Chapter 9: Lost Cause

40    “While they [the races] do remain together . . .”  Abraham Lincoln quoted in “Fourth Joint Debate, at Charleston, September 18, 1858,” in Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858, in Illinois (Columbus, OH: Follett, Foster and Company, 1860),www.google.com/books/edition/Political_Debates_Between_Hon_Abraham_Li/ij_PdIMkBxUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA136&printsec=frontcover, 136.

41     “the blacks into the state”  Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787),archive.org/details/notesonstateofvi1787jeff/page/228/mode/2up, 229.

41     “Deep rooted prejudices entertained . . .”  Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia,archive.org/details/notesonstateofvi1787jeff/page/228/mode/2up, 229.

41     largest enslaver in Virginia’s Caroline County  By 1810, Taylor enslaved one hundred and forty-five people. Garrett Ward Sheldon and C. William Hill Jr., Liberal Republicanism of John Taylor of Caroline (Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008), 79. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/167764025?oclcNum=167764025.

41     helped draft the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793  U.S. Congress, Annals of Congress, Second Congress, First Session (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1849),digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc29467/m1/305/, 616 (November 22, 1792),digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc29467/m1/309/, 623 (December 28, 1792), accessed via University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library.

41     “If the whites should be the victims . . .” John Taylor, Arator; Being a Series of Agricultural Essays, Practical & Political (Georgetown, District of Columbia: J. M. and J. B. Carter, 1813),archive.org/details/aratorbeingserie1813tayl/page/128/mode/2up, 128.

41     “A policy, which weakens or renders incapable . . .” Taylor, Arator,archive.org/details/aratorbeingserie1813tayl/page/130/mode/2up, 130.

41     a gigantic quilombo . . .escaped slaves, or maroons—named Palmares  Oscar de la Torre, “Understanding Brazil’s Present Day Quilombos: A Small Term for a Big Reality,” End Slavery Now, blog, October 23, 2014,www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/understanding-brazil-s-present-day-quilombos-a-small-term-for-a-big-reality.

41–42   An enslaver-led army exterminated  John M. Monteiro, Blacks of the Land: Indian Slavery, Settler Society, and the Portuguese Colonial Enterprise in South America, ed. and trans. by James Woodard and Barbara Weinstein (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 130. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1048659189. John K. Thornton, A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 297. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/810931603.

42    “poor white people” to join  “Testimony in the Trial of Gabriel (October 6, 1800),” Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities, accessed December 11, 2024,encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/testimony-in-the-trial-of-gabriel-october-6-1800/, 1.

42    "intended also to spare all the poor white women who had no slaves” “Confession of Ben Alias Ben Woolfolk,” September 17, 1800, in Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, vol. 9: January 1, 1799 to December 31, 1807, ed. H. W. Flournoy (Richmond, VA: James E. Goode, 1890), 152. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1290268176.

42    “friendly to liberty,” namely the  “Confession of Ben Alias Ben Woolfolk,” 152. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1290268176.

42    pledged to not allow the spread of slavery into new territories  Abraham Lincoln quoted in “Republicans at Cooper Institute.; Address by Hon. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. Remarks of Messrs. Wm. Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley, Gen. Nye and J.A. Briggs. Speech of Wm. Cullen Bryant. Speech of Mr. Lincoln.” New York Times, February 28, 1860,www.nytimes.com/1860/02/28/archives/republicans-at-cooper-institute-address-by-hon-abraham-lincoln-of.html; and “Republican Party Platform of 1860,” May 17, 1860, in Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara,www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1860.

42    feared that, without the ability to expand, the enslaved Black population would . . .  Carl Lawrence Paulus, The Slaveholding Crisis: Fear of Insurrection and the Coming of the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017), 3; Bernard E. Powers Jr., “‘The Worst of All Barbarism’: Racial Anxiety and the Approach of Secession in the Palmetto State,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 112, nos. 3–4 (July–October 2011),www.jstor.org/stable/41698072, 152–156. Find The Slaveholding Crisis library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/945641336.

42    exceeded . . . in South Carolina and Mississippi See Campbell Gibson and Kay Jung, “Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, for the United States, Regions, Divisions, and States,” Working Paper no. 56 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002), tables 15–65,www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2002/demo/POP-twps0056.html.

42    the first two states to secede from the Union  “War Declared: States Secede from the Union!” Kennesaw Mountain, National Park Service, accessed October 22, 2025,www.nps.gov/kemo/learn/historyculture/wardeclared.htm.

42    first ever U.S. Civil Rights Act, which . . .   U.S. Congress, Statutes at Large, ed. George P. Sanger, vol. 15 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1868), 39th Cong., 1st sess. (April 9, 1866),www.google.com/books/edition/Public_Statutes_at_Large_of_the_United_S/yF42AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA27&printsec=frontcover, 27.

