Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/499

Rh hopes, they seriously speak of the “lost cause” regained? Is it surprising that the insane invocation of force against the reconstructed governments should have violently stirred up the worst impulses, the fiercest passions of the Southern populace, like the rallying cry of another rebellion?

And these men, with the reckless habits of slave society, with all their pent-up wrath, their violent resentments, their wild vindictiveness, excited to fever heat by the promise of victory, and the prospect of undivided power, these are the men to take into their hands the counter-revolution in their own States, and to unite with the most unscrupulous class of Northern demagogues in the control of the National Government. Where would they stop? I will not attempt to predict what atrocities their hot thirst of revenge will bring forth in the Southern States. There we have already witnessed things which humanity must blush for, and which, for the honor of the American name, we would be happy to hide from the eyes of the world. But which of those great conquests for the cause of liberty and human rights, which we consider the most glorious results of the war, would be safe? Would free labor be safe? Which of the laws enacted for its protection would be respected? The laws passed by Southern legislatures, or the civil rights act? They have already been denounced as unconstitutional and void. The fourteenth Constitutional amendment? Already a Northern lawyer has been found to perform for the South the menial service of pronouncing it invalid, because its ratification was brought about by the agency of the military governments. The Constitutional amendment, abolishing slavery? The same reasoning brought against the fourteenth amendment will be urged against it, and already the late slaveholders are eagerly calling over the rolls of the late slaves, determined to reclaim them as property,