Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/459

Rh have a life before them which can be made useful. They are leaving in the rear their old leaders who are still groping among the ruins of the past, and they begin to stand upon their own feet. They are inclined to march forward and to develop the opportunities of the new order of things. They are capable of a new, honorable and patriotic ambition, for they feel that this is after all their country, and that their fortunes are bound up in the fortunes of this our common Republic. They want to be recognized as American citizens again in the fullness of an American citizen's rights. This is the young South which is lifting its head.

And what does it mean that the same class hailed with delight the Cincinnati movement, and that, as is reported, it was that Southern influence which pressed the nomination of Horace Greeley at Cincinnati and at the Baltimore Convention? Does it mean that they cling to their old prejudices, and still dream of a reaction? Do they not know as well as you, that Horace Greeley has all his life been the fiercest antagonist of those prejudices, and even went so far as to advocate measures for the protection of the loyalists and colored people in the South which alarmed us by the unconstitutionality? They know it well. They know that the man they want to make President will not give up his life-long convictions which made them his enemies. But they know also that he was one of the first who stretched out the hand of reconciliation, one of the first to plead for right and justice against the scandalous robberies and oppressions of their carpet-bag governments.

No, their situation is easily understood. They are tired of marching in the rear of the times. They want to break loose from the past and turn their faces to the future. . ..