Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-11-04

By Hon. James M. Tyler.
On the first day of January, 1868, slavery
at first regarded as so,small an evil but which nt
last was found to be so greata an one, fell by the
ediot of war in the ten rebellious states save in
certain portions of Louisiana and Virginia
which had previously been restored to the I'm
ion. President Lincoln's emancipation procla-
nation was issued strictly as war measure and
could affect only that section of the country
then in rebellion but the subsequent amend
ment of the Constitution of the United States,
by the adoption of the 18th Article, abolished
slavery throughout the whole country by pro-
viding that, Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly con-
victed, shall exist within the United States or
any place subject to its Jurisdiction" and
four millions of people were suddenly raised
from the condition of slaves TO the condition
of freemen. When we reach the summit of
the century and review the history of hun
dred years, these two events, illumined by
the sunshine of heaven, will stand high above
all the rest.
As slavery and intelligence are incompati-
BILE with each other and can never exist to-
gether, 1t followed as necessity TO the ex-
istence of the institution that the slaves
should be kept in the most complete ignorance
possible. No nation ever guarded its liber-
ties more jealously than the South guarded
her slaves from every ray of the light of edu-
cation. In ancient times the Chinese, by an
immense wall, sought to shut ont the barbar-
ism of the Tartars. In modern times the
South shut in her barbarism and shut out
every enlightening influence. / have often
been told by bright colored men who were
raised in slavery upon Virginas sacred soil,
of the secret means to which they resorted to
10 nd 10 "a Nhns- -
terror lest their treasure should be discovered.
Fred Douglass in the sketches of his life
which he has furnished to the public, gives a
most interesting account of his acquiring the
rudiments of an education, Of its discovery
and the hogging he got in consequence, Of
his turning at last in his agony and despera-
tion upon his overseer and making him bite
the dust, and of his flight to the North where
TO get a little learning was not crime. II
was dangerous enterprise for any one to at
tempt TO teach the slaves to read and write,
and only twenty years ago, in old Virginia,
the mother of presidents, if slaves were found
to possess this accomplishment, they were at
once sold and sent down to the cotton grow
ing states of the gulf. 1t would be idle for
any one now to deny that this condition of
enforced ignorance existed in the South be-
fore the war; for it has been frankly admitted
many times by representative men of that
section, in both houses of Congress, while
pleading for governmental aid in the work of
public education. Senator Brown of Georgia,
in a speech which he delivered in the enate
last winter upon the educational bill, and
which attracted wide attention, in speaking
of the extent of illiteracy in the South said
1--WE had the large slave population, amount
ing in round numbers to four millions at the
time they were emancipated. Under our sys-
knW.. laWaa. lra.xN
slaves, il was regarded unsafe to educate
them" mention these simple facts OF his
tory, not as dissertation upon slavery nor
for the purpose of reviving any memories of
the old slavery days, but to make this
clear that when the proclamation and the
18th Amendment found this race of men and
gave them liberty, although a few of the
brighter ones, especially of the house ser
wants, had gained slight knowledge of few
of the simplest of books, and they all had an
underlined idea that away up North, under
the north star, there was freedom and an
abundance of all good things, the great mass
OF them were in a state of the most abject
Ignorance.
II would be of very little service now to
discuss the question whether it was an act of
justice to the white race of this country OF
wise as matter of policy on the part of the
government to invest these emancipated peo-
pie with all the rights OF citizenship. That
question has been settled by the 14th Amend.
ment to the Constitution which provides that,
"All persons born or naturalized in the Unit
ed States and subject TO the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the state wherein they reside" and forbids
any state TO abridge the privileges and i'm
munities of such citizens and by the 18th
Amendment which provides that, THE right
of citizens Of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of race,
color or previous coud tion of servitude." We
may suggest, however, in this connection,
that the freedman ought to have as good q
right to cast one ballot in his own interest as
his master formerly had TO cast three -fifths OF
a vote on his account in the masters interest
But Ignorance was by no means confined
to the slaves. 1t is impossible for any one to
do wrong to another without himself being
injured by the act, and the same is true OF
classes and of nations. Great as was the evil
of slavery to the black race, 1t seems to have
been an equally great one to the white. Nc
human calculation can ever determine which
race, the oppressed or the oppressor, suffered
most from this system which Mr.. Sumner, in
the words of John Wesley, denounced as the
sum of all villainies.
One of the harmful results of slavery was
to create in the South landholding aristoc.
racy. Its direct and necessary tendency was
not TO divide the land into small farms as in
New England, but to bring them either by
inheritance or purchase into the possession
of few who represented both the wealth and
the intelligence of the country, while the
poor whites we're made more hopelessly poor
by system which degraded them and caused
them to despise labor. Besides, general edu-
cation and intelligence among the whites were
considered dangerous to the welfare of the
institution. There was no common school
system in the South previous to the war, so
that education was practically beyond the
reach of the poor classes, even had public SEN
timent favored their efforts in that direction
and had they possessed the necessary Pc
cuniary means to obtain it. The wealthy
class could secure the advantages of private
schools and private teachers, though more gen
orally they ayailed themselves of the superior
advantages of the schools and colleges of the
North.
have thus hastily sketohed the condition
of the South at the time the right of suffrage
was given to the freedmen. 1 have shown
that the interests of slavery were directly OPP
posed to the instruction of the blacks that il
the same interests were not directly opposed to
the general education of the white people, the
inevitable result Of slavery was to keep them
in ignorance, and that none of the blessings
flowing from universal education were en-
joyed or known in that fair section of our
country.
We are accustomed to boast of the strength
and to trust in the perpetuity of our Repub-
lican institutions and we may sometimes
think that their strength and perpetuity con.
sist in the largest liberty of the people to be
and do whatever they please, while we are in
danger of negleoting and forgetting the real
and essential conditions upon which the per-
manence of those institutions depends. We
are doubtless more confident of the stability
of the government from the fact that it has
recently been subjected to so severe trial
which it endured so well, and that its founda-
tions have since then seemed to be even more
securely laid than ever before.
The nations of the old world have their
sovereigns who succeed to and hold theiI
royal titles by inheritance, independently OF