Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/444

410 given our promise for value received in money and in blood. It was under the banner of the Stars and Stripes that this bargain was fairly struck, and that banner will bear a blot of eternal disgrace unless the compact be honestly carried out.

I declare here before the American people, and I call to witness every honest man on the face of the globe, if, after having taken the money of the National creditor, upon the distinct promise that his interest should be fairly secured; if, after having called upon the Southern loyalist for coöperation, upon the distinct promise that his rights should be protected; if, after having summoned the negro to the battlefield, upon the distinct and solemn promise that his race should be forever and truly free; if, after having done all this, the Government of this Republic restores the rebel States to the full enjoyment of their rights and the full exercise of their power in the Union, without previously exacting such irreversible stipulations and guarantees as will fully, and beyond peradventure, secure the National creditor, the Southern Union man and the emancipated negro against those encroachments upon their rights which the reaction now going on is bringing with it, it will be the most unnatural, the most treacherous, the most dastardly act ever committed by any nation in the history of the world. It will be such an act as will render every man who participates in it unfit forever to sit in the company of gentlemen.

You remember the scorn and contempt with which the rebels spoke about the “mean-spirited Yankee.” Do this, betray those who stood by you in the hour of need, and at that moment you will deserve it all. Do this, and your bitterest enemy in the South will have a right to ask the negro, “Did we not tell you the Yankees would cheat you?” And the negro will have to reply, “You did; and you were right.” Not because they hated you, but