present condition of the race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in
the sources and fountains of power in every state. We have no standard
by which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by
ignorance and vice in the citizens when joined to corruption and fraud
in the suffrage.

The voters of the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon
whose will hang the destinies of our governments, can transmit their
supreme authority to no successors save the coming generation of
voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that generation
comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice,
the fall of the Republic will be certain and remediless.

The census has already sounded the alarm in the appalling figures which
mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy has risen among our
voters and their children.

To the South this question is of supreme importance. But the
responsibility for the existence of slavery did not rest upon the South
alone. The nation itself is responsible for the extension of the
suffrage, and is under special obligations to aid in removing the
illiteracy which it has added to the voting population. For the North
and South alike there is but one remedy. All the constitutional power
of the nation and of the States and all the volunteer forces of the
people should be surrendered to meet this danger by the savory
influence of universal education.

It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate
their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the
inheritance which awaits them.