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Rutherford B. Hayes signed and revised paste-up copy of his address, “Remarks of General R. B. Hayes at the Reunion of the 23rd Ohio Veterans, Canton, Ohio, Sept. 1, 1880,” consisting of four backing sheets, 5.25 x 8.5, bearing clipped and mounted pamphlet text with extensive editorial emendations in ink. Intriguingly, the first page is headed in manuscript, “National Aid to Popular Education / By Rutherford B. Hayes,” suggesting that portions of the earlier 1880 address may have been repurposed or adapted for Hayes’s later educational reform writings, including his prominent 1886 advocacy of federal aid to public schooling. The concluding page is signed at the bottom by Hayes, “R. B. Hayes,” beneath a passage advocating universal public education.
The address argues forcefully for federal support of education in the post-Reconstruction United States, discussing illiteracy in the South, Native American education policy, immigration, and the preservation of republican government through universal schooling. Notable passages include: “The solution of the Indian question will speedily be either the extinction of the Indians or their absorption into American citizenship by means of the civilizing influences of education”; and, quoting Thomas Jefferson, “without instruction free to all, the sacred flame of liberty could not be kept burning in the hearts of Americans.”
The pamphlet text has been physically removed, rearranged, and affixed to oversized sheets for editorial revision, with the first three pages bearing extensive corrections and alterations in an unidentified hand. In overall fine condition. Following his presidency, Hayes became one of America’s foremost advocates for public education, believing universal schooling essential to national unity and democratic stability after the Civil War.
