National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-04-30

compulsory education, to be managed by
the National Government, dictated virtu-
ally by the North, and submitted to by the
South as part of the punishment OF trea-
SOM Can the sentiment and political oe-
lief of every section Of the country De
nodded in the same forms, and so shaped
as to make the inspiration of patriotism the
same in South Carolina as in Massachu-
sets? in Maine as in Texas3 The oRJec-
tons to this suggestion are involuntary
that it infringes upon the rights oil the
people that it is tyrannical, and that II
would destroy all pretense to our boosted
freedom of thought and speech and press.
"As the twig is bent the tree will grow
is as true of the growth of principle in the
human mind as it is of the giants OF the
forest, and it must be conceded that unless
the bent of the Southern educational sys'
TEN is changed by some power greater than
the force of moral obligation, it will rear
unsightly, gnarled and crooked communi-
ties; or, like the aggressive weeds in the
hearty soil of garden, choke out less ag-
gressive though more useful cultivation.
We say some greater power than moral
obligation, because we maintain that when
the war ended and the South acknoWl-
edged the arbitrary settlement against
them of the questions involved in
it. there was moral obligation
thatthe theories and so-called doc
trines underlying those questions should
be forever banished with the possibility OF
future contention. If the war did not settle
this point, what did it settle beyond the
emancipation of the slaves? If, when the
rebels laid down their arms and abandoned
the contest, they did not also abandon the
support of the cause for which they had
fought, what did they abandon? Or was
the victory over the State Rights rebellion
a fruitless victory after all? Was all the
blood and treasure spent to secure that vic
tory spent in vain Is it possible that the
victors have been themselves vanquished
by the surrendered forces of the enemy?
These are questions which uuthinking peo-
pie may pass by with sneer; but if they
are not answered in a practical way the
result We have indicated will plainly i'm
pend.
Mr. Speaker Blaine, moderate Republi-
can as he is in the way of remedial meas
ures for the Southern situation, has repeat
eddy admitted the existence of this unfor
tunate condition. Among his moderate
expedients 10 allay the trouble is sugges-
ton that the South shall be virtually aban-
doned unto itself, and that the North shall
alone be relied upon to preserve the integ-
rity of the sacred conclusions of the war.
In other words, he proposals a man OF
expedients, not of measures-to allow the
fostering treason, which is the outgrowth
of the bad faith of the South, to continue,
needless OF the fact that its conta-
gious influence has already appeared
in the North, and that the Democratic
minority in the latter section has al
ready yielded TO the control of
the Democratic majority in the former.
To be brief, the infection which he per-
ceives in the South is spreading and the
end can only be the absorption of the en-
tire section by the national enemy. If we
cannot under our constitutional forms
strangle this pernicious system before it
reaches the maturity of its growth,
thoughtful people will begin to reason that
there is some radical defect in those forms.
But, accepting the situation as it is, con-
ceding that compulsory education, accom-
panied by dictation as to the principles to
be inculcated, is among the organic impos.
sibilities, and relying solely upon the
Northern States for the preservation of our
governmental principles, it becomes the
duty of every man who loves his country
to nerve himself for a contest at the polls
in the next and all succeeding national
campaigns as bitterly sectional, and as es-
sentially important to our national exist
ence as the one Immediately preceding the
beginning of the rebellion. Not a single
vote should be lost to the Republican
party, and not q single effort omitted to
arouse the people to complete knowledge
of the dangers which threaten US. The
contest is not so far off in the future that a
discussion of its issues now will not be
without effect. 1t is time to prepare; to
forewarn the people that they may be fore
warned, and to instruct them that apathy,
vacillation and encouragement of any kind
to the Democracy are the molds in which
the rebel bullets Of the future will find
their shape.