Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/524

490 struggle; after having devoured five hundred thousand of the children of this Republic and untold millions of our treasure. It was finally overthrown by the shock of the great revolution. And what did that revolution put in its place? It gave us three great amendments to the National Constitution. The first ordains that no State shall henceforth have the power to introduce or maintain slavery or involuntary servitude. The second ordains that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the States in which they reside and that no State shall henceforth have the power to make or enforce any law abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the Republic. The third ordains that no State shall abridge the right of suffrage of any citizen on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. And all three empower Congress to pass appropriate legislation for their enforcement.

That is the result of the great Constitutional revolution. What does this result signify? The war grew out of the systematic violation of individual rights by State authority. The war ended with the vindication of individual rights by the National power. The revolution found the rights of the individual at the mercy of the States; it rescued them from their arbitrary discretion, and placed them under the shield of National protection. It made the liberty and rights of every citizen in every State a matter of National concern. Out of a Republic of arbitrary local organizations it made a Republic of equal citizens—citizens exercising the right of self-government under and through the States, but as to their rights as citizens not subject to the arbitrary will of the States. It grafted upon the Constitution of the United States the guarantee of National citizenship; and it empowered Congress, as the organ of the National will, to enforce that