The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-28
A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.

A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.
From the NJ p. World
Of all the bills before the present Congress
looking towards the Capitalization and consoli-
dation of the United States of America into
union more closely resembling that of United
Germapy-the ideal government of General
Grant-there is probably none so bold in its
invasion of the rights of the States and none
so subversive of the freedom of the citizen as
that entitled "An Act to establish system of
national education" In the course of debate,
few days ago. Mr.. Kerr, of Indiana, showed
so clearly its scope and intent that it will have
to be laid aside, temporarily at least With
out any pretense of clear and express warrant
in the Federal Constitution, and covering its
naked deformity with the fig-leaf of the pre-
amble Sin order to form more perfect
union" Mr.. Kerr showed that any interpreta-
tion which would give it validity would also
warrant the passage of a law regulating mar
riage and divorce, the registration of wills,
or the transfer of real estate. But, passing
from the question of constitutional authority
"a subject worthy only the jibes and sneers
of the radical mind-he laid bare the motives
which lie behind it.
/. Thirty State superintendents, 243
general inspectors, 5000 local inspectors, and
an army of 100000 teachers, all under the
control of and appointed by the head of the
bureau so established, would furnish an op-
portunity for fraud and corruption, for ve-
nality and nepotism, besides which the pre-
sent revenue system sinks into insignifcance.
3. The aggregate annual expenditures
would be $50, 900, 600. This vast sum, very
nearly the whole amount of the annual Fede-
raj expenditures during the last Democratic
administration, the bill proposes to share
equally ameng the several States. This would
burden the Southern and Western States
he, ,1a fhA to- h.
and Middle States would be comparatively
light. By the last census the aggregate Of
values in Florida has been reduced forty-fve
per cent. below that of 1860; in Louisiana
forty-six per cent; in Mississippi seventy-one
per cent; and the bill imposes the same tax
burdens on the people of those States as the
| people of Massachusetts, and Rhode Island
would be called upon to bear, whose aggre-
| gate of values has increased over ninety per
cent. since 1860. And further to oppress the
people of the Southern States, to protect the
colored man against paying any part of the
tax, and to punish the white man of the
South, it provides that the homestead shall
be exempted from taxation to the value of
$500. Is it possible for human ingenuity to
devise a more grossly unjust, unequal, op-
pressive, and cruel mode of taxation?
g. 1t would place in the hands of the Exc
cutive land this is the vital point of the mea-
sure) money and patronage more than suff-
cieht to have turned the scale, in any Presi
Dental election since the administration of
Washington, in favor of the incumbent of
the Executive Office, or of the man by him
chosen as his successor. The effect of the
bill, if passed, would be to insure General
Grants re- election in 1872; and then, with a
corruption fund of $50, 200, 900 yearly, aided
by the bayonet election laws, to make him
President for life in name-an emperor in
! fact