The word “Caste,” we derive from a Portuguese word, which means “a race;” the Portuguese being the early voyagers to the East Indies, where they found the distinction of classes of society established under the Brahminical regime of India. Thence it came to be applied as a term of distinction of society in other countries. There were four castes in India: 1, the Priests; 2, military; 3, merchants; 4, the servile classes.
Members of the lowest caste were forbidden to marry those of the upper. Children of such unions were outcasts and irredeemably base; they could not accumulate property, nor change or improve their conditions. Along with many other senseless and inconvenient rules for the conduct of the different castes, were such as those forbidding members of different castes from using the same springs or running streams, sitting at the same table, eating with the same utensils, or preparing food in the same vessels. It was contamination for those of the first class to even mingle in the public highway with those who were of the lower castes. For convenience, and in the interest of the commercial prosperity of India, the British, after much exertion, have been able to eradicate many of these absurd distinctions, and the habits that resulted therefrom.
The attempt to create class distinctions in Free America, upon the basis of wealth or assumed social superiority, is a crime, and as such will be punished by the Common People.
INDEX.
| PAGE. | |
| Introduction | [11] |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Vox Populi, Vox Dei | [33] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| The Alleged General Discontent | [65] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| November 8, 1892 | [79] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| Society as the People Found It November 8, 1892 | [91] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| Some Reasons for Wrath | [111] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| The Aristocratic “Chappie” vs. Abraham Lincoln | [145] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| Hon. John Brisben Walker, on Homestead | [161] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Surrender at Homestead.—Organized Labor Defeated | [183] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| Possible Fruits of Victory | [204] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| The Cause of Bullets, ’61; Ballots, ’92.—Abraham Lincoln, the People’s Choice in ’60 | [225] |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| Andrew Jackson, 1828 | [241] |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
| Thomas Jefferson, 1800 | [249] |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
| The Revolution in 1776 | [257] |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
| The French Revolution | [278] |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
| England, 1645 | [295] |
| CHAPTER XVI. | |
| The German Empire, 1520-1525 | [307] |
| CHAPTER XVII. | |
| Switzerland, 1424 | [312] |
| CHAPTER XVIII. | |
| Russia | [315] |
| CHAPTER XIX. | |
| Patricians and Plebeians in Rome | [320] |
| CHAPTER XX. | |
| Greece.—Venice.—The Rule of “Caste” | [324] |
| CHAPTER XXI. | |
| Egypt, 4235 B. C. | [330] |
| CHAPTER XXII. | |
| Christianity | [333] |
| CHAPTER XXIII. | |
| Not a Democratic Party Victory.—Democracy is Not the Name of a Party, but of a Principle | [346] |
| CHAPTER XXIV. | |
| Not a Defeat of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party | [390] |
| CHAPTER XXV. | |
| The Populist: the “Allies.”—Elected by the People; therefore, with the “Common People” | [409] |
| CHAPTER XXVI. | |
| “Flabbyism” and the Income Tax | [417] |
| CHAPTER XXVII. | |
| Conclusion | [428] |