Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield | Page 5

one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this force will
grow greater and bear richer fruit with the coming years.
No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our
Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps
unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember that
under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race
between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent

disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield
its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places
the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.
The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With
unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness
not born of fear, they have "followed the light as God gave them to see
the light." They are rapidly laying the material foundations of
self-support, widening their circle of intelligence, and beginning to
enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes of the industrious
poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men. So
far as my authority can lawfully extend, they shall enjoy the full and
equal protection of the Constitution and the laws.
The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank
statement of the issue may aid its solution. It is alleged that in many
communities negro citizens are practically denied the freedom of the
ballot. In so far as the truth of this allegation is admitted, it is answered
that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass
of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations.
So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered for
opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a
great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and
sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if
persisted in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy.
If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of the king, it
shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power
and stifle its voice.
It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of
nations. It should be said with the utmost emphasis that this question of
the suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States or to the
nation until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes and keeps the
ballot free and pure by the strong sanctions of the law.
But the danger which arises from ignorance in the voter can not be
denied. It covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and the
present condition of the race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the
sources and fountains of power in every state. We have 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