One of the most striking speeches made in the House upon the subject was by Mr. Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota. He had carefully prepared for the debate and dwelt with great force upon the educational feature. "Education," said he, "means the intelligent exercise of liberty; and surely without this liberty is a calamity, since it means simply the unlimited right to err. Who can doubt that if a man is to govern himself he should have the means to know what is best for himself, and what is injurious to himself, what agencies work against him and what for him? The avenue to all this is simply education. Suffrage without education is an edged tool in the hands of a child,--dangerous to others and destructive to himself. Now what is the condition of the South in reference to all this? I assert that it is such as would bring disgrace upon any despotism in Christendom. The great bulk of the people are rude, illiterate, semi-civilized: hence the Rebellion; hence all the atrocious barbarities that accompanied it. . . . I repeat, the condition of the South in this respect would be shameful to any semi-civilized people, and is such as to render a republican government, resting upon the intelligent judgment of the people, an impossibility." It is worthy of remark that the question so cogently presented and enforced by Mr. Donnelly--that of the connection between education and suffrage--disclosed the general fact that even among Republicans there was no disposition at this period to confer upon the negro the right to vote. Even so radical a Republican as Mr. Fessenden, during the debate in the Senate on this question, said, "I take it that no one contends--I think the Honorable Senator from Massachusetts himself (Mr. Sumner), who is the great champion of universal suffrage, would hardly contend--that now, at this time, the whole of the population of the recent slave States is fit to be admitted to the exercise of the right of suffrage. I presume no man who looks at the question dispassionately and calmly could contend that the great mass of those who were recently slaves (undoubtedly there may be exceptions), and who have been kept in ignorance all their lives, oppressed and more or less forbidden to acquire information, are fitted at this stage to exercise the right of suffrage, or could be trusted to do it unless under such good advice as those better informed might be prepared to give them."