The Reformers and the American Indian (review)

BOOK REVIEWS89 worthy for the reasons given not to rely on its application. It would seem to give carte bhnche to the federal government to intervene in a state to guarantee a republican form of government, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to enter the touchy area of defining "republican ." The weight of the author's argument for seeing the guarantee clause as a "sleeping giant" lies in the future, but his suggestions for the uses to which constitutional activists might put it to remove a broad spectrum of inequities seem a little far-fetched. The movement toward the supremacy of the federal government over the states, its ability to intervene in state and local activities, as well as to define republican government, has gone a long way down a road marked by other constitutional clauses and amendments, such as the general welfare clause and the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, and 24th amendments. The introduction of the proposed 27th Amendment indicates that this route is not likely to be abandoned soon. History suggests the "sleeping giant" has been rather effectively bypassed. Nevertheless this is an excellent study for the general history student. It is written in a clear, crisp style that aids comprehension, and although Wiecek works in his own views and interpretations of historical events, he does so without encroaching on the creditability of his material. The book is expensive for its size, but the print is exceptionally legible, footnotes are at the bottom of the page, and it has a good bibliographical essay. The limited role played by this clause makes it an ideal brief "case study" of some of the complex interaction of ideas and the pragmatic pressures of history upon the evolution of the Constitution. With the aid of Wiecek's able presentation his sleeping giant is well worth examining. Lillian A. Pereyba University of Portland The Reformers and the American Indian. By Robert Winston Mardock. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971. Pp. x, 245. $9.00.) John Beeson, Lydia Maria Child, Peter Cooper, Helen Hunt Jackson, Wendell Phillips and other humanitarians relentlessly denounced federal Indian policy in the post-Civil War years. These middle class, Northeastern Republicans, most of whom had previously been involved with the anti-slavery movement, perceived the Indian as the white man's brother, separated only by the red man's arrested cultural development and white injustice. Until the equality guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights was extended to everyone , the Indian problem could never be solved—short of his earthly extinction . As individuals or as members of such organizations as the Universal Peace Union and the Indian Rights Association, the reformers proposed plans to achieve justice and equality for native Americans. To uplift the Indian culturally and thereby enable him to compete economically 90CIVIL WAR HISTORY and socially with white men, he must first be placed on a reservation. Then a step-by-step program based on the humanitarians' own nineteenth -century values could begin: a massive education program followed by Christianization, allotment, assimilation and citizenship. "The incorporation of many of the reform ideas into the body of Indian policy from 1869 to 1890 suggests the significance of their work," writes Mardock. Indian-rights workers helped to formulate Grant's Peace Policy and to convince several Indian delegations that its acceptance was in their best interest. They generated enough publicity and pressure to influence the appointment and the discharge of several federal bureaucrats and to defeat the proposed transfer of the Indian Bureau to the War Department. The capstone of their efforts, of course, was the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887. Generally, this reviewer has nothing but praise for Mardock's wellwritten and tightly organized discussion of the advances and setbacks of these dedicated humanitarians. At times he guides us along trails originally blazed by Loring Benson Priest's Uncle Sam's Stepchildren: The Reformation of United States Indian Policy, 1865-1889 (1942) and Henry E. Fritz. The Movement for Indian Assimilation, 1860-1890 (1963), but the author's exhaustive analysis of the impact of Eastern reformers on so many facets of federal Indian policy is a unique and important contribution. His thorough research...