. Stpbe ; eet tbe mee Gs it es sg | gc a ee. sil 4.0, Ftey 427i UNIVERSAL EDECATION, _ How To Purify THE BaLLot-Box oo : F Se yr a ADDRESS BENORE (THE /WINYAW IND IG0 SOCIETY, ON THEIR 128th ANNIVERSARY, feo mr TOWN, S..C.., MAY. 15th, 1882. By Hoy. WM. PORCHER MILES, L.L. D, PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE | CHARLESTON, §. C. THE NEWS AND COURIER BOOK PRESSES 1882. i ORAT LON. Gentlemen of the Ancient and Honorable Winyaw Indigo Society : If Republican government, based upon universal sufirage, be not destined, after proving a farce, to become a tragedy, the whole people must be educated. This may seem almost a truism. But I fear our people hardly yet sufficiently realize it. It is, however, at this particular time, strongly forced upon the attention of the people of South Carolina especially, and of the whole country generally. We have now progressing among us trials of many of our citizens for alleged violations of “the sanctity of the ballot-box,” and the party press of the North is teeming with lectures and diatribes on the subject. Our own press is, equally filled with angry arraignment, and heated denunciations, of the far from impartial, and very unusual, if not unprecedented, manner in which those trials are conducted by judge, and prosecuting officer and juries, apparently in the interest of a political party. Toacalm and philosophic obsever these trials present, in more ways than one, a painful and re- markable spectacle. In the first place, he sees juries which all the defendants, at any rate, sincerely believe ave “ packed,” for their conviction, by a resort to extraordinary if not illegal means. He sees those juries composed, for the most part, of ignorant and uneducated, recently emancipated negro slaves whose stolid countenances are irresponsive to all the legal accumen, and logic, and eloquence of the learned and able counsel. He listens to arguments and appeals which are oftener addressed to the audience and to the public than to the jurymen. It is known, pretty much in advance, what the finding of the jury will be; that it will not be “ accord- ing to the law and the evidence,” but according to the poli- 305522 4 tical bias and race prejudices of the jurors. He sees witness after witness for the prosecution branded by unimpeachable evidence of the most respectable citizens with perjury, im- morality and crime; and yet the jury, under the solemn obligation of their oaths, willing, on such testimony, to find guilty and have punished with heavy penalties of fine and imprisonment the most reputable and worthy men in the community, of blameless lives, and distinguished for their observance of every social and domestic duty. Oh, itisa spectacle passing strange in a land that boasts of its liberty and enlightenment! To the philosopher or statesman who witnesses it, the first thought apt to arise in his mind is, “Well, if the ballot-box has been made a ‘farce’ and a ‘fraud’ (which God forbid!) what a fraud must be the jury system which can impanel such a farce of a jury as I see before me!’’ And his next reflection might well be: “ But what a farce, and a fraud, must the universal suffrage of igno- rance and pauperism be, which can force such men as these defendants, if they are indeed guilty, to counteract the over- whelming evils resulting from such farce and fraud by counter-farce and counter-fraud.” Oh, fellow-citizens! Oh, fellow-countrymen! It is all, all a sad and, sickening picture! And is there no remedy for all this widespread demoralization and corruption of juries, an\l of. citizens? Are a civilized and high-toned people to\be always exposed to the temptation of oppos- ing wrong \by wrong—of ‘‘fighting the devil with fire ”"— of fcdetthd to illegal and forcible means (on the plea of salus populi suprema lex) for ensuring good govern- ment, and saving in our State, to use the language of Governor Chamberlain, “the civilization of the Puritan and the Cavalier?’’ Is there no way of escape out of all these evils, from these unworthy “shams,” these farcical means, these methods of despair? Yes, I honestly believe there is one, anda sure one. It is to be found in the education of the masses. ‘We must oppose to universal suffrage universal education. We must transform ignorant suffrage into in- telligent suffrage. D It cannot be denied that the people of the South- ern States in which the ignorant, semi-civilized and _ half- brutish—however kindly and “ loyal’’—African race largely outnumber the Caucasia®, felt bitterly the tyranny and humiliation of having the property, intelligence and culture of their communitiésput under the heel of their pauperism, ignorance and barbarism. The wholesale and sudden stuf- fing of the babliet-box with 790,000 negro votes, in the inter- cal party, and with the avowed hope and belief fd.always be cast for that party, was some- thing hitherto unprecedented in the history of any civilized country. This debasement of the suffrage was the prolific germ of all our woes. It was “worse than a crime—it was a blunder.” It was an attempt to invert the pyramid of social stability. And to keep it in this unnatural position of unstable equilibrium it was propped and supported by bayonets. But the shameful spectacle revolted the moral sense of our conquerors, as it did that of all Christendom. The bayonets were withdrawn, and by the stalwart