If they did not take interest enough in our language to acquire sufficient knowledge of it to enable them to study the institutions and laws of the country intelligently, I would not confer upon them the right to make such laws nor to select those who do.
Ulysses S. Grant: “If they did not take interest enough in our language to acquire sufficient knowledge of it to enable them to study the…”
Editor's note · Context
Grant argues that those who do not learn English should not have the right to make laws or select lawmakers.
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It is not probable that public affairs will ever again receive attention from me further than as a citizen of the Republic, always taking a deep interest in the honor, integrity, and prosperity of the whole land.
The compulsory support of the free school and the disfranchisement of all who can not read and write the English language, after a fixed probation, would meet my hearty approval.
Santo Domingo is fertile, and upon its soil may be grown just those tropical products of which the United States use so much, and which are produced or prepared for market now by slave labor almost exclusively, namely, sugar, coffee…
Being a part of the United States, commerce between the island and mainland would be free.





