The Portland daily press., 1869-02-16
Terms $500 per- AMMAN, in adro,,ce
Robert Dale Owen ON the COusti,u,io..,
sHHrnaH

Mr.. Robert Dale Owen writes to the Boston
Daily Advertiser, bitterly arraigning some
| provisions of the Constitutional Amendment
| just passed by the Senate. We give such por-
tions of his letter as will enable our readers 10
judge of the nature and force of his objections
Last Tuesday the Senate of the United
States, by a twO-thirds vote, referred to the
legislatures of the several States an amend
ment to the Constitution, adding to it this
provision:
'.No discrimination shall be made in the United
States among the citizens of the United States in
the exercise Of the elective franchise or in the right
ton."
Other matter was added, but nothing that
limited or modified the above proposition. The
proniDitlon to discriminate extended, besides
euucatlon, TO race, color, nativity, property and
creed. No prohibition to discriminate on ac-
count OF sex
1t may fairly be doubted, whether. If that
detached proposition had been presented. in its
Isolated deformity, it would have obtained the
vote OF single Senator. Before we decide
that it would, let us observe what are the man
ifest corollaries of such provision.
A State may, by law, exclude women from
the oftice OF clerk in any department. or of Ii.
Drarian or assistant librarian, or of tutor or
professor in State University, or of member
of school committee; but it is prohibited
from appointing board of examiners to deter
mine whether male candidate tor the Office
OF librarian ever read dozen books, or wheth-
er an aspirant to a clerkshp can add up col
umn OF figures or write legibe hand.
In like manner Congress may prohibit wo-
men from disehaIging the duties of pos master,
put shall not be allowed to pass q law provid-
ing that any man who may be recommended
for such an Office be examined, before appoint-~
ment, SO as to ascertain whether he can deci-
Pher the address of the letters that may come
into his custody
Then, again, there is my friend Mr. Jenckes'
civil service bill; one of the most important if
not he most useful and important measure
now before Congress. Under the Constitution
as proposed to be amended, will such bill as
his be constitutional? 1t admits of serious
question. Such q, law would certainly be in
contravention of the spirit of a clause intimat.
ing that, in an office-holder, education was as
little essential as a white skin or anRorthodox
Finally, 1 remark that no enlightened man
construes education to mean reading and
writing and little arithmetic, and nothing
more. Education, truly interpreted, endures
throughout life. The best education is often
outside Of the walls of school or college. The
term includes also self-education, sometimes
the most important of all. When we speak of
education. then, we mean, or ought to mean,
whatever leads as on throughout youth even
to old age, from one step of knowledge to an
other; cultivating our faculties and sentiments,
physical, mental, moral, spiritual.
But do the people of the United States SO
grievously overestimate the importance of ed
ucation, taken in such sense, that they cam
not be trusted TO abstain, if that is best, from
any educational qualification, or to correct
their decision if they enact such qualification
and find that it works badly in practice?
What possible harm can there be in emitting
the word? And what serious evils may result
from retaining it?
During public life of twenty-five years
never introduced, nor had opportunity to vote
for, any law making knowledge of reading
and writing the condition of suffrage, or Civ
ing the right of suffrage to women; though
have felt that there are strong reasons to be
urged in favor of both. But hope 1 shall not
live to see the day when the people of the
United States, while they are permitted to ex-
clude one half of our adult population from
voting, shall be prohibited, no matter how
much majority of them may desire it, so to
arrange the administrative branch of the pub
lie service that offices shall be held only by
those who, by school education or by self-edu-
cation, have been properly trained to fill them.
am, gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
ROBERT DALE OWEN.
CAMBRIDGE. February IL 1869