Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/375

Rh demoralization of our political life, and by their conspicuous example, and the loud chorus of partisan sycophancy, drown the voice of honest criticism. We saw part of our common country, which had been convulsed by a disastrous rebellion, most grievously suffering from the consequences of the civil war; and we saw the haughty spirit of power refusing to lift up those who had gone astray and were now suffering, by a policy of generous conciliation and the statesmanship of common-sense. We observed this, and at the same time a reckless and greedy party spirit, in the name of a great organization, crowned with the laurels of glorious achievements, striving to palliate or justify these wrongs and abuses, to stifle the moral sense of the people, and to drive them by a tyrannical party discipline not only to submit to this for the present, but to perpetuate it, that the political power of the country might be preserved in the hands of those who possessed it. He who calmly and impartially surveyed this spectacle could not fail to be deeply alarmed, not only at the wrongs that had been and were being perpetrated, but at the subjugation of the popular spirit which did not rise up against them.

The question might well have been asked, have the American people become so utterly indifferent to their true interests, to their National harmony, to the purity of their political life, to the integrity of their free institutions, to the very honor of the American name, that they should permit themselves to be driven like a flock of sheep by those who assume to lord it over them? That question has now found an answer. The virtue, the spirit of independence, the love of liberty, the republican pride of the American people are not dead yet and do not mean to die, and that answer is given in thunder-tones by the convention of American freemen here assembled. Indeed, those who three months ago first raised their voices, did