Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/34

14 class, a separate representation, and giving every fraction over one hundred and fifty, however small, a delegate, things were so manipulated that while one delegate appeared in the convention to every one hundred and forty white Republican voters, including fractions, the colored citizens were represented by one delegate to every ninety voters. The purpose for which this was done became soon apparent.

A great iniquity was perpetrated, far worse in its nature than a common trick of wire-pulling. Colored agitators were sent all over the State, from town to town, from settlement to settlement, to enlist the newly enfranchised colored people in the crusade against the enfranchising amendment and the support of the candidates representing that hostility, and all the artifices of demagogism, every possible appeal to passion, prejudice and fear, were freely employed. Look at this. The colored citizens were to exercise the right of suffrage for the first time, and those against whom so many prejudices were still alive, wrongful prejudices indeed, but stubborn; those who for their future welfare need the good-will of their neighbors more than any other class of society; those whose rights can be perfectly secure only in the security of the equal rights of all, were to be seduced to signal their very entrance in political life by using their virgin franchise for the purpose of continuing the disfranchisement of others. The thought is so abominable in itself that I do not hesitate to denounce the demagogues who gave the colored people of Missouri that most iniquitous advice as the worst enemies of the colored race.

And I regret to state the fact that this most unscrupulous trick succeeded. The colored voters, with some most honorable exceptions, permitted themselves to be used by the opponents of enfranchisement in organizing for the convention. And that was the object in giving them a