It is important to notice that when Emerson said “American,” he meant male white people of a certain socioeconomic standing – his. Without his saying so directly, his definition of American excluded non-Christians and virtually all poor whites. Native American Indians and African Americans did not count. In English Traits, when he tallies up the American population, Emerson explicitly excludes the enslaved and skips over native peoples entirely.4.
-Nell Irvin Painter
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