ABSTRACT
This chapter offers glimpses of the concept of discrimination at work and traces its eventual transformation into a dominant political and legal idea. These glimpses include Charles Dickens' reactions to slavery in America, the Congressional debate after the American Civil War over amending the Constitution, the fate of minority protection-clauses in peace treaties after World War I and World War II, and recent developments in American civil rights law and affirmative action policy. Discrimination would involve treating the native-born and the stranger differently; the 'one ordinance' prescribed nondiscrimination. The American Revolution, of course, began with the Declaration of Independence: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'. In 1842, Charles Dickens toured the United States and wrote a book about his travels, American Notes for General Circulation. The American Constitution in its compromise on slavery opened a boil that eventually had to be lanced by a terrible civil war.
