Annotated and Abridged Artifact

Abridged Text

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

January 23, 1854. -- Ordered to be printed.

Mr. Foot [1 »] made the following REPORT.

-To accompany Bill S. 44.- [2 »]

The Committee on Public Lands [3 »] to whom was referred the bill making a grant of public lands for the benefit of the indigent insane in the several States, report:

The committee adopt the report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives in 1850, upon the subject matter of this bill, and embracing the memorial of Miss D. L. Dix.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 8, 1850.

The Select Committee to whom was referred the memorial of Miss D. L. Dix, praying [4 »] for an appropriation of land for the relief of the insane, beg leave to report:

That a careful consideration of the subject committed to them has resulted in their conviction that the prayer of the memoralist ought to be granted.

The amelioration of the condition of the insane, that neglected and unfortunate class of our citizens, should be regarded as an object of the highest national concernment; [5 »] and, in the opinion of your committee there is no other mode than that suggested by the memorialist, by which Congress, within the clear limits of its constitutional power, can so properly and successfully contribute to that desideratum.

But the memorial itself sets forth so ably and conclusively the main reasons which the committee would urge for its favorable consideration by the House, that they deem an elaborate report from themselves as wholly superfluous. They adopt unanimously, and with great satisfaction, that memorial as their own report and bespeak for it the attentive consideration to which its merits so justly entitle it. Nor is the memorial in any degree lessened in its importance by a consideration of the source whence it comes. The memoralist, a lady, impelled by the purest and noblest impulses, has devoted many wearisome years, the best portion of her life, to the amelioration of the condition of our insane -- bringing to her task, talents and abilities of the highest order, such as would have secured her distinction and fame in any vocation in life. Wending her way into every State in the Union, and over almost every portion of each State, she has, with the devotedness of her sex, and with the firmness of purpose characteristic of the sternest of our own, [6 »] sought out the condition, and in many cases the minute history, of more than 23,000 insane persons, seven-eighths of whom are entirely destitute of those advantages of situation and remedial treatment indispensible to the restoration of their reason. And she has embodied a mass of observations and facts concerning them which attest alike her laborious zeal, her keen discrimination, and philosophic mind; while they supply to us, and to the country, information of the highest utility and value. The result of her labors is in the memorial now before the House, and which is made a part of this report. [7 »]

The committee propose for adoption the following resolution:

Resolved, That five thousand copies of the memorial of Miss D. L. Dix be printed for the use of the House. [8 »]

And the committee report and recommend the passage of the accompanying bill.

MEMORIAL OF MISS D. L. DIX

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled.

Your memorialist respectfully asks permission to lay before you what seem to be just and urgent claims in behalf of a numerous and increasing class of sufferers in the United States. I refer to the great and inadequately relieved distresses of the insane throughout the country.

It is a fact, not less certainly substantiated than it is deplorable, that insanity has increased in an advanced ratio with the fast increasing population in all the United States. [9 »] For example, according to the best received methods of estimate five years since, it was thought correct to count one insane in every thousand inhabitants throughout the Union. At the present, my own careful investigations are sustained by the judgment and the information of the most intelligent superintendents of hospitals for the insane, in rendering the estimates not less than one insane person in every eight hundred inhabitants at large, throughout the United States.

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There are, in proportion to numbers, more insane in cities than in large towns, and more insane in villages than among the same number of inhabitants dwelling in scattered settlements.

In law, idiots are ranked with the insane. [10 »] I have remarked, throughout our country, several prevailing causes of organic idiocy; of these the most common, and the most surley traced, is intemperance [11 »] of parents, and the marriage and intermarriage of near relatives and kindred. [12 »] Abounding examples exist on every side throughout the land.

Allowing at the present time 22,000,000 inhabitants in the United States, (which is below the estimated number,) and supposing only one in every thousand to be insane or idiotic, we have then 22,000 to take charge of; a majority of whom are in needy or necessitous circumstances. Present hospital provision relieves (if we do not include those institutions not considered remedial [13 »]), less than 5,000 patients. Where are the remainder, and what is their condition? More than 17,000 are unsuitably placed in private dwellings, in jails, in poorhouses, and other often most wretched habitations. [14 »]

I have myself seen more than nine thousand idiots, epileptics, [15 »] and insane, in these United States, destitute of appropriate care and protection; and of this vast and most miserable company sought out in jails, in poor-houses, and in private dwellings, there have been hundreds, nay, rather thousands, bound with galling chains, bowed beneath fetters and heavy iron balls, attached to drag-chains, lacerated with ropes, scourged with rods, and terrified beneath storms of profane execrations and cruel blows; now subject to gibes, and scorn, and torturing tricks-now abandoned to the most loathsome necessities, or subject to the vilest and most outrageous violations. These are strong terms, but language fails to convey the astounding truths. I proceed to verify this assertion, commencing with the State of Maine. I will be ready to specify the towns and districts where each example quoted did exist, or exist still. [16 »]

Hardly second to this consideration is the civil and social obligation to consult and secure the public welfare; [17 »] first, in affording protection against the frequently manifested dangerous propensities of the insane; and second, by assuring seasonable and skillful remedial cases, procuring their restoration to usefulness as citizens of the republic and as members of communities. [18 »]

Under ordinary circumstances, and where there is no organic lesion of the brain, no disease is more manageable or more easily cured than insanity; [19 »] but to this end special appliances are necessary, which cannot be had in private families, nor in every town and city; hence the necessity for hospitals, and the multiplication, not enlargement, of such institutions. [20 »] The citizens of many States have readily submitted to increased taxation, and individuals have contributed liberal gifts, in order to meet these imperative wants. Hospitals have been constructed, and well organized. The important charge of these has been in most instances confided to highly responsible and skilful physicians -- men whose rank in morals and in intellect, while commanding the public confidence, has wrought immeasurable benefits for hundreds and thousands of those in whom, for a time, the light of reason had been hidden. [21 »]

But while the annual reports emanating from these beneficent institutions record eminent successes in the cure of recently developed cases, the provision for the treatment of this malady in the United States is found wholly insufficient for existing necessities, as has been already demonstrated in preceding pages.

