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.

In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and
partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in the
divine oracle which declares that "a little child shall lead them," for
our own little children will soon control the destinies of the Republic.

My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the
controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children
will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They
will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the Union
was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were
made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can
not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to
make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable
verdict?

Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material
well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best