HOW?
There was a moment of silence, after which the Northern man said
thoughtfully.
"I think I understand your views, Mr. Le Moyne, and must admit that
both the facts and the deductions which you make from them are very
interesting, full of food for earnest reflection, and, for aught I
know, may fully bear out your view of their effects. Still, I cannot
see that your remedy for this state of affairs differs materially
in its practicability from that of the departed philosopher
of Chappaqua. He prescribed a division of the lands, while, if I
understand you, you would have the Government in some way prescribe
and control the municipal organisations of the people of the
various states. I cannot see what power the National Government
has, or any branch of it, which could effectuate that result."
"It can only be done as it was done at the North," said Le Moyne
quietly.
"Well, I declare!" said Goodspeed, with an outburst of laughter,
"your riddle grows worse and worse--more and more insoluble to
my mind. How, pray, was it done at the North? I always thought we
got it from colonial times. I am sure the New England town-meeting
came over in the Mayflower."
"So it did!" responded Hesden, springing to his feet; "so it did;
it came over in the hearts of men who demanded, and were willing to
give up everything else to secure the right of local self-government.
The little colony upon the Mayflower was a township, and every man
of its passengers carried the seed of the ideal township system
in his heart."
"Admitted, admitted, Mr. Le Moyne," said the other, smiling at his
earnestness. "But how shall we repeat the experiment? Would you
import men into every township of the South, in order that they
might carry the seeds of civil liberty with them, and build up the
township system there?"
"By no means. I would make the men on the spot. I would so mold
the minds of every class of the Southern people that all should be
indoctrinated with the spirit of local self-government."
"But how would you do it?"
"With spelling-books!" answered Hesden sententiously.
"There we are," laughed the other, "at the very point we started
from. Like the poet of the Western bar-room, you may well say, my
friend, 'And so I end as I did begin.'"
"Yes," said Le Moyne, "we have considered the _desirability_
of education, and you have continually cried, with good-natured
incredulity, 'How shall it be done?' Are you not making that inquiry
too soon?"
"Not at all," said the Congressman earnestly; "I see how desirable
is the result, and I am willing to do anything in my power to
attain it, if there is any means by which it can be accomplished."
"That is it," said Le Moyne; "you are _willing_; you recognize
that it would be a good thing; you wish it might be done; you have
no desire to stand in the way of its accomplishment. That is not
the spirit which achieves results. Nothing is accomplished by mere
assent. The American people must first be thoroughly satisfied
that it is a necessity. The French may shout over a red cap, and
overturn existing systems for a vague idea; but American conservatism
consists in doing nothing until it is absolutely necessary. We
never move until the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour.
"Only think of it! You fought a rebellion, based professedly upon
slavery as a corner-stone, for almost two years before you could
bring yourselves to disturb that corner-stone. You knew the structure
would fall if that were done; but the American people waited and
waited until every man was fully satisfied that there was no other
possible road to success. It is just so in this matter. I feel its
necessity. You do not.'
"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
Constitution 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 institution 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, township, or school
district would be entitled 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 entitled 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 accumulations,
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 emancipation. It will
lead him to consider whether he has not been wrong in supposing
that the emancipation and enfranchisement 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 assertion 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 sunshine 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.