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Race and the Politics of Memory: Mark Twain and Paul Laurence Dunbar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2006

SHELLEY FISHER FISHKIN
SHELLEY FISHER FISHKIN
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Stanford, California, 94305–2087, USA.
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Extract

In an 1899 essay Mark Twain wrote,

It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of the emancipation agitation in the North the agitators got but small help or countenance from any one. Argue and plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society – the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion – the silent assertion … that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , August 2006 , pp. 283 - 309
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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