americans
believe it was the Great Emancipator who finally brought the egalitarian vision of
Jeersons generation to fruition.

30. Earle, Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854, pp. 138-39.
31. Keyssar, e Right to Vote, p. 55.
32. Peter Prengaman, Oregons Racist Language Faces Vote, Associated Press, Sept. 27, 2002.
33. Full text of the decision is available here:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=60&invol=393
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

Again, they are mistaken.

Lincoln considered Blacks to bein his wordsa troublesome presence34 in the United
States. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates he stated:
I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes,
nor of qualifying them to hold oce, nor to intermarry with white people;
and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical dierence between
the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races
living together on terms of social and political equality.35

His opponent Stephen Douglas was even more outspoken (in what follows, audience
responses are recorded by the Chicago Daily Times, a Democratic paper):
For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any form. [CheersTimes] I
believe that this government was made on the white basis. [Good,Times] I
believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their
posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining the citizenship to white men
men of European birth and European descent, instead of conferring it
upon negroes and Indians, and other inferior races. [Good for you. Douglas
forever,Times]36

Douglas, who was the more firmly anti-Black of the two candidates, won the election.
Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery outside the South, but was not an abolitionist. He
made war on the Confederacy only to preserve the Union, and would have accepted
Southern slavery in perpetuity if that would have kept the South from seceding, as he stated
explicitly.37
Indeed, Lincoln supported what is known as the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution,
passed by Congress shortly before he took oce, which forbade any attempt by Congress to
amend the Constitution to give itself the power to abolish or interfere with slavery. e
amendment therefore recognized that the federal government had no power over slavery
34. Ginsberg and Eichner, Troublesome Presence, p. ix.
35. See Basler, e Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, pp. 235-236.
36. Holzer, e Lincoln-Douglas Debates, pp. 54f.
37. See, for instance, Lincolns 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune:
"[M]y paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery,
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the
slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Available online: http://www.learner.org/workshops/primarysources/emancipation/docs/lin_greeley.html
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

where it already existed, and the amendment would have barred any future amendment to
give the government that power. Outgoing President James Buchanan took the unusual step
of signing the amendment, even though the Presidents signature is not necessary under the
Constitution.
Lincoln referred to the Corwin Amendment in his first inaugural address38, adding that he
had no objection to its ratification, and he sent copies of the text to all state governors.39
Ohio, Maryland, and Illinois eventually ratified the amendment. If the country had not been
distracted by war, it could well have become law, making it more difficult or even impossible to
pass the 13th Amendment.
Lincolns Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862 was further proof
of his priorities. It gave the Confederate states 100 days to lay down their arms, and
threatened to emancipate only those slaves living in states still in rebellion. Lincoln always
overestimated Unionist sentiment in the South, and genuinely believed that at least some of
the Southern states would accept his oer of union in exchange for the preservation of
slavery.40
As late as the Hampton Roads conference with Confederate representativesthis was in
February 3, 1865, with the war almost wonLincoln was still hinting that the South could
keep its slaves if it made peace. He called emancipation strictly a war measure that would
become inoperative if there were peace, and suggested that if the Confederate states
rejoined the union, they could defeat the 13th Amendment, which had been sent to the
states for ratification. Lincoln appears to have been prepared to sacrifice the most basic
interests of Blacks if he thought that would stop the slaughter of white men.41
roughout his presidency, Lincoln took the conventional view that if slaves were freed, they
should be expatriated. Even in the midst of the war, he was making plans for colonization,
and appointed Rev. James Mitchell to be Commissioner of Emigration, with instructions to
find a place to which Blacks could be sent.42

38. For the full text of the address, see http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html.

39. Holzer,Lincoln President-Elect, p. 429.
40. Escott, What Shall We Do With the Negro?, p. 55.
41. Ibid., pp. 206-211.
42. Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro, p. 217.
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On August 14th, 1862, Lincoln invited a group of free Black leaders to the White House to
tell them, there is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you
free colored people to remain with us. He urged them to lead others of their race to a
colonization site in Central America.43 Lincoln was the first president to invite a delegation
of Blacks to the White Houseand he did so to ask them to leave the country. Later that
year, in a message to Congress, he argued not just for voluntary colonization but for the forcible
removal of free Blacks.44

A CLEAR LEGACY
e record from colonial times through the end of the Civil War is therefore one of starkly
inegalitarian views. e idea of colonizing Blacks was eventually abandoned as too costly, but
until the second half of the 20th century, it would be very hard to find a prominent
American who spoke about race in todays terms.
Blacks were at the center of early American thinking about race because of the vexed question
of slavery and because Blacks lived among Whites. Indians, of course, had always been
present, but were of less concern. ey fought rearguard actions, but generally withdrew as
Whites settled the continent. When they did not withdraw, they were forced onto
reservations. After the slaves were freed, Indians were legally more disadvantaged than Blacks,
since they were not considered part of the United States at all. In 1884, the Supreme Court
ocially determined that the 14th Amendment did not confer citizenship on Indians
associated with tribes. ey did not receive citizenship until an act of Congress in 1924.45
e traditional American viewMark Twain called the Indian a good, fair, desirable subject
for extermination if ever there was one46cannot be retroactively transformed into incipient
egalitarianism and celebration of diversity.
ere was similar disdain for Asians. State and federal laws excluded them from citizenship,
and as late as 1914 the Supreme Court ruled that the states could deny naturalization to

