Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-01-31


committee on Appropriations and passod
with an amendment appropriatino The
money from the Treasury directly in.
s'Sad OF devoung the proceeds OF the
SAFE OF public lands TO the purpose.
The Senate then took up the Blair
educational bill, and Mr.. Morgan adj
dressed the Senate in opposition 10 IL.
Tins Was the third occasion. he said.
that he had discussed the measure. He
had looked through the bill with an
earnest desire 10 understand IT, He
could not say that he approved its policy.
because he thought il belonged 10 that
class Of intensive legislation which, like
intensive agriculture and a great many
other intensive things, recoiled and
produced A collapse instead Of pro-
noting healthy, steady, and per-
msnept growth. lie would have
been very glad TO gain his own
consent TO tie wisdom Of the bill and TO
the proposition that il had legal pro-
position ; that II had legal foundation
among the powers OF the Government
but in neither respect had he been able
to overcome these objections, which arose
IN bis mind not so much from political
training as from his life studies Of the
constitutional distribution OF powers be-
tween the United States and the States.
He knew that the retroactive effect of the
bill upon the schools themselves would
be TO cause them 10 rely on the Govern
mcnt of the United States and to disas-
sociate them entirely from reliance on
their home and State governments. Such
unlimited unrestricted, unguarded.
unjust powers. backed with such untold
millions Of money as this bill conferred
npon the Secretary of the Interior,
had never before been confded 10 suca
an Onicer-a mere clerk OF the President.
He would not consent that the State of
Alabama should be put under any cOer-
cion, moral or otherwise, or even exposed
TO temptation under this bill. II Con
grcss would take off the burden OF
surplus taxation, Alabama would take
care of her own common schools. She
was doing it now in a way to put to
blush many Of the older states. The
trainers Of this bill seemed TO think that
/ the whole OF the United States was to be
put upon the blanket Indian basis,
to be lassoed and put into school. The
next step in the progress OF usurpatlon
would be compulsory education. The
/ schoolmaster intended 10 take posses
sion Of the land, and this bill would give
him in the State Of Alabama S2,OOO,OJ
a year in salaries while all the State cx-
penses of the Government were but
/ 100000.
Mr. Blair remarked that he did not be-
lieve in compulsory education.
Mr. Morgan said that was certainly the
only reason why compulsory education
was not in the bill, because the Senator
from New Hampshire had got everything
else in it that he believed in. As TO the
political objects of the bill, the senior
Senator from New Hampshire blair
wanted to protect the ballot-box by
educating negroes. while the junior
Senator Chandler wanted to do
it by taking shot-guns out of
the hands Of white men. That was the
proposition. They had no more right TO
interfere with a man votingin the State
Of Mississippi than he Morgan had to
interfere with mans going to church
in New Hampshire. He believed that
education WAS safer in the hands of the
fathers and mothers in the community
than in the hands of "patcnt outside W
teachers, and that one of the defects Of
the common-schoOl system was the dis
couraging of the cooperation of parents.
Several attempts had been made by
Congress to benefit the condition of
the negroes. The FTcedman's Bank
was one of them. 1t did not make ne
groes rich, but it made other people
rich. This bill was another gift to ne
groes, but it was a gift which would de-
stroy them. 1t would take from that
race of people all the manhood which
they possessed, and prevent the very
best efforts of their friends III the South
from making anything Of them. He con
cluded by expressing the hope that he
would never again be called upon to
speak on the Blair bill.
MIR. Evarts took the floor and an
nouuced his intention to speak upon the
bill tomorrow.
MIR. Blair referred to n statement
circulating through the press as TO eX-
Justice Strong, of the Supreme Court,
having declared himself against the con-
stitutonality of the bill. He had taken
pains to speak to Mr. Strong personally
so that be might be able to deny authori-
tativelv the improbable statement that
Mr.. Strong said he had spoken with
members Of the Supreme Court on the
subject. He had 1t from Mr. Strong's
own lips that he had had no conversation
with any Of the Justices of the Su-
prcme Court ABOUT the bill and knew
nothing whatever Of their opinions
about it.
Mr.. Vest asked Mr. Blair whether
Judge Strong had not stated TO the Law
class in Washington that he believed the
bill unconstitutional.
MIR. Blair replied in the negative.
Judge Strong had told him he made no
allusion whatever to the bill in any lee
ture. but that when his lecture was over,
one of the students asked him what he
thought OF the constltutlonalty OF the
Blair bill, aud that his reply was that he
doubted its cOnstitutionallty. He MIR.
Blair had never heard any Republican
express doubt as to the constitutional
tv of the bill. Doubt had been expressed
by Republicans Of its propriety, and OF its
necessity, but not of Its constitutlonahty.
lie held in his hand memorial OF the
trustees of the Peabody Fund in 1850,
signed by Robert c.. Winthrop, Mr.
Waite NOW Chief Justice OF the Supreme
Court, and William NJ. Eyarts' asking
Congress to grant aid to secure to the
colored people of the southern States
the education necessary to fit them for
tho discharge of their duties as citizens