The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1886-03-25
.NATIONAL EDUCATION.
The Blair Measure Considered from
broad Platform.

broad Platform.
The Blair Education bill has been de-
bated in the Senate along lines of ar
gument which practically take it out of
/ the domain of party questions. 1t is
evident that it will receive the votes of
a large number of Democratic States
men wiIa attach less weight to the con-
/ stItutosal objections to it than to the
! fact that is an urgent necessity of their
! States that the Nation should aid them
in tie work of educating their people.
We are not disposed TO underrate the
strict constructionist view, which in
Sists that education is matter that be-
longs to the States and ought TO be left
in their exclusive charge. But the day
mas long since passed when a narrow
and rigid Interpretation of the cOnsti-
tuition can be successfully invoked as a
barrier against measures that are in
the nature of imperiouS National neces-
sites. In the debate now finished in
the Senate, it has been argued that
Congress had no power to appropriate
the money which paid for the purchase
of Louisiana. Doubtless this is good
strict constructiOniSt doctrine, an@ vet
President jefferson approved thai So
preparation, and it was obviously justi
fled on the ground that the National
welfare was the supreme consideration.
The facts of the present case appear
to us to constitute similar occasion,
where the good of the Nation ought to
override any finical and fine-drawn OBJ
fnnnHnI ifrf
hair-splitting. IL the sixteen Southern
States, out of 4.154, i25 males, of
Fl years of age and upward, 1.354, 974
cSn not write-nearly one-third of the
whole. In the State of North Carolina
there are 145. 600 illiterate voters, more
than One-half of her entire electorate.
1t is maxim universally accepted that
popular government must be based on
intelligent suffrages to be safe. In
communities where, as in MaSSa-
chusettS, the number of illiterates in
the total population is small, free man.
hood suffrage may prevail without any
great danger to good government, but
where the illiterate voters form more
than oae-half of the whole body of
voters it is undeniable that free gov
ernment is exposed to serious peril.
And that is the actual state of things
which exists 1T this moment in many
of the Southern States. while in no one
of them is the number of illiterate
voters less than 80 per cent. of the en-
tire electorate.
1t is quite true that this dangerous
state of affairs in the South is one of
the legacies left to us by twenty-four
years of Republican policy. 1t is also
true that the great mass of illiterate
voters in the South, for whose benefit
the Blair bill is designed, are Republic
an voters. These considerations ought
not, in our judgment, to prevent Dem
Ocratic Statesmen and Representatives
from dealing with the bill on its mer-
its. Indeed it would seem that if any
reason could be strong enough for
straining the constitution a little it is
found in the fact that the Republican
party has created situation so full of
evils and dangers that the ordinary re-
sources of the States are wholly made
quate to meet it.
The Southern States, most of them,
are unable to cope effectively with the
mass of illiteracy which Republican
craftsmanship has injected into their
citizenship. This being an unques-
rioned fact there remains only one al
tentative offered to practical states.
men; either to stand upon the propo-
sition that free suffrage in the hands of
vast bodies of ignorant voters is not
source of danger to the Nation, or else
to admit that it is a National evil for
which, as the States can not, the Ma
ton must provide a remedy. We do
not propose to waste any space, argu-
ing the first of those two propositions.
We take our stand upon the broad
platform that universal suffrage must
be based upon something like universal
education, and that where a large sec
ton of the country is unable to furnish
its people with school facilities, and
thirty, forty. and in some States over
fifty per cent. of the voters are ignor-
ant men, a grave National emergency
has arisen. before which strict con-
structionist dogmas must give way
Boston Globe.