Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/457

Rh itself; he will put his knife into every crevice he can find, he will endeavor to develop every opportunity he can lay his hand on, thus to accomplish step by step what cannot always be accomplished at a bound and with a grand flourish of trumpets. This is what I conceive to be the duty of every true friend of reform. This I consider to be my duty. I shall, therefore, not lose myself on that superlative height of criticism—proud as that eminence may be—because the practical struggles of facts and ideas are not to be lost sight of. I want to accomplish good results, and therefore I stand where I am. I see an opportunity before me to gain a step in the right direction, and if I can aid in successfully developing it, I shall feel that I have done some service to my country.

And now, finally, I approach a subject which is, if possible, of still higher importance to us all. Seven years have elapsed since the close of the civil war. No thinking man can have watched the progress of things in the South without having gathered instructive experience. It must have become clear to all of us that the development of the new order of society there cannot be secured wholly by an extraneous pressure, which would involve a change in the nature of our institutions, but must ultimately be left to the workings of local self-government.

Two things are now settled and evident: First, that the equality of rights, irrespective of race or color, the enfranchisement of the emancipated class which sprung as a local necessity from the great revolution, and which stands embodied in the Constitution of the Republic, is an irreversible fact. Every sane man recognizes that. There are certainly but few individuals in the South who close their eyes against it. The other thing is, that the rule of unprincipled and rapacious leaders at the head of the colored population has resulted in a government of corruption and plunder, and gives no promise of