Speech #490016774

I voice the Republicans. the people of the State of Kansas. when I say that they spurn indignantly and with contempt any assumption that they desire a donation from the national Treasury for the purpose of conducting the system of common schools within their borders. Sir. the State of Kansas since 1861. amid all the perils and privations of her career fdaring the period of the war. with less than 100.000 people when that war broke out and having sent more soldiers into the Union armies than she had voters when the war was declared. and notwithstanding all the subsequent privations of the frontier. droughts. locusts. perils of all descriptions. out of her scanty resources has expended more than $30.000.000 down to this last year of our Lord for the support and maintenance of common schools within her borders. And I am fatigued with the assumption that the Senator from New Hampshire so often presents and that others who advocate this bill so often present. that the people of the North and the West. that the people of Dakota or Montana or any of the other great Territories that are being filled up by immigration from the Northern and Western States. demand a donation from the national Treasury or ask any portion of this $77.000.000. either by way of bribe or by way of alms. to induce them to take care of the matter of education within their own borders. Let us be just about this matter. let us drop disguises. let us come down to the basis of common sense and common justice. and do not insult the people of the Northern States. do not insult Massachusetts and New Hampshire and New York and Illinois and Wisconsin and Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa and Dakota and Montana by declaring that they want any portionof this donation of $77.000.000 fir the purpose of taking care of the commonschool system within their borders. We do not want it.