Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/55

Rh last, not many days before the election, even Governor McClurg himself, the very standard-bearer and candidate of the proscriptionists, withdrew his hostility to the constitutional amendment, and announced that he would consent to anything if the people would let him only be governor once more. Without the division this could never have been accomplished. Just the reverse would have taken place. They struggled against enfranchisement as long as they thought they had a chance; they struck their flag when the fight was virtually decided. That is the whole story.

But the significance of our action went further. When a party once falls under the control of that class of spoilsmen and wire-pullers who in Missouri had arrayed themselves in defense of the disfranchising system, and were ready to sacrifice all higher considerations for their personal advantage, that party stands in eminent need of purification. Then it becomes necessary to demonstrate by tangible facts that the control of the organization by such elements can and will not be tolerated; and if the administering of such a lesson was ever indispensable it was so in Missouri. Had we submitted, in spite of all that had happened, it would have been a surrender to the most unscrupulous elements in the party, and there would have been no check to its demoralizing influences save another insurrection. Thus, from whatever point of view you may look at the circumstances surrounding us, the step we took was the only honorable, the only dignified, the only efficient one left to us. It was a moral necessity.

A bold and unusual movement like ours could not be expected to escape acrimonious criticism and misrepresentation. But it was a somewhat curious spectacle to me to see my colleague take the lead in personal attack, and to direct his most pointed shafts against myself and