allow a child of his to go to school and associate there on terms of equality as a scholar with colored children? ... Now, if we so oppose the public schools on account of the dangers to faith and morals, will not the danger to morals increase the more when white and colored children frequent these schools God alone knows what would be the consequences of such a state of things.” Moreover, Ryan espoused his beliefs concerning racial inequality, white supremacy, white-only voting rights, and white-only government: While responding to people who believed in the equality of all people and races, Ryan wrote, “There are bad men in all classes of society. And these men would elevate the Negro to a social and political equality with the white people of this country. And for what purpose? Not that they love the Negro, but to satiate a miserable greed for office, and to promote their own selfish aims and ends.” Ryan also wrote, “We hold that the White Race is superior to the Black, as a general principle, and that the Government of the United States and its several subordinate State and Municipal Governments belong to the white people of the land, as a particular principle. The first we hold is universal; the second as applicable to our country and our day. This latter is a principle which was always held sacred and maintained with earnestness and vigor, by all parties, until a few years ago, when British gold and Northern Fanaticism gave birth to Abolitionism and all its attendant isms and evils.” Responding to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Ryan wrote against the voting rights for African Americans: “If there was anything wanting to complete the infamy which must attach to the dominant part in this country, it has been supplied by the passage of the 15th Amendment bill by Congress and its required adoption by the States of the South. ... It is an infamy, because it requires an unnatural, an unjust, and an unconstitutional thing of the people. It forces them to give to Negroes not only the right to vote, but to hold offices of honor, trust, and profit.” In a rejection of African American voting rights, Ryan wrote, “We are proud and happy to ... believe that it is the right of the white man alone to rule in this