Bricks Without Straw Part 61

"There I think you do me injustice," said Goodspeed, "I feel the necessity of educating every citizen of the Republic, as well as you."

"No doubt, in a certain vague way," was the reply; "but you do not feel it as the only safety to the Republic to-day; and I do."

"I confess I do not see, as you seem to, the immediate advantage, or the immediate danger, more than that which has always threatened us," answered the Congressman.

"This, after all, is the real danger, I think," said Le Moyne.

"The states containing only one third of the population of this Union contain also more than two thirds of its entire illiteracy.

Twenty-five out of every hundred--one out of every four--of the _white voters_ of the former slave states cannot read the ballots which they cast; forty-five per cent of the entire voting strength of those sixteen states are unable to read or write."

"Well?" said the other calmly, seeing Le Moyne look at him as though expecting him to show surprise.

"_Well!_" said Le Moyne. "I declare your Northern phlegm is past my comprehension.--'Well,' indeed! it seems to me as bad as bad can be. Only think of it--only six per cent of intelligence united with this illiterate vote makes a majority!"

"Well?" was the response again, still inquiringly.

"And that majority," continued Le Moyne, "would choose seventy-two per cent of the electoral votes necessary to name a President of the United States!"

"Well," said the other, with grim humor, "they are not very likely to do it at present, anyhow."

"That is true," replied Le Moyne. "But there is still the other danger, and the greater evil. That same forty-five per cent are of course easily made the subjects of fraud or violence, and we face this dilemma: they may either use their power wrongfully, or be wrongfully deprived of the exercise of their ballotorial rights.

Either alternative is alike dangerous. If we suppose the illiterate voter to be either misled or intimidated, or prevented from exercising his judgment and his equality of right with others in the control of our government, then we have the voice of this forty-five per cent silenced--whether by intimidation or by fraud matters not.

Then a majority of the remaining fifty-four per cent, or, say, twenty-eight per cent of one third of the population of the Nation in a little more than one third of the States, might exercise seventy-two per cent of the electoral power necessary to choose a President, and a like proportion of the legislative power necessary to enact laws. Will the time ever come, my friend, when it will be safe to put in the way of any party such a temptation as is presented by this opportunity to acquire power?"

"No, no, no," said the Northern man, with impatience. "But what can you do? Education will not make men honest, or patriotic, or moral."

"True enough," was the reply. "Nor will the knowledge of toxicology prevent the physician from being a poisoner, or skill in handwriting keep a man from becoming a forger. But the study of toxicology will enable the physician to save life, and the study of handwriting is a valuable means of preventing the results of wrongful acts. So, while education does not make the voter honest, it enables him to protect himself against the frauds of others, and not only increases his power but inspires him to resist violence. So that, in the aggregate, you Northerners are right in the boast which you make that intelligence makes a people stronger and braver and freer."

"So your remedy is--" began the other.

"Not _my_ remedy, but the _only_ remedy, is to educate the people until they shall be wise enough to know what they ought to do, and brave enough and strong enough to do it."

"Oh, that is all well enough, if it could be done," said Goodspeed.

"Therefore it is," returned Hesden, "that it _must_ be done."

"But _how?_" said the other querulously. "You know that the Const.i.tution gives the control of such matters entirely to the States. The Nation cannot interfere with it. It is the duty of the States to educate their citizens--a clear and imperative duty; but if they will not do it the Nation cannot compel them."

"Yes," said Hesden, "I know. For almost a century you said that about slavery; and you have been trying to hunt a way of escape from your enforced denial of it ever since. But as a matter of fact, when you came to the last ditch and found no bridge across, you simply made one. When it became an unavoidable question whether the Union or slavery should live, you chose the Union. The choice may come between the Union and ignorance; and if it does, I have no fear as to which the people will choose. The doctrine of State Rights is a beautiful thing to expatiate upon, but it has been the root of nearly all the evil the country has suffered. However, I believe that this remedy can at once be applied without serious inconvenience from that source."

"How?" asked the other; "that is what I want to know."

"Understand me," said Le Moyne; "I do not consider the means so important as the end. When the necessity is fully realized the means will be discovered; but I believe that we hold the clue even now in our hands."

"Well, what is it?" was the impatient inquiry.

"A fund of about a million dollars," said Le Moyne, "has already been distributed to free public schools in the South, upon a system which does not seriously interfere with the jealously-guarded rights of those states."

"You mean the Peabody Fund?"

"Yes; I do refer to that act of unparalleled beneficence and wisdom."

"But that was not the act of the Nation."

"Very true; but why should not the Nation distribute a like bounty upon the same system? It is admitted, beyond serious controversy, that the Nation may raise and appropriate funds for such purposes among the different states, provided it be not for the exclusive benefit of any in particular. It is perhaps past controversy that the Government might distribute a fund to the different states _in the proportion of illiteracy_. This, it is true, would give greater amounts to certain states than to others, but only greater in proportion to the evil to be remedied."

"Yes," said the other; "but the experience of the Nation in distributing lands and funds for educational purposes has not been encouraging. The results have hardly been commensurate with the investment."

