Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/376

356 so with an abiding faith that their appeals could not remain without response, but the volume of that response has now far exceeded their anticipations. The crust of narrow prejudices, of selfish partisanship, which but yesterday seemed to stop every free pulsation of the popular heart, is suddenly burst asunder. The patriotic citizen rises above the partisan. We begin to breathe again as freemen. We dare again call things by their right names. We have once more the courage to break through the deceptions with which the popular mind has been befogged; we feel once more that our convictions of right and wrong are our own, and that our votes belong to the country, and thus we defiantly set our sense of duty against the arrogance of power, like the bugle blast of doomsday. The summons is resounding North and South and East and West. The conscience of the people, which seemed dead, has arisen. From every point of the compass the hosts are flocking together, and here we are, let me hope, ay, I do hope, with fearless determination, to do our whole duty, as if nothing could withstand a movement so irresistibly inspiring. Indeed, the breath of victory is in the very air which surrounds us, and that victory will not escape from our grasp if we are true to our mission, but you must bear with me if in this hour of enthusiasm, when our hearts are big with proud presentiments, I address to you a word of soberness.

We have a grand opportunity before us, grand and full of promise. We can crush corruption in our public concerns; we can give the Republic a pure and honest Government; we can revive the authority of the laws; we can restore to full value the Constitutional safeguard of our liberties; we can infuse a higher moral spirit into our political life; we can reanimate in the hearts of the whole people in every section of the land a fraternal and proud National feeling. We can do all this, but we can