42    “foment discord between the two races”  Andrew Johnson, Veto Message on Civil Rights Legislation, March 27, 1866, Miller Center, University of Virginia,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-27-1866-veto-message-civil-rights-legislation.

42    “persons who are strangers to and unfamiliar . . .” Johnson, Veto Message on Civil Rights Legislation,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-27-1866-veto-message-civil-rights-legislation.

42    “infinitely beyond any that the General Government . . .” Johnson, Veto Message on Civil Rights Legislation,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-27-1866-veto-message-civil-rights-legislation.

42    “In fact, the distinction of race and color . . .” Johnson, Veto Message on Civil Rights Legislation,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-27-1866-veto-message-civil-rights-legislation.

43    “the inferior” obtaining “the ascendancy”  Johnson, Third Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1867, Miller Center,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-3-1867-third-annual-message-congress.

43    “such a tyranny as this continent has never yet witnessed”  Johnson, Third Annual Message to Congress,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-3-1867-third-annual-message-congress.

43    “Of all the dangers which our nation has yet encountered . . .”  Johnson, Third Annual Message to Congress,millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-3-1867-third-annual-message-congress.

43    coined the term in an 1866 book  Caroline Janney, “The Lost Cause,” Encyclopedia Virginia, December 7, 2020,encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the/.

43    “white population” being “driven into . . .”  Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause Regained (New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1868), 147–148. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/85793732.

44    termed the great replacement a “counter-colonization”  Renaud   Camus, Le Grand Remplacement (Paris: Reinharc, 2011), trans. Grace Ashton (unpublished translation), 54, 71. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/es/title/Le-grand-remplacement/oclc/767578742.

44    “white community, that had gradually risen . . .”  James Shepherd Pike, The Prostrate State: South Carolina Under Negro Government (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1874), 11. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1328824.

44    “reduced to” lying “prostrate . . .”  Pike, The Prostrate State, 12. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1328824.

44    “the most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw” Pike, The Prostrate State, 12. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1328824.

44    had a Black majority in its state legislature Historian Eric Foner writes of South Carolina: “During the course of Reconstruction, 210 African Americans served in the lower house of the state legislature and 29 in the state senate—a very hefty representation. And South Carolina is the only state that had a black majority in the legislature during Reconstruction. At the top of the state level, there were two black lieutenant governors, the treasurer, and secretary of state. Then there were numerous local officials ranging from justice of the peace, sheriff, and school board officials.” 315 of the estimated total of 1,510 Black officeholders at the local, state, and federal levels during Reconstruction were from South Carolina. Eric Foner, “South Carolina’s Forgotten Black Political Revolution,” Slate, January 31, 2018,slate.com/human-interest/2018/01/the-many-black-americans-who-held-public-office-during-reconstruction-in-southern-states-like-south-carolina.html.

44    first state-funded public school systems  Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, rev. ed. (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2014), 364, 366. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/870290498. Eric Foner and Olivia Mahoney, America’s Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995), 104. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/31375951.

44    most White Southern children did not attend school The school attendance rate for White Southerners was about 40 percent in 1860. Following the establishment of state-funded public schools during Reconstruction, historian Eric Foner explains, “Texas had 1,500 schools by 1872, with a majority of the state’s children attending classes. In Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina, enrollment grew steadily until by 1875 it accounted for about half the children both races.” Philipp Ager et al., “The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners After the Civil War,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 25700 (September 2019),www.nber.org/papers/w25700, 3n3; and Foner, Reconstruction, 366. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/870290498.

44    opened public hospitals Foner, Reconstruction, 364. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/870290498. Foner and Olivia Mahoney, America’s Reconstruction, 104. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/31375951.

44    maximized the investments of wealthy enslavers “Sick slaves represented reduced production and forgone profits. Owners sought medical treatment to return slaves to health and, more explicitly, to work.” Kevin Lander and Jonathan Pritchett, “When to Care: The Economic Rationale of Slavery Health Care Provision,” Social Science History 33, no. 2 (Summer 2009), 156. Access the journal article atwww.jstor.org/stable/40267997. See also Sharla M. Fett, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 18, 20–21. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/48619308.

44    unable to access or afford healthcare Elizabeth Barnaby Keeney, “Unless Powerful Sick: Domestic Medicine in the Old South,” in Science and Medicine in the Old South, eds. Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 276. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/18833399.

44    first public facilities for orphans, first asylums . . .  Foner, Reconstruction, 364. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/870290498.

45    “barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force”  Pike, The Prostrate State, 12. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1328824.

45    “ten years of rank misrule, a saturnalia . . .”  E.H. Hinton, “The Negro and the South: Review of Race Relationships and Conditions,” Confederate Veteran 15, no. 8 (August 1907), 368. Find library access to the magazine atsearch.worldcat.org/title/244125432.

