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this Confederacy, I believe, will be found to exhibit similar results as regards public instruction; and with respect to the Eastern States, it is well known, that they have long surpassed all the other States of the Union, in their institutions of education.
It cannot, therefore, be otherwise than propitious, in every relation in which the matter can be viewed, that a proposition is about to be submitted, to the consideration of a people, calculated, as the author of it believes, eminently to promote their welfare, by shewing how to eradicate the evils which afflict them, even under the best system of government, which the art of man has yet been able to devise; and that people so circumstanced, that such proposition can and will come home to their closest investigation. It adds to the felicity of this condition of things, that after such investigation has been had, and a general conviction results, if it should result, that it is worthy of their approbation and adoption, that they hold in their hands, through the silent, peaceful, and irresistible operation of the ballot-boxes, the power to establish it, as the basis of their social compact.
Heretofore, such has not been the fortunate condition of the human race. If, in different ages, and in different countries, there have been found as is undoubtedly true, men of clear heads, and honest hearts, struggling to increase the happiness of the great mass of nations, they have been resist
