Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/525

Rh guarantee by National legislation. That is the meaning of that great revolution; and if Democratic Senators denounce the bill at present before us as its offspring they are welcome. I accept the name.

Now, sir, what is the scope and purpose of this bill? It provides that no State shall enforce a law with regard to elections, or the processes preliminary to elections, in which in any way, either directly or indirectly, discrimination is made against any citizen on account of race, color or previous condition; and when any citizen is hindered in the exercise of the right of suffrage by means of fraud, intimidation or violence, or misuse of official power, the offender shall be brought to trial and punishment by a court of the United States. And for this the bill provides the necessary machinery. In other words, neither a State nor an individual shall deprive any citizen of the United States, on account of race or color, of the free exercise of his right to participate in the functions of self-government; and the National Government assumes the duty to prevent the commission of the crime, and to correct its consequences when committed. That is all.

If we were to judge the character and tendency of this bill from the expressions used by our Democratic associates in denouncing it, we should think that we were about to perpetrate the most horrible crime against the rights of man and human liberty ever conceived by the human imagination. It is as if the democratic institutions of this country were about to receive their death-blow, while we contemplate nothing but to secure every citizen of the United States in the free and full enjoyment of those democratic institutions.

What are the objections? It is, I believe, not pretended that the bill in its general scope and purpose runs against the Constitution as improved by the fifteenth