Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/249

Rh issued your emancipation manifesto, you might have dismissed your generals one after the other, long before you did it—and a large majority of the people would have firmly stood by you. All they wanted was merciless energy and speedy success. You know it yourself, there are now many prominent Democrats supporting you, who go far beyond the program of the Chicago platform.

Whatever proportion of Republicans may have entered the Army,—if the Administration had succeeded in preserving its hold upon the masses, your majorities would at any moment have put the majorities of 1860 into the shade and no insidious party contrivances could have prevailed against you. But the general confidence and enthusiasm yielded to a general disappointment, and there were but too many Republicans, who, disturbed and confused by the almost universal feeling of the necessity of a change, either voted against you or withheld their votes. I know this to be a fact.

That some of our newspapers “disparaged and vilified the Administration” may be true, although in our leading journals I have seen little else than a moderate and well-measured criticism. I know of none that had ever impeached your good faith or questioned your motives. If there were no real and great abuses, the attacks on your Administration were certainly unjustifiable. But if there were, then, I think, the misfortune was not that the abuses were criticised, but that the responsible individuals were not promptly and severely held to account. It is my opinion, and I expect I shall hold it as long as I live, that a party, in order to remain pure and efficient, must be severe against its own members; it can disarm the criticism of its opponents by justly criticising and promptly correcting itself. But however that may be, I ask you in all candor, what power would there have been in newspaper-talk, what power in the talk of demagogues