Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/348

328 they ought not to be suffered to exercise any influence upon the management of the public business, and that it would be unwarrantable presumption in them to attempt it.

I ask you, sir, could such things fail to contribute to the results we read to-day in the political corruption and demoralization, and in the financial ruin of some of the Southern States? These results are now before us. The mistaken policy may have been pardonable when these consequences were still a matter of conjecture and speculation; but what excuse have we now for continuing it when those results are clear before our eyes, beyond the reach of contradiction?

These considerations would seem to apply more particularly to those Southern States in which the colored element constitutes a very large proportion of the voting body. There is another which applies to all.

When the rebellion stood in arms against us, we fought and overcame force by force. That was right. When the results of the war were first to be established and fixed, we met the resistance they encountered, with that power which the fortunes of war and the revolutionary character of the situation had placed at our disposal. The feelings and prejudices which then stood in our way had under such circumstances but little, if any, claim to our consideration. But when the problem presented itself of securing the permanency, the peaceable development, the successful working of the new institutions we had introduced into our political organism, we had as wise men to take into careful calculation the moral forces we had to deal with; for let us not indulge in any delusion about this: what is to be permanent in a republic like this must be supported by public opinion, it must rest at least upon the willing acquiescence of a large and firm majority of the people.