The republic., 1851-08-11


them. This is done from fund that is equal
ly the property of all, since it has accrued from
incidental sources, and is not sustained by reg
ular taxation. The permanent capital Of the
fund is more than one million Of dollars, and
its annual income is annually employed in edu-
cation, with an anxious and increasing demand
for more. The University Of Virginia draws
an annuity from this fund, which it re-
pays by the gratuitous board and education of
number of young men selected from the
senatorial districts of the State. Some other
institutions have also received annuities from
the same source, which they repay in the same
manner.
The difficulties of establishing State sys-
TEN in Virginia does not grow out of indifier-
ence to learning or want ofliberality, but out of
the irregular density Of the population, and out
of the unequal distribution of property in sec
tions and even in communities. Slaves are, in
one sense, property; they are, in another
sense, persons; in the latter they of course
suppant white population. The contributions,
then, of the stakeholder are heaviest where
the smallest return can be. derived by him
from the expenditures of the education fund.
Eastern Virginia would, as section, con-
tribute seventy-ive cents in the dollar; she
would receive back for education less than
fifty cents in the dollar. The money would
be raised on the basis of property, and return
ed on the basis of scholars, or free white po-
pulaton. This difficulty descends to commu-
mites; so that, upon the great proposition of
popular education, the people bave been EN-
powered to take up any county system they
might choose-adjust their taxes to suit them
selves, and discontinue their system if they be-
came tired oft. Under this agreement educa-
ton is prospering better than it could do per-
haps under any compulsory system.
But the constitution, consulting this delicate
all that is possible for the cause Of education.
1t imposes capitation tax, equal to the tax as
sessed on land of the value of two hundred dol
lars, upon every white male nhabtant who has
attained the age of twenty-one years; and ap-
plies one equal moiety of the capitation tax up
on white persons to the purposes of education
in primary and free schools; leaving tc private
enterprise and local organization to do the rest.
The constitution affords another melancholy
evidence of the injury to the wretched free ne
groes, which the agitation of the past few years
has occasioned.
cipate any slave, or the descendant of any
slave, either before or after the birth Of any
such descendant. This cuts up not only abso
lutte but post-natal aboltion-the latter hav
ing been the favorite scheme Of Mr.. JEFFER-
SON, and openly advocated in the Virginia Le-
gislature in 1880. The soundness of Western
Virginia upon the subject of slavery may be
imagined from the adoption of such provision
at such time. The unholy hopes of those who
have anticipated disaffecton from the sec
tional jealousies of Virginia are forever dissi-
pated.
Slaves emancpated forfeit their freedom alb
soutely by remaining more than twelve months
in the State, and the Legislature is empowered
to provide for the deportation of the whole free
negro population-if they can only find any
other States in which they will be admitted.
But we have been led into much longer
and elaborate review of this admirable con
stitution than we had intended we think
that the action of the convention has been
eminently wise, practical, and worthy of
the State and age in which they live.
And that the adoption by the people Of this
truly republican form Of government will con-.
stitute an era from which her advancement in
all the practical elements of greatness may be
dated. We trust that whilst Virginia has, like
her own immortal son, devoted her earlier en-
ergies to the interests of the Union, she may
follow his example and devote her maturer at
tention to her own.