Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/523

Rh of self-government. In other words, you, my Democratic friends, in the name of liberty asserted the right of one man, under State law, to deprive another man of his freedom; in the name of democracy you asserted the right of one class of people under State law to rule despotically over another class; in the name of self-government you asserted the right of the States to exclude a large portion, sometimes even amounting to a majority of their population, from all participation in self-government. Now, my friend from New Jersey will permit me to say that I, and those who like me left their old homes, did by no means come to this country for the purpose of maintaining and perpetuating such blessings of liberty and self-government.

Sir, you would search the history of the aberrations of the human mind in vain for an array of logical contradictions more glaring and monstrous, for a structure of political fallacies more bare-faced, more audacious, more wicked and more mischievous. There never was a more transparent attempt to hide the most odious and arbitrary despotism under the guise of democratic professions; and it is indeed surprising how such a tissue of false pretenses could ever have survived a moment's unprejudiced scrutiny; but more surprising still it is that even at this day something akin to it should find a voice on the floor of the American Senate.

Finally that structure of fallacies, still so overshadowing but ten short years ago, tumbled down. It fell after having heaped outrage after outrage upon the dignity of human nature; after having for generations befogged the minds, corrupted the logic and debauched the moral sense of the American people; after having well-nigh poisoned our whole political life; after having involved this country in the most irrepressible of conflicts. It fell after having arrayed man against man in bloody