Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/336

316 National politics. That great measure of peace and reconciliation, the removal of political disabilities, is still the subject of controversy. Although it may be said with certainty that public opinion in all parts of the country is turning in its favor, yet the obstacles which so long have stood in its way, whether they consist in adverse opinions conscientiously formed, or stubborn resentments clouding the better judgment of men, or a narrow-minded partisan spirit ready to sacrifice the public good to selfish ends, are by no means overcome.

It is desirable that the friends and advocates of this most salutary policy should unite in a vigorous effort to promote its success, and the voice of no class of men is in this respect entitled to greater consideration than that of the Liberal Republicans of Missouri. They can point with pride to the results which their wise and conciliatory action, overleaping the barriers raised by partisan spirit, has produced in their own State; for it can be said without the least exaggeration, while in no State during the evil days of the Republic, the civil war was carried on with more relentless ferocity, and society was more fiercely convulsed by political passion, there is not one to-day in which more unbroken peace and order prevail, in which the rights of the emancipated slave are more completely respected, in which the revival of fraternal feeling is more general and in which all classes of society, in spite of their former animosities, move and work together in more cordial harmony. When the same spirit, which has been so fruitful of good in Missouri, inspires our National legislation, we may hope to see similar results accomplished even in those unfortunate communities where the reminiscences of the civil war are still kept alive by violent disorders, and where the evils growing from corruption and profligate misgovernment, no doubt in a great measure owing to the exclusion of a numerous class of intelligent