In our republic the people are said to be the sovereigns of the government; and we frequently hear of the “sovereign people.” And who are the sovereign people? Are they the ignorant and the vile? Are they the base and the profligate? Alas, for this lovely land of ours, were such sovereign further than their votes on election day can make them! And even in this privilege of voting, their sovereignty is sufficiently operative for evil. And were these miserable apologies for the freemen of America to triumph over the enlightened and the virtuous, what would the name of America be but the stamp of infamy? To the ignorant and the vile, the base and the profligate, our government extends the right of suffrage. It recognises all as politically free. But can such characters aspire to the place of office which the enlightened alone can fill? Their boast is of their right to vote, and not of the talent or the chance to occupy the place of office. And what a pitiful sovereignty is this for an American freeman to boast!――a sovereignty which gives him a right to vote, and which allows him to hurrah for another who is wiser and better than himself; while he has no qualifications of his own to fit him for office, nor even to judge who is best prepared to be the officer. And in the hands of the ignorant man this elective franchise is a dangerous trust. He knows not how to exercise it for his country’s good, and for the advancement of his country’s prosperity. He has the power to vote, and that is all that he can be proud of. And his vote is thrown, like the implements of the gaming table, at a hazard. And if the chance of the government for prosperity depended on him, it would certainly hang upon the hazard of the die. Shame upon such a sovereignty! shame upon the boy who is base enough even to risk the chance of becoming such a character! He is unfit to rule, or to choose his ruler, and he is unworthy of the rights and privileges which his free government confers upon him. I tell you, boys, that such a character is complimented, he is highly complimented, when it is said of him that he is “fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils.” THE INTELLIGENCE NECESSARY TO THE AMERICAN CITIZEN IS TO BE OBTAINED IN THE SCHOOL.