every plantation.

31. Governor Miller, in his message of 1815, to the legislature of North
Carolina, affirms, that "With knowledge and virtue, the united efforts
of ignorance and tyranny may be defied." Governor Nicholas, in his
message of the same year, to the legislature of Virginia, says, "Without
intelligence, self-government, our dearest privilege, cannot be
exercised." President Madison, in his message to the Congress, also of
the same year, says, "Without knowledge, the blessings of liberty cannot
be fully enjoyed or long preserved." And in his recent valedictory
message, that he shall read in the character of the American people, in
their true devotion to liberty, and to the constitution, which is its
palladium, sure presages that the destined career of his country will
exhibit a government pursuing the public good as its sole object, &c.
"which maintains inviolably the maxims of public faith, security of
persons and property, and encourages in every authorized mode, that
general diffusion of knowledge, which guarantees to public liberty its
permanency, and to those who possess the blessing, the true enjoyment of
it," &c. Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural speech, says, "If man is not
fit to govern himself, how can it be expected that he should be fit to
be entrusted with the government of others? Can we expect to find angels
in the form of kings?" Whether it be safe to risk the untutored slave
with his liberty or not, his situation must be inconceivably horrible,
under the cruel lash and uncontrolled power of a master, who is
destitute of education or virtue; whose prompter is avarice, and whose
religion is intemperance, and the gratification of the most ferocious
passions.--It is apprehended that many thousands, _if not hundreds of
thousands_, are thus situated! And it is of but little avail, if the
master himself be enlightened and humane, as long as he consigns his
people to the hands of a cruel stony-hearted overseer. Let legislators
then, both national and sectional, perform their duty to their country
and its posterity;--and to mankind, by listening to the wise counsels
of many conspicuous living sages, and pursue without hesitation the
inestimable "parting advice" of George Washington, Benjamin Rush, Samuel
Adams, and other departed friends and patrons of man, "to promote, as
objects of PRIMARY importance, institutions for the GENERAL diffusion of
knowledge:"--and _establish_ PUBLIC SCHOOLS _in every par