To confide the insane to persons whose education and habits do not qualify them for this charge, is to condemn them to a mental death. The keepers of prisons, the masters of poorhouses, and most persons in private families, are wholly unacquainted with bodily and mental diseases, and are therefore incapable of the judicious application of such remedial measures, moral, mental, and medical, as are requisite for the restoration of physical and mental health. Recovery, even of recent cases, not submitted to hospital charge, is known to be very rare -- a fact readily demonstrable by examples, and by figures if necessary. It may be more satisfactory to show the benefits of hospital treatment, rather than dilate upon the certain evils of prison and almshouse neglects or abuses and domestic mismanagement. [22 »]

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Under well-directed hospital care, recovery is the rule -- incurable permanent insanity the exception.

It will be said by a few, perhaps, that each State should establish and sustain its own institutions; that it is not obligatory upon the general government to legislate for the maintenance of State charities, by supplying the means of relief to individual sufferers; but may it not be demonstrated as the soundest policy for the federal government to assist in the accomplishment of great moral obligations, by diminishing and arresting widespread miseries which mar the face of society, and weaken the strength of communities?

Should your sense of moral responsibility seek support in precedents for guiding present action, I may be permitted to refer to the fact of liberal grants of common national property made, in the light of a wise discrimination, to various institutions of learning; also to advance in the new States common school education, and to aid two seminaries of instruction for the deaf and dumb, viz: that in Hartford, Connecticut, and the school at Danville, in Kentucky, &c. [23 »]

But it is not for one section of the United States that I solicit benefits, while all besides are deprived of direct advantages. I entertain no sectional prejudices, advance no local claims, and propose the advancement of no selfish aims, present or remote. [24 »]

I advocate the cause of the much suffering insane throughout the entire length and breadth of my country. I ask relief for the east and for the west, for the north and for the south; and for all I claim equal and proportionate benefits.

I ask of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, with respectful but earnest importunity, assistance to the several States of the Union in providing appropriate care and support for the curable and incurable indigent insane.

I ask of the representatives of a whole nation benefits for all their constituents. Annual taxation for the support of the insane in hospitals is felt to be onerous, both in the populous maritime States, and in the States and Territories west of the Alleghanies. [25 »] Much has been done, but much more remains to be accomplished, as I have endeavored to demonstrate in the preceding pages, for the relief of the sufferings and oppressions of that large class of the distressed for whom I plead, and upon whose condition I am solicitous to fix your attention.

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I ask for the people that which is already the property of the people; but possessions so holden, that it is through your action alone they can be applied as is now urged.

The whole public good must be sought and advanced through those channels which most certainly contribute to the moral elevation and true dignity of a great people.

Americans boast much of superior intelligence and sagacity; of power and influence; of their vast resources possessed and yet undeveloped; -- of their free institutions and civil liberty; of their liberally endowed schools of learning, and of their far-reaching commerce: they call themselves a mighty nation; they name themselves a great and wise people. If these claims to distinction above most nations of the earth are established upon undeniable premises, then will the rulers, the political economists, and the moral philosophers of other and remote countries, look scrutinizingly into our civil and social condition for examples to illustrate the greatness of our name. They will seek not to measure the strength and extent of the fortifications which guard our coast; they will not number our vessels of war, or of commerce; they will not note the strength of our armies; they will not trace the course of the thousands eager for self-aggrandizement, nor of the tens of thousands led on by ambition and vain glory: they will search after illustrations in those God-like attributes which sanctify private life, and in that incorruptible integrity and justice which perpetuates national existence. They will note the moral grandeur and dignity which leads the statesman to lay broad and deep the foundations of national greatness, in working out the greatest good for the whole people; in effect, making paramount the interests of mind to material wealth, or mere physical prosperity. Primarily, then, in the highest order of means for confirming the prosperity of a people and the duration of government must be the education of the ignorant, and restoring the health and maintaining the sick mind in its natural integrity.

I will not presume to dictate to those in whose humane dispositions I have faith, and whose wisdom I cannot question.

I have approached you with self-diffidence, but with confidence in your impartial and just consideration of the subject submitted to your discussion and righteous effective decision.

I confide to you the cause and the claims of the destitute and of the desolate, without fear or distrust. I ask for the thirty States of the Union 5,000,000 acres [26 »] of land, of the many hundreds of millions of public lands, appropriated in such manner as shall assure the greatest benefits to all who are in circumstances of extreme necessity, and who, through the providence of God, are wards of the nation [27 »], claimants on the sympathy and care of the public, through the miseries and disqualifications brought upon them by the sorest afflictions with which humanity can be visited.

Respectfully submitted,
D.L. DIX.
WASHINGTON, June 23, 1848.