Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/453

Rh

—What the country stands most in need of is a final settlement of the difficulties connected with our civil war. The people of this country want peace—a solid, durable peace. This want is acknowledged by both political parties, and both speak of peace as the true end of their respective policies. But while they profess to agree as to the object to be accomplished, they widely disagree as to the means to be employed. First, the Republican party steps before you and points out to you what it has accomplished. It speaks thus: “See here what we have done. We have carried on a great war against those who wanted to disrupt the Republic for the purpose of making slavery the corner-stone of a new empire. We have reconstructed the disorganized rebel States upon the basis of universal liberty and equal rights. We have enabled the whole people thereof to set up governments of their own; and behold eight of these States have already resumed their old places in the Union; only three are still behind, and in a short space of time those three will also have gone through the required preliminary process, and then the great work for which we have struggled and labored so long will be consummated. We offer you peace, therefore, upon the basis of a restored Union, of results already accomplished and of a state of things already existing.” Thus speaks the Republican party. The Democrats hold a different language. They say: “All you have done, since the close of the war, for the restoration of the Union counts for nothing. Your reconstruction measures are unconstitutional, revolutionary and void.” In the words of the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency, which are but a violent construction of the Democratic platform, “these laws