Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/477

Rh of class or color, and to disappear again as soon as these people had given themselves a political organization—such was the purpose for which it was instituted, and such the end it has accomplished. Nowhere on the face of the earth has military rule been devoted to such a glorious cause as this—to wipe out that most pernicious of atrocities, that, in the name of liberty, one man should claim the right to deprive of his rights another; to clear the track for the government of the people, for the people, and by the people, on every inch of ground on which the American flag throws its shadow. Only the friends of tyranny will call this despotism; but it will stand blessed in the memories of coming generations as the pioneer of order, freedom and justice.

The third great Democratic objection to the Republican policy of reconstruction is that we have oppressed the Southern people, by bestowing the elective franchise upon the colored men of the South, while the negro is still so very stupid. Yes, it is true that Congress has secured the right of voting to the colored people of the South, and it is also true that in point of intelligence and education the negro stands below the average of the whites. Why did Congress secure to the negro the right of voting? I have said it already: Because there was no other alternative but between governments of the rebel majority on one, and governments based upon impartial suffrage on the other hand; because it was necessary to protect free labor, which could be done only by giving the laborer the political means with which to protect his own rights. Now, as to the intelligence and education of the negro, is it not a little singular that the Democratic party has suddenly become so very fastidious with regard to the intellectual qualifications of voters? I never heard of it that the Democracy had refused admission to their party to a man on the ground that he was too stupid for