Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/319

Rh names of those who may indorse it, they will only endanger their own credit, as the indorsers of a distrusted firm. I say these things without any prejudice, sine ira et studio, simply because they are true. The proof of their truth you can read in current events.

But more than that. Whatever that party may do will appear, however justly or unjustly, as an open or covert attempt to bring on the possibility of a reaction. Most people outside of it would regard it so, and what is worse, a large number of its members, especially in the South, would look at it decidedly in that light. It is so with the new departure, and it would be still worse without it. Its success would, therefore, in spite of its professions, be an encouragement to reactionary desires. For this reason I should consider a Democratic victory a great misfortune, especially for the South. To the North it would be far less threatening in its consequences than to you. I do certainly not think that the overthrow of the results of the war would be accomplished, for a serious attempt would at once call powers into action which would speedily overwhelm it. It would be utterly hopeless and in vain. But the disturbance and confusion caused by the new attempt would be misfortune enough, and the weight of that misfortune would fall directly and almost entirely upon the South; for what the South needs most is the repose of a settled state of things. Everything that has the element of disturbance in it must be hurtful and disastrous to you. For these reasons the Democratic party appears to me unfit for the performance of the task which is now to be accomplished.

And now the Republican party. About it also I expressed my opinion at Chicago. I said that it had the advantage of already being identified with the new order of things; that indeed corrupt practices and insidious influences had invaded it; that a false party spirit had