It is not a permission of law; it is the inherent right of the individual.
Henry Ward Beecher
The Public Record
Henry Ward Beecher was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God's love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on the love of Christ has influenced mainstream Christianity through the 21st century.
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The theory of the North is, that every man has the right, on every subject, to the freest expression of his opinions, and the fullest right to urge them upon the convictions of others.
Closely connected with this, and springing from the same causes, is a contrast between the North and the South, in respect to free speech and open discussion by lip and by type.
Knowledge is power, not only, but powder, putting the South in the risk of being blown up, by careless handling and too great abundance.
There cannot be a common public sentiment, a common school, nor common education.
The restrictions which keep it from the slave will keep it from the whites, excepting, always, the few who live at the top.
Indeed, there cannot be general education in any State where ignorance is the legal condition of one-half the population, as is the case in many Southern States.
In such a Society, there cannot be a Common School, in any such sense as we mean it.
There are three classes--the top, the middle, and the bottom; and two of these, the top and bottom, being fixed and legal, the middle is modified by them both.
When the whole labor of a State is performed by a degraded class, that are not included in the State as citizens or social beings, it is impossible but that the class next above them should feel the force of those theories and ideas which…
It is a society of classes, and a society of classes can never be a community.
For nothing is more tenacious than schoolday remembrances, and the last things that we forget are playmates and schoolmates.