"That is true," said Hesden, "and this is why I instance the Peabody Fund. That is not given into the hands of the officers of the various states, but when a school is organized and fulfills the requirements laid down for the distribution of that fund, in regard to numbers and average attendance--in other words, is shown to be an efficient inst.i.tution of learning--then the managers of the fund give to it a sum sufficient to defray a certain proportion of its expenses."

"And you think such a system might be applied to a Government appropriation?"

"Certainly. The amount to which the county, towns.h.i.+p, or school district would be ent.i.tled might be easily ascertained, and upon the organization and maintenance of a school complying with the reasonable requirements of a well-drawn statute in regard to attendance and instruction, such amount might be paid over."

"Yes," was the reply, after a thoughtful pause; "but would not that necessitate a National supervision of State schools?"

"To a certain extent, yes. Yet there would be nothing compulsory about it. It would only be such inspection as would be necessary to determine whether the applicant had ent.i.tled himself to share the Nation's bounty. Surely the Nation may condition its own bounty."

"But suppose these states should refuse to submit to such inspection, or accept such appropriation?"

"That is the point, exactly, to which I desire to bring your attention," said Le Moyne. "Ignorance, unless biased by religious bigotry, always clamors for knowledge. You could well count upon the forty-five per cent of ignorant voters insisting upon the reception of that bounty. The number of those that recognize the necessity of instructing the ignorant voter, even in those states, is hourly increasing, and but a brief time would elapse until no party would dare to risk opposition to such a course. I doubt whether any party would venture upon it, even now."

"But are not its results too remote, Mr. Le Moyne, to make such a measure of present interest in the cure of present evils?"

"Not at all," answered Hesden. "By such a measure you bring the purest men of the South into close and intimate relations with the Government. You cut off the sap which nourishes the yet living root of the State Rights dogma. You bring every man to feel as you feel, that there is something greater and grander than his State and section. Besides that, you draw the poison from the sting which rankles deeper than you think. The Southern white man feels, and justly feels, that the burden of educating the colored man ought not to be laid upon the South alone. He says truly, 'The Nation fostered and encouraged slavery; it gave it greater protection and threw greater safeguards around it than any other kind of property; it encouraged my ancestors and myself to invest the proceeds of generations of care and skill and growth in slaves. When the war ended it not only at one stroke dissipated all these acc.u.mulations, but it also gave to these men the ballot, and would now drive me, for my own protection, to provide for their education. This is unjust and oppressive. I will not do it, nor consent that it shall be done by my people or by our section alone.' To such a man--and there are many thousands of them--such a measure would come as an act of justice. It would be a grateful balm to his outraged feelings, and would incline him to forget, much more readily than he otherwise would, what he regards to be the injustice of emanc.i.p.ation. It will lead him to consider whether he has not been wrong in supposing that the emanc.i.p.ation and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the blacks proceeded from a feeling of resentment, and was intended as a punishment merely. It will incline him to consider whether the people of the North, the controlling power of the Government at that time, did not act from a better motive than he has given them credit for.

But even if this plan should meet with disapproval, instead of approval, from the white voters of the South, it would still be the true and wise policy for the Nation to pursue."

"So you really think," said the Northerner dubiously, "that such a measure would produce good results even in the present generation?"

"Unquestionably," was the reply. "Perhaps the chief incentive to the acts which have disgraced our civilization--which have made the white people of the South almost a unit in opposing by every means, lawful and unlawful, the course of the Government in reconstruction, has been a deep and bitter conviction that hatred, envy, and resentment against them on the part of the North, were the motives which prompted those acts. Such a measure, planned upon a liberal scale, would be a vindication of the manhood of the North; an a.s.sertion of its sense of right as well as its determination to develop at the South the same intelligence, the same freedom of thought and action, the same equality of individual right, that have made the North prosperous and free and strong, while the lack of them has made the South poor and ignorant and weak."

"Well, well," said the Congressman seriously, "you may be right.

I had never thought of it _quite_ in that light before. It is worth thinking about, my friend; it is worth thinking about."

"That it is!" said Le Moyne, joyfully extending his hand. "Think!

If you will only _think_--if the free people of the North will only think of this matter, I have no fears but a solution will be found. Mine may not be the right one. That is no matter. As I said, the question of method is entirely subordinate to the result. But let the people think, and they will think rightly. Don't think of it as a politician in the little sense of that word, but in the great one. Don't try to compel the Nation to accept your view or mine; but spur the national thought by every possible means to consider the evil, to demand its cure, and to devise a remedy."

So, day by day, the "irrepressible conflict" is renewed. The Past bequeaths to the Present its wondrous legacy of good and ill. Names are changed, but truths remain. The soil which slavery claimed, baptized with blood becomes the Promised Land of the freedman and poor white. The late master wonders at the mockery of Fate. Ignorance marvels at the power of Knowledge. Love overleaps the barriers of prejudice, and Faith laughs at the Impossible.

"The world goes up and the world goes down, The suns.h.i.+ne follows the rain; And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown Can never come over again."

On the trestle-board of the Present, Liberty forever sets before the Future some new query. The Wise-man sweats drops of blood.

The Greatheart abides in his strength. The King makes commandment.

The Fool laughs.