arms of our own people the pryamid was righted and restored to its natural position of stable equilibrium. But now the stalwart arms of our unrelenting foes are striving once more to topple it over, and to relegate our people to the rule of ignorance and vice, sustained by all the power of the Federal Govern- ment. Is this an exaggeration? Let candid and liberal men of all parties, throughout the length and breadth of the country, answer. If there be any who think that I am indulging in too much of a political harangue, let me beg them to consider, that not only is the anxiety of the people of our State justly aroused by the determination of the Administration at Washington to do all in its power to bring about the condition of things which existed prior to 1876—when the Prostrate State lay crushed under the heel of uneducated negro suffrage controlled by political adventurers and ban- ditti—but, furthermore, that the friends of education, for whom I wish to speak to-day, may well feel anxious at the probable set-back which that great cause is likely to have, 305522 should the property and intelligence of the State cease to control its Government and its destinies. Our able and zealous Superintendent of Education, Col. Hugh S. Thomp- son, has in his consecutive reports clearly shown how greatly the scope and efficiency of the public school system has been enlarged and increased since the combined carpet- bag and negro rule has been shaken off. I speak, therefore, in the interest of universal education in the State—in the interest of the elevation and enlightenment of the colored race—for whom the true people of South Carolina have the kindliest feeling, and whom, from every motive of self interest, no less than Christian philanthrophy, they desire to see elevated in the scale of humanity and fitted to enjoy the boon of liberty and self-government. I speak for the people of my native State, when I say we do not wish to see the colored man deprived of the right of suffrage because he isa colored man. But we wish to see him go through the probation and training and education which can alone enable him to exercise it intelligently. I speak for myself and many, at least, of the best men of the State, who are conservative enough to believe, and bold enough to avow, that universal, unqualified suffrage is an evil when exercised by the entire adult population of any race or any color. And I have “the courage of my convictions,” to say it here and now. I am firmly persuaded that there ought to be an educational qualification—or, alternatively, a property quali- fication, one or the other—required of every voter before he invades “the sanctity of the ballot-box’’ and “stuffs” it with a “tissue” of absurdities and frauds and falsehoods, the effect of which is to saddle upon the people thieves and scoundrels as officials and administrators of the Government, and fools and knaves as its law-givers? Pardon me, fellow- citizens, if Ispeak warmly. I cannot speak coolly at a time when I see plainly the handwriting on the wall, to the effect that the influence and power of the Central Government at Washington is to be exerted in a way obviously leading and intended to lead, to the restoration to power in our State of the robber and the villain. Nor can | speak with ~ ‘ philosophic composure when I read in the press, and hear in the courts, the wholesale denunciation and villification of my people. My indignation, at least, is unfeigned, if it seem, perhaps to some, unfitted for the present occasion. Who can contemplate unmoved the possibility of a return to the rule which might have a Moses as its exponent and head, and whose excesses and robberies even the ability and patriotic zeal and ‘‘ overpowering sense of duty” of a Melton might (or would) fail to restrain and pursue and punish ? From such a Government may God preserve us! Better far a return once more to military rule, an absolute Govern- ment, limited—by the tender mercies and sense of virtue of even a pro-consular Dan Sickles! _ “Tt is never worth while,” says Burke, “to indict a whole people.” Upon which the amiable and _ liberal-minded George Ticknor has remarked: ‘Certainly, then, it must be a mistake to insult a whole people, more especially if you wish to persuade that people at the same time to do something.” And vet this is just the very thing that Government prosecutors and their assistants, an intolerant party and mendacious press are continually doing against the South, and South Carolina particularly. It is natural that we should resent it. It is right that we should resent it. It is meet and proper that we should resent it. And we go be- fore the grand jury of public opinion throughout the civilized world, and ask them on that indictment to find ~ Mo bill” Property and intelligence will, and ought, to control and manage the affairs of all States and social communities. It has been so, and ever will be so in the long run, in all civilized and prosperous countries. It is the normal condi- tion of civilization and the prerequisite for prosperity. And just so far as nations have swung from these moorings they have been swept out by the current of revolution into the stormy ocean of change and uncertainty, full of hidden rocks and dangerous shoals. Property and intelligence are inseparably connected. Ss They mutually support and are dependent upon each