45    “By the shotgun policy? Yes . . .”  Hinton, “The Negro and the South,” 368. Find library access to the magazine atsearch.worldcat.org/title/244125432.

45    “high planes” of White people, then Black people “must not . . .”  John M. Glover in U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 43rd Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 2, Part 6 (June 15, 1874–June 23, 1874), Appendix,www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional_Record/G7hiAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22which%20would%20drag%20down%22&pg=PA4&printsec=frontcover,  4.

45    “I would teach the colored race that civilization . . .” Glover in U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 43rd Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 2, Part 6 (June 15, 1874–June 23, 1874), Appendix,www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional_Record/G7hiAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22which%20would%20drag%20down%22&pg=PA4&printsec=frontcover, 4.

45    “the first substantial exposition of the theory and practice of apartheid”  Uriel Abulof, The Mortality and Morality of Nations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 283. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/918148413.

45    “any policy, philosophy, or attack . . .” Sauer Commission report, 1948, quoted in Graham Leach, South Africa: No Easy Path to Peace (London: Methuen London Limited, 1987), 72. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/1154945317.

45    “A political system of one man one vote means our destruction”  P.W. Botha, 1978, quoted in Abulof, The Mortality and Morality of Nations, 284. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/918148413.

45    “We are not prepared” to share power  Botha, 1978, quoted in Abulof, The Mortality and Morality of Nations, 284. Find the library book atsearch.worldcat.org/title/918148413.

45    had become wealthy . . . as a stockbroker  Joan Biskupic, “Special Report: Behind U.S. Race Cases, a Little-Known Recruiter,” Reuters, December 4, 2012,www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-casemaker-idUSBRE8B30V220121204/.

45    campaign . . . to strike down affirmative action Blum’s “focus on affirmative action in higher education began in 2003, when the University of Texas Austin, his alma mater, proposed including race and ethnicity as one of 15 factors in its admissions process.” Hilary Burns, “Meet Edward Blum, the Man Behind the Harvard Affirmative Action Case,” Boston.com, May 29, 2023,www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2023/05/29/meet-edward-blum-the-man-behind-the-harvard-affirmative-action-case.

45    great replacement financiers bankrolled his campaign  Biskupic, “Special Report: Behind U.S Race Cases, a Little-Known Recruiter,”www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-casemaker-idUSBRE8B30V220121204/; Biskupic, “A Litigious Activist’s Latest Cause: Ending Affirmative Action at Harvard,” Reuters Investigates, Reuters, June 8, 2015,www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-harvard-discrimination/; Burns, “Meet Edward Blum, the Man Behind the Harvard Affirmative Action Case,”www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2023/05/29/meet-edward-blum-the-man-behind-the-harvard-affirmative-action-case; and Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “He Worked for Years to Overturn Affirmative Action and Finally Won: He’s Not Done.” New York Times, July 8, 2023,www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/us/edward-blum-affirmative-action-race.html.

46    “It is not even theoretically possible to ‘help’ a certain racial group without . . .” Clarence Thomas, concurring, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023),www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf.

46    “There is no way to increase the percentage . . .”  Edward Blum quoted in Garcia-Navarro, “He Worked for Years to Overturn Affirmative Action and Finally Won: He’s Not Done,”www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/us/edward-blum-affirmative-action-race.html.

46    privileged students from wealthy families Aatish Bhatia et al., “Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification,” The Upshot, New York Times, July 25, 2023,www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/24/upshot/ivy-league-elite-college-admissions.html.

46    disproportionately White and Asian “A Snapshot of Asian Wealth in America,” Urban Institute, May 1, 2025,apps.urban.org/features/asian-american-wealth-snapshot/; and Rakesh Kochhar and Mohamad Moslimani, “Wealth Surged in the Pandemic, but Debt Endures for Poorer Black and Hispanic Families," Pew Research Center, December 2023,www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/RE_2023.12.04_Race-Wealth_Report.pdf, 14–17.

46    privilege White students more than Asian students  Economists Peter Arcidiacono, Josh Kinsler, and Tyler Ransom report, “Using publicly released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each.” Peter Arcidiacono et al., “Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 26316 (September 2019),www.nber.org/papers/w26316, 1. See also 42. The authors noted that “the dean’s interest list contains a set of applicants that is of special importance to the dean of admissions. In particular, this list will include applicants whose parents have donated to Harvard, and applicants whose relatives have donated to Harvard.” Arcidiacono et al., “Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard,”www.nber.org/papers/w26316, footnote 1 on 2.


46    super-wealthy White students over low- and middle-income White students  Arcidiacono, Kinsler, and Ransom found “that for each special applicant group under the ALDC umbrella, applicants and admits are disproportionately white and come from higher income households.” Arcidiacono et al., “Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard,” 4,www.nber.org/papers/w26316. See also Gregor Aisch et al., “Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours,” New York Times, January 18, 2017,nyti.ms/45my7an.