Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/481

Rh democratic government, be prevented. He votes, therefore, to help us in extinguishing the germs of other conflicts, and in securing the necessary harmony between the social and political institutions of the several States, and the fundamental principles of our democratic system. In doing that, does he not thereby give us his most valuable, nay, indispensable, aid in laying down broad and deep the only safe and durable basis for national peace, good understanding and prosperous development? Are not the colored voters of the South, therefore, in preventing new irrepressible conflicts, in helping us to secure a solid peace, rendering the country as inestimable a service as they would have rendered us in 1861, had they then been permitted by their votes, to avert civil war with all its calamities? Would it not be folly, criminal folly, to reject this service? Can we afford to reject it? Free labor must be established; the restoration of aristocratic class government, with its disloyal tendencies, must be prevented. The interests of the American people, the peace of the country, imperatively demand it. The pro-slavery whites will not help us to accomplish this object; we must have the help of the colored element. There is no choice. What sane, patriotic man can hesitate? Let me say to you, this great American Republic—and were she ten times greater—cannot afford to despise a necessary service, which can only be rendered by the poorest of her children—and Heaven forbid that she should. Great as she is, she will honor herself by readily accepting and thankfully acknowledging it.

But is it not just because the colored people of the South are to render the Republic this great service, that the Democratic party so strenuously objects to their having the right to vote? See how the case lies: The colored people of the South, desirous to keep their newly acquired rights unimpaired, have mostly come to the very natural