Mr. Wilson said: “I shall vote against exempting from taxation any book whatever, even the Bible.… I am against these exemptions. What, Sir! a tax on books a tax on knowledge? Suppose it is: so is a tax on the coat the boy who goes to school wears.”
Mr. Sumner replied:—
Mr. President,—My colleague does not see the difference between a tax on a boy’s clothes and a tax on his book. The country, in its experience, from the first settlement at Plymouth Rock, has seen it. Clearly it saw the difference, when it undertook to say that education should be at the public cost, free of charge to every one in the community. My friend [Mr. Howe] shakes his head; he knows well that one of the proudest acts in the history of New England was when at an early day she established her system of public schools, which has continued ever since, where every child is educated free of charge. He was educated at the public cost, but not clothed at the public cost. And, Sir, if you would know what gave to New England those elements of prosperity and of influence, which are, I think, sometimes recognized, you will find them in that very education at the public cost. It was because those early settlers, founders of communities, saw that the mind should be clothed, and willingly undertook to clothe it. The family at home were left to clothe the body. Now I would have the country act according to this illustrious precedent, which has done so much for the national name, and remove every impediment in the path of knowledge. Do not tell me that by the same rule you must remove the tax from clothes. The conclusion does not follow. If our fathers were right in establishing free schools, it is right for us now to insist upon free books.
The amendment of Mr. Sumner was lost,—Yeas 5, Nays 27.
THREE CONDITIONS PRECEDENT TO THE RECEPTION OF SENATORS FROM A REBEL STATE.
Resolution in the Senate, March 8, 1865.
