Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-12-15
HOW THE NASHVILLE ORGAN
APPEALS TO THE IG-
NORANT.

The Nashville American, of We'd
nesday morning, says:
"The promise of the Des Moines speech
has been fully realized in President Grants
message. a sectarian crusade, such as
never convulsed any country, seems about
to be inaugurated.'
Now, here is just what the Presi-
dent did say in his message, which
the Nashville paper seems to regard
as the beginning of "a sectional cru
SADIE such as never convulsed any
country"
Gas we are now about to enter upon a
second centennial, commencing our man.
hood as q nation, it is well to look back
upon the past and study what will be best
to preserve and advance our future great
ness. From the fall of Adam for his
transgression to the present day, no nation
has ever been free from threatened dangers
to its prosperity and greatness. We should
ASS'N W N'AS N"ASSio va ShlNhlhS Nc1 anu
remedy them so far as lies in our power.
We are republic whereof one man is as
good as another before the law. Under
such form of government it is of the
greatest importance that all should be pos
sessed of education and intelligence enough
to cast vote with o right understanding of
its meaning. A large association of ignor-
ant men can not for any considerable pc
Rod offer successful resistance to tyranny
or oppression from the educated few,
whether directed by the demagogue or by
the priestcraft. Hence the education of
the masses becomes of the first necessity
for the preservation Of our institutions.
They are worth preserving, because they
have secured the greatest good TO the great
est proportion of the population of any
form of government yet devised. All
other forms of government approach it
just in proportion to the general diffusion
of education and Independence of action,
AS the primary step, therefore, to our ad-
vaneement in all that has marked our pro-
gress in the past century, suggest for your
earnest consideration, and most earnestly
recommend it, that q Constitutional
amendment be submitted to the Legisla-
lures of the several States for ratification.
making it the duty of each of the several
States to establish and forever maintain
free public schools, adequate to the educa-
ton of all the children in the rudimentary
branches within their respective limits, ir-
respective of sex, color, birth place or 70.
ligion, forbidding the teaching in said
schools of religious, atheistic or pagan
tenets, and prohibiting the granting Of any
school funds or school taxes, or any part
thereof either by legislative, municipal or
otherwise, for the benefit of any other OBJ
ject of any nature or kind whatever"
Only this, and nothing more. Now,
we trust that our readers viii give the
foregoing ca eful perusal, and we
would Suggest that they cut it out and
preserve that clause of the message
for future reference. We ask
any fair minded man, with a grain OF
common sense, if he can see anything
in the clause quoted, and that is all
the President says on the subject.
then can be construed or distorted
into the Inauguration Of sectarian
crusade" of any kind. 1t is upon
such slight pretense as this that
Democratic politicians, of the narrow
minded, partisan order, such as we
find in the Nashville American, ex-
pect to create the impression upon
ignorant minds, that the Republican