Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/436

402 threaten us. Can these difficulties be overcome? Can these dangers be averted? We have no time to stop and discuss whether and how, they can be, for every patriotic heart in the country will respond, “They must be.”

It is true the first golden opportunity after the victory of our arms, when we might have accomplished with ease what now may cost us the fiercest struggles, that first great opportunity has been treacherously frittered away, never to return; but it is not too late yet. A faithful Congress is still guarding the key position of the battlefield, and nobody need despair as long as behind a faithful Congress there stands a faithful people.

I stated at the beginning of my remarks that in order to render the reaction harmless, the great results achieved by the war must be so firmly imbedded into our political institutions as to be impregnable by any sudden movement. This can only be done by throwing the safeguard of the Constitution around them. A mere law can be repealed by a simple accidental majority in the legislatures without any Congress; a mere party platform may be pushed aside by the very men who made it, even without the formality of a vote; but a Constitutional provision cannot be over come unless two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the States concur in striking it out.

The Thirty-ninth Congress proceeded upon this idea. It embodied some of the safeguards to be built up around the results of our great National struggle, in a Constitutional amendment which is now submitted to the people for approval.

The provisions of that Constitutional amendment are known to you. It declares citizens all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and provides that such citizens shall be protected in the enjoyment of equal civil rights in whatever State they may reside. It fixes the basis of representation so that if, in any State the franchise