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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



man, to give him the opportunity to learn ; they 

 would rather embarrass him to prevent his 

 making the acquisition unless they were in favor 

 of his voting, while if voting is universal, com- 

 munities, for their own security, for their own 

 protection, will he driven to establish common 

 schools so that the voter shall become intelligent. 

 I suppose that in the Northern States the uni- 

 versality of the elective franchise has had much 

 to do with the vigorous and extended common 

 school systems which there exist. Besides, from 

 the peculiar structure of society in this country, 

 and in view of the possible necessity of resort- 

 ing to measures of this nature to secure a loyal 

 constituency elsewhere, I believe, that the true 

 way to try the experiment here is to make it 

 universal. I hope, I trust, I believe, that the 

 experiment will be successful. I believe that 

 communities will then go to work to give educa- 

 tion to these men, and that they, feeling their 

 manhood, will be animated to greater applica- 

 tion and industry. 



" If this should be so, what results would we 

 behold from this rebellion? "We would see 

 these people able to read, having the rights of 

 citizens; then comes the newspaper; then comes 

 the open Bible ; and as the result of this rebellion 

 we would see the mother of infamies dethroned 

 and intelligence and virtue, twin sisters heaven- 

 born, enthroned in her stead. Then we would 

 see a teeming population all over this continent 

 intelligent and virtuous, fit to exercise the rights 

 and privileges of citizens. We would see this 

 country extending on the one hand to Europe 

 with its telegraph, and on the other to Asia 

 with its railroads and its steamer connections, 

 so that the influence of this country would be 

 felt all over the world ; the pulsations of the 

 great American heart would vibrate intelligence 

 and virtue and freedom to all the earth. I be- 

 lieve that this action which is being taken in 

 this District is the beginning of great things. 

 I admit that the question is a nice one x to solve, 

 whether the intelligence qualification shall be 

 insisted on or not ; but in view of all the case 

 and all the circumstances of the country, I shall 

 be constrained to try the experiment here, so 

 far as my vote is concerned, by making the 

 elective franchise universal." 



Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, said: "I cannot 

 speak for other sections of the .country, but for 

 the Northwest I think I am justified in saying 

 that there is a great deal of intelligence found 

 among men who are not able to read. They 

 do not acquire their information from books, but 

 from intercourse one with another. In that 

 part of the United States our population is made 

 up of men coming from the New England States, 

 men coming from the central portions of the 

 country, and also persons from the Southern 

 States. . These people meet in the same neigh- 

 borhoods. They have intercourse with each 

 other, and the one communicates to the other 

 what he knows. They attend the popular meet- 

 ings ; they hear the political questions of the 

 day discussed ; they are called upon the juries, 



and they hear the law discussed both by the 

 attorneys and by the court, and in the course 

 of a generation many men who are not able to 

 read and write become very intelligent men and 

 entirely competent to the exercise of political 

 power. I have addressed, in the course of my 

 professional life, very many men as jurors, who 

 were excellent jurors indeed, who were not able 

 to read. Perhaps gentlemen from other sec- 

 tions of the country are not able to understand 

 exactly how this may be. I attribute it to the 

 fact that our population is made up of citizens 

 coming from every part of the country, and in 

 their intercourse they communicate to one an- 

 other the peculiar information of each, and be- 

 cause also of the popular institutions which pre- 

 vail, calling the people together in public as- 

 semblies and hearing the great questions of the 

 day discussed, and the popular character of our 

 courts in which the laws of the land are freely 

 discussed. 



" But, sir, does that state of fact at all apply 

 to the colored people? They have had none 

 of these opportunities of obtaining intelligence 

 which I have mentioned. They have been in a 

 state of servitude. They have never mingled 

 with citizens of other sections of the country, 

 and thereby acquired information. They have 

 never been called into the courts to hear the 

 laws and institutions of the country discussed. 

 They have never attended the popular meetings 

 and there heard discussed the institutions and 

 policy of the laud. They have had none of the 

 means of information which has made intelli- 

 gent men out of many in the Northwest who 

 are not able to read and write. 



" The Senator from Pennsylvania will hardly 

 say that intelligence acquired in some way or 

 other is not important to the citizen. He cer- 

 tainly is not prepared to question that which 

 has become almost an axiom with us, that our 

 institutions rest upon the virtue and the intel- 

 ligence of the people. Has that been a mis- 

 take all the while, or in fact do our institutions 

 rest upon public virtue and public intelligence ? 

 If so, I submit to Senators whether the slave 

 corning from the farm, who has never heard 

 the Constitution of his country either read or 

 discussed, who has no knowledge whatever, 

 and has had no opportunity of acquiring knowl- 

 edge of the laws of the country, of the policy 

 proposed, of the policy that has governed us 

 in the past, or that is proposed for the future, 

 is competent to exercise political power in this 

 country ? For many offices it is only important 

 to know the character of the candidate. For 

 merely administrative or executive offices it is 

 enough for us to know that the man we vote 

 for is an honest man and a man of ordinary 

 intelligence, because the discharge of the du- 

 ties of his office has no influence upon the po- 

 litical policy of the country ; but when we come 

 to vote for the legislator or any executive offi- 

 cer who has any influence upon the legislation 

 of the country, is it then only important that 

 we should know the man ? Is it not important, 



