The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-13
OUR TEXTBOOKS.
Number 2.

- Number z.
 Editor The Advertiser:
 l The text book of the Alabama public school Is not State secret Being ere stIon of law. it is liable to the same lay laws in general. The partisan, partisan as St. Paul. is an influence of faith and aclivily In q high sphere of citizenship; the non- partisan citizen Is sponge. full until squeezed from without, then dry.
 MY remark is up)n certain Alabama pubic school text books, which are ac- ence of politics. The teaching there is behind the age. They are inappreciative misleading and harmful. It is not true that the original principles of the Gov ernment of the United States have been lost in war and in the growth of the country In area, population and wealth. | The proposition, that the Government has been precipitated from the primary Fed eral character into national or consoli- dated Character, has nothing in fact, and nothing in prospect, to sustain it. The l was in season of great strain of prin- eiples, as the United States is today. folio that. he might buy Parliament for the King: and he bought it. But the numiliating eclipse of principles passed with revoyling time. The political func- l tion of Christianity is, in It's power to l quicken individual conscience, and indI- vidual duty: From this influence. indI- vidual social rights rise up and free, the institutions of government from the haz- ard of .oligarchy. The real Christian is instinctively prophet of political reform.
 The British Government, the parent of modern scientific or constitutional govern l ment, is the most ilustrious living eX- | emplar of the aixom of organization, so familiar to Americans, @ pluribus unum. | IT the school book teaches that divided | industries of the United States tend to enfeeble the Federal principle and impcl us to the status of nation, away from | the republican elementary theory, Eng land stands before the world in refutation or the fallacy. The English policy of peace in South Africa follows war there, the fortunes of which hung on laity | or action of the colonies, Canada and Australia, with the mother country. Meantime, all great divisions of industry | thrive throughout the British Empire and | Lombard street, London, is the money distributor and collector of the world. in l no part of the Empire would King Ed | ward. for the honor of his royal power, assume to close d postoffice to punish the patrons, or degrade seaport of entry by appointing over it's administration an of- | ncer because he was an offense to the commercial. social and political commu- nity around him.
 Appomattox settled the question of pro- | visions for General Lees Army, but school books to the contrary, the event did not impale the Federal system of American Government or inject na- | tional fact of government into the system to control it. The national fact domi- | mated Alabama from 1867 to 1874. In that dark and vulgar episode a Governor. self in the Executive chambers of the Capitol for two weeks and was guarded, night and day, by national soldiers with | hxed bayonetS, in the lobby, to prevent the peaceable succession of the Governor | eject. In another example of national su- premacy. the Attorney General of the United States advised Qantamount to a commando that the entire election laws of the State be set aside and a General | Assembly be constituted on another rule, prescribed by himself. This mandatory counsel was followed and the Williams | Legislature" set for many months, guard ed by national troops. Moreover. In the yea year following sog Appomatox, a project was Johnson. to establish nation on the as- stunned ruins of the Republic, but the movement got no further than a great Convention at Philadelphia, where Gen erai Hampton and General Hancock em- braced each other on the stage and the delegations of Massachusetts and South | Carolina, mingled by couples, arm in arm, entered the hall to the alternate strains of Yankee Doodle and Dixie from the bands. The Convention put forth no can- a SeaTs ate qd tRe Ret FOur1 teenth Amendment was enacted and on this addition to the organic law, the Su> after, that we have a Federal Republic Of .'indestructible States" The nation protected by the great Philadelphia Con Vention of 1866 encountered in the hearts and minds of the people the doctrines of the Philadelphia Congress of 1776, and the project fell still-born forever.
 Progressive, free institutions in Ala. bama cannot survive a translation from the Federal to the National the>-- Of government There is no way of preserv- Ing self-governmeht in this country but through. the, Federal system as contra | distinguished from the national True as 1t may be. that civilization in one age casts off habits of life, and manners and 1 customs that were dear to it in pre- cedng age natural laws that organize l SOcletV, yuh ioh society depends, remain unchanged through cycles of time to preserve prin- clples of government.
 Some attempt is here made to expose the error school text book and to show that We have less primitive. and more scientific. and advanced and mod l government there taught.
 Taking up the matter of historical &C., curacy,. the book falls, There was la bored debate among the great statesmen or America through twelve to fifteen years upon the pivotal question, should America free be nation under a na- | lonal government, or Se q Republic of Republics. Our Constitution was not
 struck off at a given time in it's the ories In the Continental Congress that passed the Declaration of Independence, Throughout the period of the Congress of the Confederation. in the Convention of l7S1 and in the State ratifying conven- ticle XVII of the Articles of Confeder- ation. providing that: Tn determining | questions, each colony shall have one vote." was before Congress on Jul u Sl: and August l. 1776. pr. Franklin. James | Wilson. Samuel Chase, Dr Renjamin Rus l and others of the leaders resisted the Article. Mir. Chase said. the smaller States should be secured in all questions concerning life and liberty and the greater ones in all respecting property" He therefore propDsed that in votes relating to money, the voice of each colony should be proportioned to the number of it's in habitants. Dr. Franklin and John Adams thought that the votes should be so proporttoned in all cases" pr. John Witherspoon, the Scot President of ! Princeton. said he would oppose every .alteration of the Article" Some colonies he knew were small and weak but 1t was not an Incorporating, but federal Union to he formed" He admitted that lent principle; but then it must be of things which are coordinate; that is, of things similar, and of the same nature; that nothing relating to individuals would ever come before Congress, noth- ing but what would respect colonies. ' Article XVII would prevent the weaker colonies from seeking a foreign alliance ] because of oppression in the Confederacy. "lf an equal N-Me be refused, the smaller States will become vassals to the larger; and all experience has shown that the vassals and Jbjects of free States are the most ensLlved,' said this speaker, When the Randolph. or Virginia plan ap- peared in the Convention of 17S7, it con- times; and twanHy-four times the fated word was voted out. It never got into the Constitution then or at any time.