Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/364

344 may say that the taking of another oath will do nobody any harm. Probably not; but can you tell me, in the name of common-sense, what harm in this case the taking of that oath will prevent? Or have we read the history of the world in vain, that we should not know yet, how little political oaths are worth to improve the morality of a people or to secure the stability of a government? And what do you mean to accomplish by making up and preserving your lists of pardoned persons? Can they be of any possible advantage to the country in any way? Why, then, load down an act like this with such useless circumstance, while as an act of grace and wisdom it certainly ought to be as straightforward and simple as possible?

Let me now in a few words once more sum up the whole meaning of the question which we are now engaged in discussing. No candid man can deny that our system of political disabilities is in no way calculated to protect the rights or the property or the life or the liberty of any living man, or in any way practically to prevent the evil-disposed from doing mischief. Why do you think of granting any amnesty at all? Is it not to produce on the popular mind at the South a conciliatory effect, to quicken the germs of good intentions, to encourage those who can exert a beneficial influence, to remove the pretexts of ill-feeling and animosity and to aid in securing to the Southern States the blessings of good and honest government? If that is not your design, what can it be?

But if it be this, if you really do desire to produce such moral effects, then I entreat you also to consider what moral means you have to employ in order to bring forth those moral effects you contemplate. If an act of generous statesmanship, or of statesmanlike generosity, is to bear full fruit, it should give not as little as possible, but it should give as much as possible. You must not do