Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/484

450 the different parties, and there is the solution of that fearful question of the war of races, with which the Democrats have endeavored to frighten our nervous brethren. Political parties will no longer think of a war of races when they think of gaining negro votes for their respective tickets. The Southern Democrats are now going through a preparatory course, and for a beginning they do admirably well. At present, to be sure, there is a great deal of knavery in the background. But another Republican victory, and they will swear, and believe it themselves, that they never thought of disfranchising the negro. They will ask for negro votes in good faith—and welcome all they can obtain. Free labor will be safe, and the races will live in peace. The chivalry will have deceived and cheated itself.

But, negro supremacy! Our opponents tell us that colored suffrage must, necessarily, result in negro supremacy in the South. Horrible, most horrible to contemplate! Let us look this spectral apparition calmly in the face. There are in the Southern States 9,000,000 whites, and there are 3,500,000 negroes. The whites, as the Democrats assure us, are the superior, and the negroes the inferior race. And now the same Democrats come to tell us that 3,500,000 of the inferior race of negroes will surely trample into the dust 9,000,000 of their superiors. Well, if that really were so; if the whites of the South were really such a miserable set that 9,000,000 of them could be trodden under foot by 3,500,000 poor negroes, then they would not deserve anything better, and we can hardly pity them. Is it not astonishing? What a tremendous fellow the negro has suddenly become! Formerly we heard it said that a Southern gentleman was equal to at least five Northern men. Now it turns out, on Democratic authority, that a Southern gentleman is not the equal of one half of a negro. Oh, how are the mighty