W.E.B. Du Bois: “Resolved, That the slaves in the brig Creole are amenable only to the laws of the United States.”

So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.

Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.

Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.

Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to…