other. All history shows that the most wealthy nations have, as a rule, been the best educated, and, vice versa, the best educated the most wealthy. How, therefore, can the plainest citizen, the most (so called) ‘practical man” fail to see, that to make a people prosperous their intelligence must be developed and educated? And what thoughtful man need be told that educated minds—minds that have been imbued with the great ideas of the master intellects of all ages; that have studied the histories of the rise and progress and decline of great States and peoples, and made themselves acquainted with their laws, and arts, and civilizations—are best fitted to mould the legislation and shape the destinies of their own country? The whole civilized world is waking up to the - realization of the truth of Burke’s great apothegm, that “Education is the cheap defence of a nation.” And notably in our country has a prodigious impetus been given, in recent years, to the education of the whole people. And logically so. We may say ex necessitate rei. With universal suffrage as the very foundation stone of our political fabric, how essential is it that that foundation should be sound and capable of bearing the weight which it has to sustain. If every man is to vote he ought to be able to cast his vote in- telligently. His vote is not a mere personal possession, to be used for his personal interest; but a grave trust, com- mitted to him by his fellow-citizens, to be exercised for the public good. Have not his fellow-citizens—those, especially, whose intefests and prosperity and happiness are directly and profoundly aifected by his vote—some restraining power over his exercise of a right which they have confer- red, and which they may take away? The true statesman will not be found prating about ‘“‘¢he inalienable right of suffrage.” He leaves that to the demagogue, whether on the stump or in the halls of legislation. He will endeavor, by wise and prudent laws on the subject, to guard the sanctity of the ballot-box from ignorant and mischievous, as well as from “tissue” and fraudulent ballots. I am de- cidedly in favor of the Massachusetts or some similar system. a 2 Of course, our Northern brethren would say, were we to adopt such a system, that it was done for the purpose of excluding the negro vote. But it would really be done for the purpose of excluding the ignorant vote of both races. And it would be the most powerful stimulus we could give to universal education. Surely any man, black or white, who aspires to a voice in political affairs can, with the facili- ties surrounding him, learn to read and write sufficiently to fulfil the requirements of a reasonable and moderate law. But I pass from a topic belonging rather to the domain of the legislator than the educator (but. which, just now, is of painful moment to every man, woman and child in South Carolina) to consider some matters especially pertaining to the domain of education. There is much. difference of opinion as to whether educa- tion should be made compulsory. The tendency is, however, becoming more and more marked in that direction. In Prussia the compulsory system has long prevailed, and cer- tainly has been attended with happy results without, so far as I know, any counteracting disadvantages. In Frarice, in a modified form, the same system is now established. Even in England, slow to abandon or modify existing institutions, it is being tried on a gradually increasing scale. It seems to me that the argument for its adoption by us is stronger than in Europe, especially in monarchical countries. So long as every male adult has a right to vote, there is the greater necessity, for the sake of the common weal, that he should have that amount of intelligence requisite fom its proper exercise, and which some degree of education can alone give. Ifthe State can compel its citizens to pay taxes for the support of the Government, why may she not require them to pay mental tribute, as it were, for the maintenance of good government and good laws by the intelligent selec- tion of good rulers and good lawgivers? Our State, fora long time, very rigorously enforced her militia system, which required every male citizen (with a few exceptions) to undergo a military drilling and training. The plea on which such legislation was based was that every citizen ought to ie, 10 be prepared for the defence of the soil on which he lived. Is there less obligation on him to take his part in that ‘“cheap defence” which Burke tells us consists in “ educa- tion?” Is not a general and thorough system of education the best means of ensuring the security and stability of volitical institutions, the development of the resources of the State and the consequent increase of its wealth and prosperity, and at the same time the elevation to a higher plane, intellectually and morally, of the whole people ? But whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the right, or the policy, of enforcing education as a duty, (just as the duty to pay taxes and discharge various other duties of citizenship is enforced,) our people are all fully agreed that it is the duty of the State to provide the amplest facili- ties for education to all who may desire to-avail themselves of them. “Free schools,” furnished with the best equip- ment attainable, are now universally demanded, by public opinion, in this