Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/491

Rh submit to it. Is this not rather disingenuous? Have not the Democrats told their Southern friends day after day for three years: Do not submit to this Radical tyranny! You would be cowards, you would be unworthy to be called freemen if you did submit! Have not the Democrats besought, implored them: Resist, resist to the last! We will help you! And after having addressed to them these frantic invocations they coolly turn round to us and say: “You see, your policy must fail, for they will not submit to it at all, at all.”

Ah, the late rebel will not submit, then, at all, at all, to what the American people are likely to resolve upon. It appears to me this argument is a little out of date. Seven years ago there might have been some point in it, but since then we have learned that the white people of the South can be made to submit to things which do not entirely suit their fancy. And we have a modest gentleman at the head of our Presidential ticket who has practically proved that, in an emergency, he knows exactly how to do it. His name is Ulysses S. Grant. You remember a certain day in April, 1865, when General Lee fell back with his army upon Appomattox Courthouse, and when General Grant demanded of him an unconditional surrender. What! General Lee, the proud Southern, the very chieftain of the Southern chivalry, looking down upon the rest of mankind with so much high-born contempt; General Lee throw down his sword and surrender his invincible Southern legions to that poor little Northern mud-sill, a late tanner from Illinois! Do you think it suited his fancy? Neither his nor that of his followers. Why, then, did he surrender? Because he felt that Grant had thrown his mighty arm around him, ready to squeeze out of him the last breath of life, if he showed the least hesitation. He submitted because he knew that it was impossible to resist. Thus we have