Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/480

446 that if there had been no other object in view, I should have been no less zealous in striving to vindicate the outraged dignity of nature in the meanest child of the human family and to lift the yoke of cruel injustice from his neck. But is it true? Look at our past history. In 1856 and 1860 we Republicans fought for the exclusion of slavery from the territories. We conquered. See what has become of those territories. They have grown up into rich, civilized, powerful, progressive States, inhabited by an intelligent, prosperous, progressive, happy people. And who are these people who are now enjoying the benefit of our victory? Are they negroes? No; they are white people like you and myself. We saved the territories for the white laborer in saving them from slavery; and then we were taunted with having nothing in our heads but the interests of the black man. So it was when we emancipated the slaves. Is there a sane man now who will deny that the abolition of slavery is a great blessing, not to the negro alone, but to the whole people, and will be a greater blessing still to our children and our children's children? We liberated only four millions of blacks, but we delivered thirty millions of whites from the odious yoke of grasping aristocracy. We did care for the negro, not as a negro, but as a wronged member of the human family. We were wronged in him. In righting him, we only righted ourselves. Ask yourselves, was not the vote given to the colored man in the South that he might render us all a great service at the ballot-box of the South? What is he voting for? He votes that the whip which tortured him while in slavery may remain away from his back. He votes, therefore, that free labor be permanently established and successfully developed; that the equality of the rights of all before the law be maintained; that the restoration of aristocratic class government in the South, and of similar things at war with true