The Life of General Francis Marion [108]
loss in the extra two years' war. $2,000,000 2d. For her four thousand citizens slain in that time, 600,000 3d. For twenty-five thousand slaves lost, 7,500,000 4th. For buildings, furniture, cattle, grain, &c. &c. destroyed, 5,000,000 ----------- $15,100,000 -----------
Making the enormous sum of fifteen millions and odd dollars CAPITAL; and bearing an annual interest of nearly ten hundred thousand dollars besides! and all this for lack of a few free schools, which would have cost the state a mere nothing."
I sighed, and told him I wished he had not broached the subject, for it had made me very sad.
"Yes," replied he, "it is enough to make any one sad. But it cannot be helped but by a wiser course of things; for, if people will not do what will make them happy, God will surely chastise them; and this dreadful loss of public property is one token of his displeasure at our neglect of public instruction."
I asked him if this were really his belief. "Yes, sir," replied he, with great earnestness, "it is my belief, and I would not exchange it for worlds. It is my firm belief, that every evil under the sun is of the nature of chastisement, and appointed of the infinitely good Being for our benefit. When you see a youth, who, but lately, was the picture of bloom and manly beauty, now utterly withered and decayed; his body bent; his teeth dropping out; his nose consumed; with foetid breath, ichorous eyes, and his whole appearance most putrid, ghastly, and loathsome, you are filled with pity and with horror; you can hardly believe there is a God, or hardly refrain from charging him with cruelty. But, where folly raves, wisdom adores. In this awful scourge of lawless lust, wisdom discerns the infinite price which heaven sets on conjugal purity and love. In like manner, the enormous sacrifice of public property, in the last war, being no more, as before observed, than the natural effect of public ignorance, ought to teach us that of all sins, there is none so hateful to God as national ignorance; that unfailing spring of NATIONAL INGRATITUDE, REBELLION, SLAVERY, and WRETCHEDNESS!
"But if it be melancholy to think of so many elegant houses, rich furniture, fat cattle, and precious crops, destroyed for want of that patriotism which a true knowledge of our interests would have inspired, then how much more melancholy to think of those torrents of precious blood that were shed, those cruel slaughters and massacres, that took place among the citizens from the same cause! As proof that such hellish tragedies would never have been acted, had our state but been enlightened, only let us look at the people of New England. From Britain, their fathers had fled to America for religion's sake. Religion had taught them that God created men to be happy; that to be happy they must have virtue; that virtue is not to be attained without knowledge, nor knowledge without instruction, nor public instruction without free schools, nor free schools without legislative order.
"Among a people who fear God, the knowledge of duty is the same as doing it. Believing it to be the first command of God, "let there be light," and believing it to be the will of God that "all should be instructed, from the least to the greatest," these wise legislators at once set about public instruction. They did not ask, how will my constituents like this? won't they turn me out? shall I not lose my three dollars per day? No! but fully persuaded that public instruction is God's will, because the people's good, they set about it like the true friends of the people.
"Now mark the happy consequence. When the war broke out, you heard of no division in New England, no toryism, nor any of its horrid effects; no houses in flames, kindled by the hands of fellow-citizens, no neighbors waylaying and shooting
Making the enormous sum of fifteen millions and odd dollars CAPITAL; and bearing an annual interest of nearly ten hundred thousand dollars besides! and all this for lack of a few free schools, which would have cost the state a mere nothing."
I sighed, and told him I wished he had not broached the subject, for it had made me very sad.
"Yes," replied he, "it is enough to make any one sad. But it cannot be helped but by a wiser course of things; for, if people will not do what will make them happy, God will surely chastise them; and this dreadful loss of public property is one token of his displeasure at our neglect of public instruction."
I asked him if this were really his belief. "Yes, sir," replied he, with great earnestness, "it is my belief, and I would not exchange it for worlds. It is my firm belief, that every evil under the sun is of the nature of chastisement, and appointed of the infinitely good Being for our benefit. When you see a youth, who, but lately, was the picture of bloom and manly beauty, now utterly withered and decayed; his body bent; his teeth dropping out; his nose consumed; with foetid breath, ichorous eyes, and his whole appearance most putrid, ghastly, and loathsome, you are filled with pity and with horror; you can hardly believe there is a God, or hardly refrain from charging him with cruelty. But, where folly raves, wisdom adores. In this awful scourge of lawless lust, wisdom discerns the infinite price which heaven sets on conjugal purity and love. In like manner, the enormous sacrifice of public property, in the last war, being no more, as before observed, than the natural effect of public ignorance, ought to teach us that of all sins, there is none so hateful to God as national ignorance; that unfailing spring of NATIONAL INGRATITUDE, REBELLION, SLAVERY, and WRETCHEDNESS!
"But if it be melancholy to think of so many elegant houses, rich furniture, fat cattle, and precious crops, destroyed for want of that patriotism which a true knowledge of our interests would have inspired, then how much more melancholy to think of those torrents of precious blood that were shed, those cruel slaughters and massacres, that took place among the citizens from the same cause! As proof that such hellish tragedies would never have been acted, had our state but been enlightened, only let us look at the people of New England. From Britain, their fathers had fled to America for religion's sake. Religion had taught them that God created men to be happy; that to be happy they must have virtue; that virtue is not to be attained without knowledge, nor knowledge without instruction, nor public instruction without free schools, nor free schools without legislative order.
"Among a people who fear God, the knowledge of duty is the same as doing it. Believing it to be the first command of God, "let there be light," and believing it to be the will of God that "all should be instructed, from the least to the greatest," these wise legislators at once set about public instruction. They did not ask, how will my constituents like this? won't they turn me out? shall I not lose my three dollars per day? No! but fully persuaded that public instruction is God's will, because the people's good, they set about it like the true friends of the people.
"Now mark the happy consequence. When the war broke out, you heard of no division in New England, no toryism, nor any of its horrid effects; no houses in flames, kindled by the hands of fellow-citizens, no neighbors waylaying and shooting