country, and in South Carolina, in her changed condition, as much as in any of her sister States. Here and there, perhaps, an “old fogy,” or a “Bourbon” (not necessarily a political one,) may be found, making protest against ‘“‘absolutely free tuition.” But he makes no impression. ‘Free schools” our entire people, white and colored, demand; and free schools they will always have. And they ought to have them, because it is for the best in- terests of the State that they should have them. Macauley, in one of his speeches in Parliament, has a fine passage apropos to this matter. “<«Tf’ they say, ‘free competition is a good thing in trade, it must surely be a good thing in education. The supply of other commodities—of sugar for example—is left to adjust itself to the demand; and the consequence is, that we are better supplied with sugar than if the Government under- took to supply us. Why, then, should we doubt that the supply of instruction will, without the intervention of the Government, be found equal to the demand?’ “Never was there’ (Macauley continues) “a more false analogy. Whether a man is well supplied with sugar is a gl matter that concerns himself alone. But whether he is well supplied with instruction is a matter which concerns his neighbors and the State. If he cannot afford to pay for sugar, he must go without sugar. But it is by no means fit that, because he cannot afford to pay for education, he should go without education. Between the rich and their instructors there may, as Adam Smith says, be free trade. The supply of music masters and Italian masters may be left to adjust itself to the demand. But what is to become of the millions who are too poor to procure without as- sistance the services of a decent schoolmaster?” In addressing a society such as yours, gentlemen, whose object from its earliest inception, in Colonial times, has been the advancement of education in South Carolina, such views and argumentsas I have been presenting seem specially ap- propriate. It was to the aid of primary schools that your subscriptions and fees and fines were from the first applied. But composed, as your Association has always been, of gen- tlemen representing and reflecting the highest culture and refinement, as well asa large portion of the wealth of the State, it cannot limit its interest and good wishes and in- fluence to the furtherance of ‘‘primary school education” alone. You, naturally, take an interest in all that would advance the “higher education,” of which, in early days, our State was a nursery, and in whose borders scholarship and letters, for so long a time, found a congenial home. Proud as we are of our revolutionary soldiers—our Marions, and Sumters, and Moultries—we are not less proud of our Calhouns, and McDuffies, and Legares, men whose intellects developed, and enriched, and polished by the highest educa- tion, have shed an undying lustre on the name of South Carolina. And how greatly might this bright catalogue be extended! With what distinguished statesmen and jurists, and physicians, and divines are its ample pages filled? Their names are household words. I need not enumerate them. You know them—the country knows many oi them—the world knows some of them—by heart. Our children, and childrens’ children, will forever treasure 19 up their memories, and will never, willingly, let them die. They never will die, so long as our people remain worthy of the noble sires from whose loins they sprung. But let us beware of the danger that might consign them to oblivion. The mists of ignorance rising from the low, undrained, uncultivated, unintellectual bottoms may veil and obscure those giant peaks that now tower so grandly in the moral horizon of Carolina. Let us beware of the growth of that spirit of indifference to higher educa- tion and culture, of that miscalled “ practical philosophy ” that tests every thing by its proximate application and im- mediate value in the common avocations of life, and which thinks that all the objects and ends of education are satis- fied when it launches a young man into the world prepared “to make a living” and to accumulate money. A “practi- cal” training truly, which makes him ready, “ propter vitam perdere causas vivendt.” “The duties of life are more than life,” says Lord Bacon. Oh, that the rising youth of our dear old State would lay that maxim up in their hearts as the truest guide through life! {t isa sad summary which the same profound philosopher and thinker makes of the cycle of a people’s history, when he says: “In the youth of a State arms flourish; in the mid- dle age ofa State, learning; and then both of these together for a time; and in the declining age of a State mechanical arts and merchandise.” And Burke’s famous exclamation is familiar and trite: ‘“‘ The age of chivalry has passed, and that of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded !” Let us hope that these pessimist views of such great statesmen were colored by the times in which they lived, and are not to be received as unquestionable dicta. Bacon, living in the reign of the “wisest fool in Christendom,” whose pedantic “kingcraft’’ was exerted more for the furtherance of selfish schemes of foreign policy than for the advancement of his countrymen in intelligence and virtue, might well have thought that the “ golden age” of Europe had passed. Burke, in the midst of