Illiterates are nowhere at a greater disadvantage than at the ballot box, where corrupt men often purchase their birthright for a mess of pottage or cheat them out of it entirely. Henry Van Dyke says, “To place the ballot in the hands of illiterate persons is like hanging a diamond around the neck of a little child and sending it out into the crowded street.” The ballot has not only been placed in the hands of 2,273,603 illiterate male voters but since the enfranchisement of women, the number of illiterate voters in America has been augmented by, perhaps, two millions more. With over four million voters who cannot read their ballots, is the body politic sound, healthy, or even safe? In a republic, society rests upon the intelligence of the people and only in universal education is democracy safe and liberty securely enthroned. A nation which has over four million illiterate voters is not strongly fortified to uphold any principle, and society is undermined and weakened at its very source. Since universal education is so essential to the success of a democracy it is a wonder that a provision was not written into the Constitution of the United States similar to the one once proposed by Cortez for the constitution of Spain, “That no person born after this day shall acquire the right of citizenship until he can read and write.” Thomas Jefferson said of this, “It is impossible to sufficiently estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all that have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of government and progressive advancement of the human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual. Enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” Nearly a hundred years later President Grant in his recommendations to Congress wrote as follows, “The compulsory support of free schools and the disfranchisement of all who cannot read and write the English language, after a fixed probation, would meet with my hearty approval.” Had this recommendation been carried out and its execution accompanied with the opportunity for every man and woman, as well as every child, to learn to read and write, there would be no army of illiterate voters in this country marching to the polls on election day.