Notable Excerpts:
“It appears to me beyond a doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive, like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions. But I do not conclude from this that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw the same political consequences which the Americans have derived from a similar social organization. I am far from supposing that they have chosen the only form of government which a democracy may adopt; but the identity of the efficient cause of laws and manners in the two countries is sufficient to account for the immense interest we have in becoming acquainted with its effects in each of them.” [page 23]
“The Indian was indebted to no one but himself; his virtues, his vices, and his prejudices were his own work; he had grown up in the wild independence of his nature.” [page 30 (described along with the landscape as what the Europeans originally saw when they landed in America)]
“This unfortunate effect of the disparity of conditions is not observable in savage life: the Indians, although they are ignorant and poor, are equal and free. At the period when Europeans first came among them the natives of North America were ignorant of the value of riches, and indifferent to the enjoyments which civilized man procures to himself by their means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in their demeanor; they practised an habitual reserve and a kind of aristocratic politeness. Mild and hospitable when at peace, though merciless in war beyond any known degree of human ferocity, the Indian would expose himself to die of hunger in order to succor the stranger who asked admittance by night at the door of his hut; yet he could tear in pieces with his hands the still quivering limbs of his prisoner.” [page 32]
“The famous republics of antiquity never gave examples of more unshaken courage, more haughty spirits, or more intractable love of independence than were hidden in former times among the wild forests of the New World.” [page 32-33]
“The ruin of these nations began from the day when Europeans landed on their shores; it has proceeded ever since, and we are now witnessing the completion of it.” [page 33]
“The grammatical system of the Americans differs from all others in several points, but especially in the following: –Some nations of Europe, amongst others the Germans, have the power of combining at pleasure different expressions, and thus giving a complex sense to certain words. The Indians have given a most surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means of connecting a great number of ideas with a single term. This will be easily understood with the help of an example quoted by Mr. Duponceau, in the “Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America”: A Delaware woman playing with a cat or a young dog, says this writer, is heard to pronounce the word kuligatschis, which is thus composed: k is the sign of the second person, and signifies “thou” or “thy”; uli is a part of the word wulit, which signifies “beautiful,” “pretty”; gat is another fragment, of the word wichgat, which means “paw”; and, lastly, “schis” is a diminutive giving the idea of smallness. Thus in one word the Indian woman has expressed “Thy pretty little paw.”” [Appendix C]
“The most complex action is often expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades of an idea by the modification of its construction. Those who may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have only glanced at superficially, should read:
1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr. Hecwelder relative to the Indian languages, which is to be found in the first volume of the “Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of America,” published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small; vol. i. p. 356-464.
2. The “Grammar of the Delaware or the Lenape Language,” by Geiberger, and the preface of Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same collection, vol. iii.
3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of the sixth volume of the American Encyclopaedia” [Appendix C]
Informed Citizens. Accountable Power. 