Mary Parkman Peabody Quotes

Wallace had castigated civil right protesters coming to Alabama as “outsiders.”

France had been hit with repeated riots of Muslim and African French citizens and immigrants. Thousands of cars were burned, property damaged and violence of the protesters had injured and killed bystanders. The major complaint was that they were not really accepted as equals in French society. Chirac tried to calm the rioters and prevent a backlash. Although France was a pioneering country in acceptance and tolerance of people of different races and religions, there has always been a strong intolerant segment of French Society that were racist, anti-Semitic and Fascist leaning. Because of the French concept of equality, affirmative action was not legally possible in France so that there was heavy discrimination and even segregation in housing, schools, occupations, and socially. Further, one of the traditional expectations of all immigrants who become French is that they adopt the French language and culture. Like immigrants throughout the world at the end of the 20th century, French immigrants often wanted to maintain their own customs, culture and language—a practice which set them at odds even with otherwise nondiscriminatory Frenchmen and women.

Before the French Revolution, Jews could freely practice their own religion in France but they could not hold citizenship, become professionals, or a host of other privileges of citizenship. Clermont-Tonnerre and other liberals argued that Jews should be given citizenship. The Jacobins--conservative Catholics close to the Papacy--opposed granting citizenship to Jews or Protestants. One argument that the Jacobins gave was that each of these sects would be separate nations within France and not necessarily have French national interest as a priority. Clermont-Tonnerre gave this response which has been the French philosophy about minority citizenship since then. Their thought was that anyone may become a French citizen as an individual but he or she should do so because he/she wants to accept French values and support the French nation. This view worked quite will over the years until the large immigration of Muslims starting in the 1960s where many new immigrants just wanted to live in France and earn a living there, but did not want to identify with French national aspirations or adopt French culture or values. America, had no such demands and those immigrants who tended to identify primarily with their country or culture of origin and not assimilate were allowed to do so, but the American way of life was so attractive that many immigrants did adopt it and even if they did not, their children almost inevitably did. That has not happened in France.

The first Native American to become a General Officer. Appointed by President Grant in 1869. When Lee arrived there were many Black troops and he mistook General Parker for a Negro but then apologized saying that “I am glad to see one real American here.” This was Parker’s reply.

At the time sectionalism was extensive in America. Most Iowa and Northern families still remembered a relative who had been “killed by the rebels” in the Civil War. The South still resented the rest of the country. The East and Midwest had much better educated than the rest of the country. Most important, there was very little contact between Americans of different sections. Until the great Eisenhower initiative of a National Highway System sectionalism was common. Presidents were constantly trying to develop a national American spirit.

The United States has often staffed its foreign mission with foreigners to save money or obtain specific skills.