ABSTRACT
Todd’s vision of the American body politic was the typical white supremacist one, and the tradition Todd represented held women responsible for racial destiny. The danger of the submersion or extinction of what he called the “Anglo-American” race was a constant theme after the Civil War. Todd’s appeal to WASP women to stop aborting and contracepting was in the context of his anxiety over the decline in what he called “our native population.” His authorities for this decline, and the men he believed responsible for organizing social energies to resist the process, were doctors and ministers.
To the watchful eye of the physician, and to that of the far-seeing clergyman, too, it has been apparent that through our country our native population is not on the increase, but diminishing fast,—that our families now in the country will not average over three, or three and a fraction, of children born,—and that while our foreign population have large families, our own native American families are running out, and, at this rate, must and will entirely run out. The statistics presented to our legislatures on this subject are fearful.
