Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/374

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Nobody can survey this vast and enthusiastic assembly, gathered from all parts of the Republic, without an emotion of astonishment and hope—astonishment considering the spontaneity of the impulse which has brought it together, and hope considering the great purpose for which it has met. The Republic may well congratulate itself upon the fact that such a meeting was possible. Look at the circumstances from which it has sprung. We saw the American people just issued from a great and successful struggle, and in the full pride of their National strength, threatened with new evils and dangers of an insidious nature, and the masses of the population apparently not aware of them. We saw jobbery and corruption stimulated to unusual audacity by the opportunities of a protracted civil war, invading the public service of the Government, as well as almost all movements of the social body, and we saw a public opinion most deplorably lenient in its judgment of public and private dishonesty. We saw the Government indulging in wanton disregard of the laws of the land, and resorting to daring assumptions of unconstitutional power, and we saw the people, apparently at least acquiescing with reckless levity in the transgressions, threatening the very life of our free institutions. We saw those in authority with tyrannical insolence thrust the hand of power through the vast machinery of the public service into local and private affairs, and we saw the innumerable mass of their adherents accept those encroachments upon their independence without protest or resentment. We saw men in the highest places of the Republic employ their power and opportunities for selfish advantage, thus stimulating the