counties. In Mackinaw and Chippewa counties there is one white person
over twenty years of age to every five of the entire population that is
unable to read and write. In Ottawa, one in fourteen; in Cass, one in
twenty-two; in Wayne and Saginaw, each, one in thirty-six. On the other
hand, there were eight organized counties in the state in which,
according to the census referred to, there was not a single white
inhabitant over twenty years of age that was unable to read and write.
It is an interesting fact, at least to persons residing in the
Northwest, that in Ohio also (on the Western Reserve) there were seven
such counties, making fifteen in these two states, while in all New
England there were but two--Franklin in Massachusetts, and Essex in
Vermont.

But these statements in relation to the number of persons in the United
States who are unable to read and write, although they give the fearful
aggregate of _five hundred and fifty thousand_ over twenty years of age
who are destitute of these qualifications, it is believed, fail to
discover much of gross ignorance that is cherished in various portions
of the country; for there is no state in the Union, nor any section of a
single state, where men do not wish to be accounted able to read and
write. The deputy marshals who took the census received their
compensation by the head, and not by the day, for the work done. They
therefore traveled from house to house, making the shortest practicable
stay at each. More was required of them than could be thoroughly and
accurately performed in the time allowed. Their informants were
subjected to no test. In the absence of the heads of families, whose
information would have been more reliable, the bare word of persons over
sixteen years of age was accredited. It is, moreover, well known, that
no inconsiderable number of persons gave false information when inquired
of by the deputies. From these and other reasons, it is believed that
numerous and important errors exist in the census; and this opinion is
corroborated by a mass of unquestionable testimony, of which I will
introduce a specimen.

The annual message of Governor Campbell, of Virginia, to the Legislature
of that state, the year immediately preceding that in which the census
was taken, clearly shows that the capacity to read and write in persons
over twenty years of age was greatly over-estimated in that state.
Governor Campbell, after stating that