Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/506

472 that even the most credulous of Southern reactionists must recognize every Democratic promise of aid as a piece of impotent deception, and that the whole Southern people must open their eyes and behold their treacherous seducers in the North so deeply accursed by the enlightened opinion and the patriotism of the American Republic that, whatever their desire for mischief may be, their power is annihilated forever. Only then we shall take away from the Democracy their greatest faculty for evil, their ability to cheat their victims, with a show of strength. Only then we shall deliver the poor South of the most terrible of curses, their false friends. Only then we shall rid this country of the most dangerous element of trouble: a conspiracy against the vital principles of our Government, nourished by false hopes.

American patriots, now is your time! Your duty calls you with trumpet tones. Let no true man to whom speech is given now be silent. Let none whose heart ever was fired by the divine breath of liberty, now stand idle. There are those who are still wavering between right and wrong. Not a moment let there be lost. Speak to them the language of great principles; assault their understanding with irrefutable arguments; storm their hearts with solemn appeals. The greatest victory ever achieved is within our grasp. It rests with us to make it the final one. Up, then, and be doing! Now is the time to make the American people brothers once more, by writing upon the very frontispiece of this Republic in characters of burning light, that even the wickedest must read it and bow his head; that even the blind must feel the electric flash, the great law of our future: Liberty and Equal Rights for all and forever! Peace through Justice.