May 30, 1885
Ripley, Ohio
COMRADES
AND FELLOW CITIZENS:
I
wish to speak briefly on a subject not closely connected with the appropriate
topics of the occasion which have been so ably handled by the orator of the
day, General Grosvenor. For several
years past I have at least once in each year, in addressing soldiers, asked
them to consider the question of popular education in the Southern States. My wish is to present again barely enough of
the argument in favor of National aid to education, wherever in our country
such aid is needed, to leave with every thoughtful person who hears me the
impression that the measure is one which has solid claims upon the American
people. A few days ago I had the
privilege of hearing on this subject the general agent of the Peabody Education
Fund, Dr. Curry, of Virginia. He is one
of the Southern statesmen who comprehending and fully accepting the abolition
of slavery as one of the essential results of the war wisely and earnestly
labors to develop all the inestimable blessings which ought in the nature of
things to flow from this great revolutionary, but beneficent fact in our
history. I do not attempt to reproduce
his well chosen and impressive language.
He began by saying, in substance, that after long and anxious
deliberation it was his judgment that no public measure which now engages the
attention of the people is at all to be compared in importance with that which
aims to secure general and, if practicable, universal education by the aid of
the Nation.
Concurring
fully and heartily as I do with Dr. Curry, allow me first to say that this
question is not a partisan question nor a sectional question. There was a very able and exhaustive debate
in the Senate of the United States last spring on a bill which provided the
means to give vitality to the system of popular education in the South. It occupied the sessions of the Senate
during many days, and eminent Senators of both political parties and from all
sections of the country took part in it.
At the close of the debate the bill was passed by a vote of 33 to
11. If all who were paired and whose
opinions were announced had voted the bill would have passed with 43 votes in
the affirmative and 21 votes in the negative.
The vote was not partisan. A
majority of Republican Senators voted for the bill and a minority of
Republicans voted against it. In like
manner a majority of Democratic Senators voted for the bill and a minority
against it.
The
vote was not sectional. A majority of
the Senators from Northern States voted for the bill and a minority against
it. A majority of Senators from the
Southern States voted for, and a minority against the bill. In the Cabinet of President Cleveland are
three gentlemen who as Senators voted on the measure. Two voted for it and one against it. The declarations of the National Conventions of both of the great
political parties of the country last year were in the right direction. A political convention is not apt to make
the mistake of being dangerously explicit on questions about which its party is
not entirely harmonious. But both
National Conventions considered the subject, and their resolutions were
accepted by the friends of the National aid as sufficiently definite.
From
the Senate the bill went to the House.
It was confidently believed by its friends that if brought to a vote a
decided majority would support it, but the pressure of other business prevented
its consideration. The record therefore
unhappily reads that in the last Congress National aid to education failed.
The
friends of education will, however, continue to debate. The measure will again be brought
forward. The facts and their fatal
tendency are only too well known. There
are six States in the South having fifty-nine votes in the electoral college
and in the two houses of Congress in which about half of the total number of
voters are unable to write or read the ballots they cast. These States, viz: Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina contain a total
illiterate voting population of 711,954.
The total number of votes cast in these States at the late Presidential
election in 1884 was only 870,455. They
contain about four-fifths as many illiterate voters as the total number of
voters who usually cast their ballots in a Presidential election. These States have about the same
representation—that is within one vote of the same representation in Congress
and in the electoral college as the three States of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana
combined. This single fact is enough to
show the extent and danger of the ignorance which threatens the perpetuity of
our institutions.
The
ignorance both of colored people and of whites in the South is due to
slavery. Slavery and education could
not exist together. It is equally true
that ignorance and free government can not exist together. This is according both to the faith and the
practice of the fathers who founded our government. By official acts and solemn declarations of opinion all of the
early Presidents are on record in favor of the wisdom and constitutionality of
Government aid to education. I need not
detain you with quotations. They read
the Constitution on this subject by the light of the great principle that “the
safety of the Republic is the supreme law.”
In the debate on the Educational Bill, Mr. Voorhies, the Democratic
Senator from Indiana, said:
“But
the doctrine of State rights has been carried too far in the past, and will be
again whenever it is invoked to defeat legislation of the kind we are now
considering.
“Sir,
we have had an era of strict construction.
May I not talk plainly? May I not say what is in my mind to say? The strict construction of antewar times was
born of an institution which exists no more.
The opposition in the Southern mind to a liberal construction of the
powers of the Federal Government originated with the institution of
slavery. It was your local and domestic
institution; you had it to protect; you dreaded the interference of the Federal
authority in the slightest degree, and in proportion as you were threatened
with the power you vehemently denied its existence in any and every form in
which it was asserted. This was no more
than natural, but the reason which made the rule then has passed away, and now
there is no people, there are no States in this Union whose future hope and
welfare are so vitally interwoven with a liberal construction of the
Constitution as the people and States of the South.”
The
six millions of colored people in the Southern States are in no condition by
taxation or otherwise to supply the means for their own education. The whites can perhaps by taxation support
schools for themselves, but to do it for the whole population is simply impossible. Let the Nation help the States to prepare
“the wards of the Nation” to become useful citizens. I have said before and repeat that the colored people are the
only people resident in our country when slavery existed who are in no sense
responsible for it. “They were here by
the misfortune of their ancestors, and by the crime of ours.” Slavery is responsible for the ignorance of
the South. Who is responsible for
slavery? It as in the Union and in the
Constitution when they were formed. All
who took part in forming or upholding them while slavery continued are in some
sense responsible for slavery.
Let the Nation then complete the work which was begun by the soldiers who are honored to-day. The work of the war was to save the Union by abolishing slavery. It only remains to secure the results of the war by giving to the emancipated race that education which will fit them for their new duties. Let this wise and necessary measure be delayed no longer. Let National aid be given to the end that every citizen may have that intelligence and virtue which is essential under a free government.