Such aid should be, as it always has been, suggested by some exceptional conditions.  The sudden emancipation of the slaves of the South, the bestowal of the suffrage which soon followed, and the impairment of the ability of the States where these new citizens were chiefly found to adequately provide educational facilities presented not only exceptional but unexampled conditions.  That the situation has been much ameliorated there is no doubt.  The ability and interest of the States have happily increased.

But a great work remains to be done, and I think the General Government should lend its aid.  As the suggestion of a national grant in aid of education grows chiefly out of the condition and needs of the emancipated slave and his descendants, the relief should as far as possible, while necessarily proceeding upon some general lines, be applied to the need that suggested it.  It is essential, if much good is to be accomplished, that the sympathy and active interest of the people of the States should be enlisted, and that the methods adopted should be such as to stimulate and not to supplant local taxation for school purposes.

As one Congress can not bind a succeeding one in such a case and as the effort must in some degree be experimental, I recommend that any appropriation made for this purpose be so limited in annual amount and as to the time over which it is to extend as will on the one hand give the local school authorities opportunity to make the best use of the first year’s allowance, and on the other deliver them from the temptation to unduly postpone the assumption of the whole burden themselves.

The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us.  They were brought here in chains and held in the communities where they are now chiefly found by a cruel slave code.  Happily for both races, they are now free.  They have from a standpoint of ignorance and poverty—­which was our shame, not theirs—­made remarkable advances in education and in the acquisition of property.  They have as a people shown themselves to be friendly and faithful toward the white race under temptations of tremendous strength.  They have their representatives in the national cemeteries, where a grateful Government has gathered the ashes of those who died in its defense.  They have furnished to our Regular Army regiments that have won high praise from their commanding officers for courage and soldierly qualities and for fidelity to the enlistment oath.  In civil life they are now the toilers of their communities, making their full contribution to the widening streams of prosperity which these communities are receiving.  Their sudden withdrawal would stop production and bring disorder into the household as well as the shop.  Generally they do not desire to quit their homes, and their employers resent the interference of the emigration agents who seek to stimulate such a desire.

But notwithstanding all this, in many parts of our country where the colored population is large the people of that race are by various devices deprived of any effective exercise of their political rights and of many of their civil rights.  The wrong does not expend itself upon those whose votes are suppressed.  Every constituency in the Union is wronged.