Text Analysis - What Social Classes Owe Each Other

William Graham Sumner is arguing that social inequality is the right and natural outcome of the struggles of men trying to make their own way in the world. He equates rights to do things to chances, that rights do not guarantee success, only a chance to be successful. Some become successful and some do not. He also argues that “giving alms” to the poor who have never tried to become successful, who have never utilized their chances and who don’t contribute anything to society should not b helped. That these poor should be left alone to fade into the “poor man” class. However some poor men never received a chance, and those are the men that Sumner believes should be helped, to a certain point. They should only be helped enough so that they can help themselves and can begin fighting for a better life.

He is trying to discredit the humanitarians that were arguing that the poor class was really poor and, in his opinion, grossly over exaggerating the state of poverty in which they lived. He argues that “men who have not done their duty in this world never can be equal to those who have done their duty more or less well. Classes will always exist, no other social distinctions can endure. The class distinctions simply result from the different degrees of success with which men have availed themselves of the chances which were presented to them”.

Sumner is arguing (logically) that social classes will always exist, but that some men only need a little help to become a part of a higher class. He argues that “Instead of endeavoring to redistribute the acquisitions which have been made between the existing classes, our aim should be to increase, multiply, and extend the chances. The greater the chances, the more unequal will be the fortune of these two sets of men. So it ought to be, in all justice and right reason”

His emotional quality is substantial. The way he talks about how some poor need help from those “better off” in order for them fight for a better life, while at the same time arguing that those men who contribute nothing to society should not receive benefits from men who do. He also gets a little sarcastic when he’s talking about how the humanitarians wrote in a way that was meant to make the rich feel guilty for all the things they have when the poor have nothing. 

From this article I perceive that Sumner was a good man. He recognizes that society has a responsibility to help out those who need a little help, but he also doesn’t mind saying that not all people deserve help, especially if they would just fritter it away. He believed that all men deserved some sort of chance to make something of themselves. 

The historical significance is that this essay was written at a time when Social Darwinism was all the rage, and men like Carnegie were distorting the views to better fit their own personal needs. To me this essay seems to better encompass the true meaning of social darwinism, that all men get a chance to be great, but it just works out that not everyone will be. 

I do find his argument convincing. I agree whole-heartedly that  people deserve chances to become better versions of themselves, but that not everyone deserves multiple chances. Also I found that his essay was very well structured and really helped to lead me to a point where I would agree with him. The way he went from introducing the topic, to explaining why we have social classes, to explaining why we need social classes was genius. Plus it helps that I was already a fan of social darwinism. 

CDL - Social Darwinism 3/5

Social Darwinism was the emphasis on “survival of the fittest” (coined by Herbert Spencer). It was a philosophy used to help explain why some industrial companies survived and thrived in the tooth-and-claw environment but others failed. Andrew Carnegie was the only American business mogul who championed Social Darwinism and was “well-read” on the subject, however his understanding of the basic principals of Social Darwinism is called into question based on some of his essays. A man named William Graham Sumner, who was a chair in political economy at Yale University, was a purist when it came to laissez-faire and adamantly opposed protective tariffs that inflated prices of foreign goods sold in the US. His remarks and political stance alienated him from the very group he supported, the rich. In practice all business men supported protective tariffs, land grants and the like, except for when it would interfere with them making a profit. Only when they were threatened with higher taxes or regulations would they argue for survival of the fittest for the “natural laws”.

1. How did the economic inequality and cut-throat business environment help to support the idea of Social Darwinism?
2. The way Carnegie described his belief in Social Darwinism is written in terms usually reserved for religious experiences, so could it be said that Social Darwinism was a kind of religion, with it’s own values and belief system?

Text Analysis - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Lincoln is arguing for an end to the War, and for both the North and the South to accept each other. He wants the nation to be whole agains, even though feelings of resentment will still be there. He also calls for the American people to put this war behind them and for all veterans, North or South, to be treated with respect and for their families to be looked after. 

Lincoln’s second address seems, at least to me, to be more emotional then his first even though it’s shorter. By calling for Americans “to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations”, he is begging Americans to not hate the South just because they are the enemy, but to accept them again as their kin and to try and heal the wounds of the soldiers and of their families. 

He also cited the Bible and a few versus for a more “logical” argument as was the norm for back then. He argued that God had sent this war to the US as punishment for an offense, which Lincoln says is slavery. Lincoln goes on to say that “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword”, meaning that the war wouldn’t end until all the pain and suffering of the slaves had been dealt out to soldiers. He also says that the blame for this war does not solely rest on the South, but that the North deserves (at least) part of the blame for not being willing to let the Union dissolve, but instead push for war to keep it together.

This speech portrays Lincoln as a man who is weary of war and is ready for the nation to be whole again. He just wants for everyone to “play nice” and to try and put this war behind them. This document represents the point of view of the Union president during the only Civil War that America has ever known, which by itself makes it important. The Civil War was a terrible time in our history, where Americans killed Americans over political views.

I did find his argument convincing. I really appreciated that Lincoln called for the American people to accept the Southerns into their fold again, and he said that the South was not the only one to blame for the Civil War. I think that by more evenly distributing the blame to both the North and the South he was trying to quash feelings of resentment that were going to surface once the war was over. If I had been a Northerner during the Civil War I would have felt throughly chastised for letting it come to war to try and resolve the political and ideological  problems in the country and I would have felt more open to forgiving the South. 

If I had lived in the South I do not think that this speech would have been enough to make me want to be a part of the Union again, especially because in my mind Lincoln is not my president so he didn’t matter. I would have been hurt that the Union did not allow my state to leave and I don’t think something as unimportant as an inaugural address by some guy who is not my president would be able to ease the pain and anger I would have at the Union. However it might make me a little more willing to enter negotiations to find an end to the war.

CDL - Who Rushed For Gold 1/25

Who rushed for gold seems to be a very broad question, instead it should be who didn’t rush for gold? Anglo-Americans, Chinese men, Mexicans, Irish, Australians, French, Chileans and Italians are just a few of the nationalities that flocked to California to strike it rich. They came by boats, by railroads, by wagons and sometimes by foot. Even though the Americans were intruding on former-Mexican land, won in the Mexican-American War and where the government had promised earlier to protect Mexican and Spanish land titles, they still took over the region and attempted to push the foreigners off of “their” land to keep all the gold for themselves and other Anglo-Americans. The Americans in control of the mines and the towns passed the Foreign Miners’ Tax Law, heavily taxing any foreigner who dug for gold, in a hope to drive them from the dig sites. The 49ers also attempted to drive the Indians from their land in California by murdering them in groups. These brutal attacks coupled with starvation and low birth rates forced the Indians to relocate to the most remote part of the state, where they tried to stay out of the way. Eventually corporations took over small mines, leaving the 49ers to either become a wage earner within those mines or to open their own small business or to farm. 


Question 1. How did the treatment of minorities during the Gold Rush potentially impact racial relations/tensions in the US?
Question 2. How did the invention of the telegraph and the rapidly spreading railroads help contribute to gold fever?