the extent and richness of its public buildings and palaces of idle amusement; not in vast aggregations of capital in the coffers of the common treasury—­capital unnecessarily diverted from the channels of trade, extorted from the people by the ignorance of their “wise men,” who seek in vain for a remedy for the evil, because they do not want to find one.[11] A people’s greatness should not be measured by these standards, for they are the parasites which eat away the foundations of greatness and stability.  On the contrary, such greatness is to be found in the general diffusion of wealth, the comparative contentment and competency of the masses, and the general virtue and patriotism of the whole people.  It should, therefore, manifestly be the end and aim of legislators to so shape the machinery placed in their hands as to operate with the least possible restraint upon the energies of the people.  It should not be the studied purpose to enrich the few at the expense of the many, to restrain this man and give that one the largest possible immunity.  No law should be made or enforced which would abridge my right while enlarging the right of my neighbor.  That such is the case at this time—­that legislatures are manipulated in the interest of a few, and that the great mass of the people feel only the burdens placed upon them by their servants, who are more properly speaking become their masters—­that to such perversion of popular sovereignty we have come, is admitted by candid men.

Therefore, that the people may more clearly know their rights and how best to preserve them and reap their fullest benefits, they should be instructed in the language which is the medium through which to interpret their grand Magna Charta.

FOOTNOTES: 

[11] Since all sensible men know that the evil lies in a protective tariff and the bulky catalogue of monopoly.

CHAPTER VI

Education—­Professional or Industrial

The “Religious Training of the Freedmen” and the “Education of the Freedmen” have raised up an army of people more peculiar in many respects than any other like class in all the history of mankind.  They stand off by themselves; they are not to be approached by any counter method of “advocating a cause” or “building up the Kingdom of Christ” in their field.  Millions of dollars have been “raised” to root out the illiteracy and immorality of the Freedmen, and to build up their shattered manhood.  Indeed, there have been times when I have seriously debated the question, whether the black man had any manhood left, after the missionaries and religious enthusiasts had done picturing, or, rather, caricaturing his debased moral and mental condition.  He has been made the victim of the most exalted panegyric by one set of fanatics, and of the most painful, malignant abuse