An Appeal to Ceasar

Albion W. Tourgee

New York : Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1884

[United States Race Relations: Reconstruction : Color Blind] Bound in publisher's cloth. Hardcover. Good binding and cover. Clean, unmarked pages. Minor shelf wear.  An early civil rights appeal. 

"An upas-tree had taken deep root in the virgin soil of the New World. A free people hacked it down with the sword. It cost more than a million lives and five billions of dollars to accomplish the task. The roots were left to gather strength for other harmful growth. The Nation was so elated with its achievement that it forgot all about the source from which the evil sprang. Already the new growth has borne fruit of Violence and Misrule. Can we afford to allow the roots to remain? How much can we afford to pay to have them digged up? How can this best be accomplished?"--Preface.

Tourgee was one of the best known advocates for the rights of Freedmen and Colored Americans in the 1870s-1880s.  He founded the  National Citizens' Rights Association, served in the Civil War for the Union, and legally challenge the principle of separate but equal.  He served as Homer Plessy's lead attorney in the landmark case supreme court case. He is cited as the originator of the term, "Color Blind."