Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/355

Rh the civilization of the nineteenth century has for such evils a better medicine than blood.

Thus, sir, the penalty of treason as provided for by law remained a dead letter on the statute-book, and we instinctively adopted a generous policy, adding fresh luster to the glory of the American name by doing so. And now you would speak of vindicating the law against treason, which demands death, by merely excluding a number of persons from eligibility to office! Do you not see that, as a vindication of the law against treason, as an act of punishment, the system of disabilities sinks down to the level of a ridiculous mockery? If you want your system of disabilities to appear at all in a respectable light, then, in the name of common-sense, do not call it a punishment for treason. Standing there, as it does, stripped of all the justification it once derived from political necessity, it would appear only as the evidence of an impotent desire to be severe without the courage to carry it out.

But having once adopted the policy of generosity, the only question for us is how to make that policy most fruitful. The answer is: We shall make the policy of generosity most fruitful by making it most complete.

The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. ], whom I am so unfortunate as not to see in his seat to-day, when he opened the debate, endeavored to fortify his theory by an illustration borrowed from the Old Testament, and I am willing to take that illustration off his hands. He asked: “If Absalom had lived after his treason and had been excluded from his father's table, would he have had a just reason to complain of an unjust deprivation of rights?” It seems to me that story of Absalom contains a most excellent lesson, which the Senate of the United States ought to read correctly. For the killing of his brother, Absalom had lived in banishment from