ratification of a constitutional amendment. In view, however, of the
vast importance of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, this day
declared a part of that revered instrument, I deem a departure from the
usual custom justifiable. A measure which makes at once 4,000,000 people
voters who were heretofore declared by the highest tribunal in the land
not citizens of the United States, nor eligible to become so (with the
assertion that "at the time of the Declaration of Independence the
opinion was fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white
race, regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, that black
men had no rights which the white man was bound to respect"), is indeed
a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from
the foundation of our free Government to the present day.

Institutions like ours, in which all power is derived directly from the
people, must depend mainly upon their intelligence, patriotism, and
industry. I call the attention, therefore, of the newly enfranchised
race to the importance of their striving in every honorable manner to
make themselves worthy of their new privilege. To the race more favored
heretofore by our laws I would say, Withhold no legal privilege of
advancement to the new citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly
believed that a republican government could not endure without
intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The
Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address, uses this language:

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the
general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a
government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public
opinion should be enlightened.

In his first annual message to Congress the same views are forcibly