Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/298

278 person will deny, and I may say that I have Southern and Democratic testimony to prove it. That those acts almost uniformly passed without adequate punishment is equally certain; that they deserve punishment no just man can doubt. The circumstances adduced in extenuation of those crimes I will hereafter discuss. They do not affect the facts nor their criminal character.

Now, that the Ku-Klux law with its characteristic features so obnoxious to our Constitutional system was not justified by those acts, I have already stated as my deliberate opinion on the floor of the Senate as well as here, and on every appropriate occasion. I opposed it, not because I did not recognize the evil, but because I considered the remedy in its consequences more dangerous than the evil. But I express also my deliberate conviction when I predict that all the efforts in the way of argument which the defenders of Constitutional government may put forth will not suffice to prevent the reënactment of the Ku-Klux law, or even eventually the passage of measures still farther reaching if those acts of lawlessness and bloody violence continue.

Do not understand this as anything like a threat on my part; for I shall go on opposing such measures as long as my faith in the inherent virtues of local self-government holds out. I merely express a most sincere and anxious apprehension; an apprehension which every well-informed man will share with me, that by certain circumstances the difficulties which the defenders of sound Constitutional principles have to encounter, will become almost insupportable.

Look the matter squarely in the face. A large majority of the Republicans at the North have long ceased to cherish any feelings of unkindness to the Southern people. They sincerely desire concord and fraternal harmony. They would gladly abstain from anything that looks like