Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/427

Rh jugglery attempted upon an intelligent people, the prostitution of a great cause. I trust the American people will show their appreciation of it by commencing the reform at the top.

And yet, bad as this all may be, it is by no means the worst feature of the case. Bad as that policy may have been which, throwing aside those moral agencies apt to bring forth a fruitful coöperation of the best elements in the South, and to reunite the country in National feeling, delivered the Southern people over to their plunderers and tormentors; bad as the frauds and abuses may have been which disgraced our public service; bad as the management of the patronage may have been which in the highest place set a demoralizing example of selfishness, strove to corrupt legislation and transformed the whole service into a vast political agency; bad as the contempt of law and the violations of the Constitution may have been, which have grown into a most dangerous habit under this Administration—far worse, of infinitely more alarming import is the circumstance that the Republican party, the party once so noble in its impulses and so fearless in its actions has been so completely subjugated by the Administration and its political managers, as not only to lose its ability to rise up against such misdeeds and abuses, but even the spirit to discriminate between right and wrong and to call things by their right names. Whatever wrongs and abuses may exist they can be corrected as long as we have the courage to seek the truth and to recognize it. But a political party which fails to recognize abuses as such has lost the moral ability to correct them. Its very ascendancy will thenceforward stand in the way of true reform.

Is that the condition of the Republican party under this Administration? Let us see. Some Republicans