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On December 2, 1806, in his State of the Union Address, he urged Congress pass a constitutional amendment mandating federal support for education. He said:
"An amendment to our constitution must here come in aid of the public education. The influence over government must be shared among all people."
He never got what he wanted. It's our loss today. He believed primary and secondary education were vital. He wanted them kept public. He had six objectives. He hoped they'd create a more productive, informed electorate. They included:
(1) "To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
(2) To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts, and accounts, in writing;
(3) To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
(4) To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
(5) To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
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