The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1845-02-27
BRANDON, Thursday, February ~, 1916.

uOWH ~ iulu ny lnLeHpeTdHCts udu
been taughtto regard Connecticut as a land
of wood en- nutmegs and leather pumpkin
seeds; yet there was q land OF sterliitv
without paupers, and "A people where no
man Was 10 be found who could not write
his name and read his laws and his Bi ble.
These were strange things; but far more
strange, passing strange, will it be, Ken
tucklanSl if you shall not come TO the
same conclusion TO which was COMPEL
td-that liberty, religion and education
were the cause of all these things, and the
true foundation of individual happiness
and national lory. Ia 1885 introduced
a Common School bill into the House of
Representatives of Kentucky it was lost
In 1888 had the pleasure Of voting for
the present Common School law, in com,
mon with ID great majority OF my compeers
Before 1910, | was convinced that unver
sal education in Slave State was impos-
sibe Whilst l now write, the eigh!
hundred thousand dollars set aside, from
the proceeds ofthe sales otthe public lands,
Tor Common Schools, surrepliously APP
propriated 10 internal Improvements, con-
firm my conclusion. There is not SIN
gle cent in the great Commonwealth of
kentucky appropriated 10 the education
of her people! G. A. W;ckliffe, in a
Cow eulon of Teachers, in 1910, at
Frankfor,, said: "Itsavery and Common
Schools be incompatible, say let slavery
perish" The sentiment was met with
tremendous applause Men ofKentucky!
what say you? Time mas proved that
they are Incompatible; not a single slave
State has succeeded, from the beginning,
in the general education of her citizens.
Governor Hammond, Of South Carolina,
says in his message 10 the Legislature
"The Free School system is failure.--'
Its failure is owing 10 the fact that it does
not suit our people or our government
Experience and reason have long siuce
proclaimed the same unwelcome fact.
Whilst Mr.. WickIife was specializing
| was acting. BY aid Of the law Of 1888,
| hoped ultimately to emancipale the State
from ignorance, poverty and crime. Ken
lucky called upon all her sons, by all the
glorious memories of the past, by all the
fond hopes of the future, 10 resist those
who, by the repeal of ha, law and ret.
rogade movement, would sink her into
the everduring night and lower deep Of
perpetual slavery. The time had at last
come, when l was 10 play the selfish time
server for office and temporary elevation
or planting myself upon the eternal prin-
ples OF truth, justice and reason, looking
10 conscience; TO posterity and TO God, 10
fall proudly in their cause. What though
BIZ "a fanatic o. an enthusiast in holding
that slavery is contrary 10 the Declaration
of American Independence; the Constilu-
ton Of the United States; The common law
OF our English inheritance; and in viola
ton OF the laws Of nature aud OF God-the
effects OF it are beyond all controversy; the
monumental hand of time has written
them in characters OF horrible disinctness:
turning The dewy heavens into BRASS aud
scalhing The green earth with slerilly and
decay. The whole South cries out with
anguish against this and that measure of
national injury; impores and denounces
in alternate pue!llty; makes and unmakes
presidents; enacts and repeats laws with a
petulance and reckessness, more worthy
OF manly indignation, than the piliable
forbearance o! the North. Yet no relief
comes 10 the sinking patient; aer hypo-
chondrlacal illusions are not dispeIed; she
cannot, she will not see that slavery, moth.
ing but slavery, is the cause of her ruin.
Her fields relapse into primitive seriIity
her population wastes away; manufact>
ures recede from the infected border; trade
Ianguishes; decay trenches upon her mea>
gre Accommodations Of taste or utility; gaunt
famine stalks into the shattered portals OF
the homestead; the hearth stone is invad-
ed BY more relentless intruder than the
officer Of the law; and The castle that
may stand before The sword. falls by this
slow, secret and resistless enemy the
blood Of the body polite is frozen at the
core; atrophv para Uses all its limbs; sul>
len despair begins 10 display itself upon
the care>worn faces OF men; the Heavens
aud the earth cry aIoud--lhe eternal laws
Of happiness and existence have been tram.
piled under foo! and yet, with most pit
liable iniatualion, The South still clings 10
slavery.
The competition Of unrequited service,
slave labor, dooms the aboring white
millions Of these States 10 poverty power.
~ gives them over to ignorance and ig.
norance and poverty are the fast high
roads to crime and suffering. Among
the more fortunate property holders, rell"
glon aud morality are staggering and dy-
ing.-lGleuess, extravaganza, unIhrifliness
and want of energy, preciptate slavehoId-
ers into frequent and unheard of bankrupt
ces, such as are unknown in free States
and well ordered Monarches. The spiri.
of uncontrolled command vitates our tenn q.
peraments, and destroys that evenness OF
temner. and ennanimitv OF soul. which re