43. Abraham Lincoln, Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Colored Men, quoted in Wilson Moses,
Classical Black Nationalism, p. 211.
44. Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro, p. 227.
45. Keyssar, e Right to Vote, p. 165.
46. Mark Twain, e Noble Red Man, e Galaxy, Sept. 1870.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

Asians.47 Nor was the urge to exclude Asians limited to

conservatives. At the 1910 Socialist Party Congress, the
Committee on Immigration called for the unconditional
exclusion of Chinese and Japanese on the grounds that
America already had problems enough with Negroes.48
Samuel Gompers, the most famous labor leader in American
history, fought to improve the lives of working people, but
Whites were his first priority:
It must be clear to every thinking man and woman that
while there is hardly a single reason for the admission of
Asiatics, there are hundreds of good and strong reasons
for their absolute exclusion.49

e ban on Chinese immigration and naturalization continued until 1943, when Congress
established a Chinese immigration quotaof 105 people a year.50
Even if we restrict the field to American Presidentsa group notoriously disinclined to say
anything controversialwe find that Jeersons and Lincolns thinking of race continued well
into the modern era.
James Garfield wrote,
[I have] a strong feeling of repugnance when I think of the negro being made
our political equal and I would be glad if they could be colonized, sent to
heaven, or got rid of in any decent way.51

eodore Roosevelt wrote in 1901 that he had not been able to think out any solution to
the terrible problem oered by the presence of the Negro on this continent.52 As for
47. Ichioka, e Issei, pp. 211.
48. Ibid., pp. 293-6.
49. Samuel Gompers & Heran Gutstadt, Meat vs. Rice: American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism,
quoted in Joshi, Documents of American Prejudice, pp. 436-438.
50. Lutton, e Myth of Open Borders, p. 26.
51. Quoted in Frederickson, e Black Image in the White Mind, p. 185.
52. Quoted in Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro, p. 317.
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Indians, he once said, I dont go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead
Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldnt inquire too closely into the health
of the tenth.53
William Howard Taft once told a group of Black college students, Your race is adapted to be
a race of farmers, first, last, and for all times.54
Woodrow Wilson was a confirmed segregationist, and as President of Princeton he refused to
admit Blacks. He enforced segregation in government oces55 and favored exclusion of
Asians: We cannot make a homogeneous population of a people who do not blend with the
Caucasian race.... Oriental coolieism will give us another race problem to solve and surely we
have had our lesson.56
Warren Harding wanted the races separate: Men of both races [Black and White] may well
stand uncompromisingly against every suggestion of social equality. is is not a question of
social equality, but a question of recognizing a fundamental, eternal, inescapable difference.
Racial amalgamation there cannot be.57
In 1921, Vice President-elect Calvin Coolidge wrote in Good Housekeeping about the basis
for sound immigration policy:
ere are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any
sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will
not mix or blend.... Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of
ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.58

53. eodore Roosevelt, e Winning of the West; quoted in Fikes, Racist Quotes from Persons of Note, Part
I, p. 142.
54. Quoted in Fikes, Racist Quotes from Persons of Note, Part I, p. 142.
55. Letter to Oswald Garrison Villard, Nov. 11, 1913; quoted in Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on
Slavery and the Negro, p. 336.
56. Quoted in Robert Fikes, Racist Quotes From Persons of Note, Part II, p. 138.
57New York Times, October 27, 1921; quoted in Lewis H. Carlson & George Colburn, In eir Place, p. 94.
58. Calvin Coolidge, Whose Country is is? Good Housekeeping, Feb. 1921, p. 13.
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Harry Truman wrote: I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow
men in Asia and white men in Europe and America. He also referred to the Blacks on the
White House sta as an army of coons.59
As recent a President as Dwight Eisenhower argued that although it might be necessary to
grant Blacks certain political rights, this did not mean social equality or that a Negro should
court my daughter.60 It is only with John Kennedy that we finally find a president whose
conception of race begins to be acceptable by todays standards.
Todays egalitarians are therefore radical dissenters from traditional American thinking. A
conception of America as a nation of people with common values, culture, and heritage is far
more faithful to vision of the founders.

59. Rick Hampson, Private Letters Reveal Trumans Racist Attitudes, Washington Times, Oct. 25, 1991.
60. Quoted in Weyl and Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro, p. 365.
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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JARED TAYLOR was born in Japan, where he lived until he was 16 years old. He has a
bachelor's degree in philosophy from Yale University and a master's degree in international
economics from l'Institut d' Etudes Politiques de Paris.
He has worked as an international lending oce for a major New York bank and as a consultant to companies doing business in Japan. For three yeas he was the West Coast Editor of
PC (Personal Computing) Magazine, and has published articles and essays in the following
publications:
Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Washington Star,
San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, National Review, Chronicles.
Since 1994, Jared Taylor has been the president of New Century Foundation, which publishes American Renaissance, a monthly magazine devoted to issues of race and immigration
(AmRen.com).

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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

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TAYLORWHAT THE FOUNDERS REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT RACE

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