Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/545

Rh convention which assembled at Jefferson City on the 31st of August, a number representing a considerable majority of those who in 1868 voted for Grant, considered it their duty to withdraw from that convention and to effect a separate organization. Here are the circumstances and reasons which compelled them to take that important step.

Every sensible man knows that the civil war is over, and that the exigencies of a great public danger which brought forth the necessity of exceptional measures for the salvation of the Republic and the protection of the loyal people, have ceased to exist.

Every honest friend of republican institutions admits that such exceptional measures as the exclusion of a large number of citizens from the ballot-box and all participation in the functions of self-government can find justification only in the extreme case of imperative public necessity.

Every faithful Republican will remember that the Republican party, in its National and State platforms, has solemnly pledged itself to remove those disqualifications and disabilities as soon as the justification based upon public danger should have disappeared.

We consider, and always have considered, that pledge to be an honest pledge, and the Republican party in honor bound to redeem it. No party can trifle with so solemn an obligation without disgracing itself.

For a considerable time profound peace has reigned in Missouri. The governor of the State, in his last annual message, declared: “There is no county in the State where organized resistance to the law exists, and where the sheriff cannot procure a posse to aid in the execution of the laws. The rights of person and property are as secure as in any State of the Union.” And Governor McClurg, now the candidate of the advocates of continued proscription, cannot be suspected of any inclination to