Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/799

 unity running from the commander-in-chief to the humblest soldier, and one spirit must animate the entire system.

The 122d. chapter, in relation to "patrols," is unnecessary. It renders all other property liable to heavy taxation for the protection of slave property; thus operating unequally upon citizens, and is liable to the odious charge of being a system of espionage, as it authorizes the patrols, an indefinite number of whom may be appointed, to visit not only negro quarters, but "any other places" suspected of unlawful assemblages of slaves.

Chapter 131, "Preemption," squanders the school fund, by appropriating the school sections contrary to the organic act, which provides "that sections numbered sixteen and thirty-six, in each township in Kansas territory, shall be and the same are hereby reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools in said territory, and in the states and territories to be erected out of the same contravenes the United States preemption laws, which forbid trafficking in claims, and holding more than one claim; and directs the governor to grant patents for lands belonging to the United States, and only conditionally granted to the territory. This act is directly calculated to destroy the effect of a munificent grant of land by congress for educational purposes. The territory is the trustee of this valuable gift, and posterity has the right to demand of us that this sacred trust shall remain unimpaired, in order that the blessings of free education may be shed upon our children.

Every state should have the best educational system which an intelligent government can provide. The physical, moral and mental faculties should be cultivated in harmonious unison, and that system of education is the best which will effect these objects. Congress has already provided for the support of common schools. In addition to this, I would recommend the legislature to ask congress to donate land lying in this territory for the establishment of a university, embracing a normal, agricultural and mechanical school. A university, thus endowed, would be a blessing to our people; disseminate useful and scientific intelligence; provide competent teachers for our primary schools; and furnish a complete system of education adequate to our wants in all the departments of life.

The subject of roads, bridges and highways, merits your especial attention. Nothing adds more to comfort, convenience, prosperity and happiness, and more greatly promotes social intercourse and kind feeling, than easy and convenient inter-communication. Roads should be wide and straight, and the various rivers and ravines substantially bridged.

Railroads should be encouraged; and in granting charters, the legislature should have in view the interests of the whole people. The prosperity of the territory is intimately connected with the early and general construction of the rapid and satisfactory means of transit.

While on the subject of internal improvement, I would call to your notice and solicit for it your serious consideration, the opening, at the earliest period, of a more easy means of communication with the seaboard than any we at present enjoy. One great obstacle to our prosperity is the immense distance