the political and social corruption of the reign of George III, when a Grafton had 13 the confidence of the King, and a Wilkes, in the name of Liberty, the confidence of the people, might well have be- lieved that a perennial “ Brazen Age’? had come. Is it too metaphorical and fanciful for me to say that we live in an age compounded and alloyed? True, yet not feudal, chivalry blended with reason, not sophistry; wise, economic princi- ples combined with the results of broad experiments, not petty calculations; a composite better adapted for the wear and tear of life—the handling and uses and currency of hu- manity—its intrinsic value and beauty scarcely diminished ; its utility greatly enhanced. If an Englishman can now exclaim with Tennyson: “JT the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of Time!” it is because his noble schools and seats of learning have made him so. Itis from Eton and Harrow and Westminster and Rugby —from Oxford and from Cambridge—that he draws those intellectual treasures ees make him in the truest sense “the heir of all the ages.’ Mr. Canning, in one of his speeches, once well reeled “Foreigners often ask, ‘By what means an uninterrupted succession of men, qualified more or less eminently for the performance of united parliamentary and official duties, is secured?’ First, I answer (with the prejudices, perhaps, of Eton and Oxford,) that we owe it to our system of public Seltools’ andy mniversities.” “* ~~ *) * Tt is in Sher public schools and universities that the youth of England are, by a discipline which shallow judgments have sometimes at- tempted to undervalue, prepared for the duties of public life. There are rare and splendid exceptions, to be sure; but in my conscience I believe that England would not be what she is without her system of public education, and that no other country can become what England is without the advantages of such a system.” This is strong testimony, and from a remarkable man, who rose to the highest position of distinction—the premiership of England—without the adventitious aids of birth or family influence, solely by the force of his own talents, trained and 14 ” educated in such higher institutions of learning as Eton and Oxford. If such be the influence and results flowing from higher education in England—our “ Mother country,” as many of us still fondly call her—from whom we have derived not only our language, laws and ideas of constitutional liberty, but our social manners, habits and modes of thought; why should not the same results follow in our country, from the higher development of education among our people? And we may congratulate ourselves that South Carolina is, at last, appreciating the importance of rehabilitating her old seat of learning, which, like Oxford and Cambridge, (how- ever /ongo intervallo,) may prepare her youth, “ by a disci- pline which shallow judgments have sometimes attempted to undervalue,” for the duties of life. The assembling and mixing together of the young men from all parts of the State within the walls of a common Alma Mater ; broad and catholic in its aims and spirit; un- sectienal, and “ undenominational ;” where the most lasting and intimate ties of friendship will be formed, while the most thorough curricudum of the most valuable studies is pursued—must produce wholesome and valuable fruit—fruit cheaply purchased by the most liberal support which the Legislature may extend for its production. Moreover, what true son of Carolina, mindful of her past reputation, can be willing to see her young men flocking yearly to schools of learning, outside of her own borders, in pursuit ofthat higher education which, without a State institution, liberally equipped and supported as only a S/ate institution can be, he would vainly seek at home? Let us go on then, and perfect our system of universal and higher education until, in the words of Prof. Huxley, we can say of it truly, that it is “a great educational ladder, with one end in the gutter and the other in the university.” And now, gentlemen, it is time that I should cease to tax your attention and to fatigue your patience. How meagerly and imperfectly I have executed the task which you honored me by entrusing to me no one can be more con- = « os 15 . scious than myself. I have done little more than, by hold- ing up to view the anomolous and mortifying conditions under which we see ‘ voting by ballot” and “trial by jury” carried on at present in our midst, to show the absolut: necessity of gexcral education, if we would rescue our poor old State from the senseless and cruel tyranny—the tragical “farce” and real ‘‘fraud” of universal uneducated suffrage and the resulting rule of ignorance and pauperism. I have rather thrown out hints than endeavored to elaborate a systematic discourse. I have rather given you some food for thought, than presented any very well digested thought of my own, and trust I may be allowed, in the language of Horace, to say: s “si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.” Nor do I know any better thought with which to concliide an address on education than the memorable injunction which Thomas Jefferson, “the Father of Americal De- mocracy,” may be said to have bequeathed to his country men: ‘“ He who expects to see an uneducated people remair a free people, expects to see that which never has been and never can be.”