Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/73

Rh votes. In my opinion it is the main object of political agitation to convince your opponents that you are right and that they had better go with you. It has always been my ambition to obtain Democratic votes for Republican ideas, and the more I could obtain the better was I satisfied, and, for aught I know, my party too.

“But your policy pleased the Democrats,” our opponents say. I am glad it did. It is no objection to our policy that it commended itself to the sensible men of all parties. And in this connection, sir, I may say that something was accomplished by our movement in Missouri which, I think, was never accomplished before in any State. Not only was there not the least attempt at a disturbance anywhere in our State when the colored people for the first time exercised the right of suffrage, and while they were generally supposed to vote against the State ticket, supported by the Democrats, but an overwhelming majority of the Democrats themselves voted for an amendment to the State constitution giving colored men the right to hold office. This alone, sir, is so great a triumph of Republican principles, and in its peculiar greatness it stands so conspicuously alone in the history of our days, that in the face of it all the charges brought against our movement as hostile to Republicanism vanish into utter nothingness. Let our detractors show us anywhere a success like this, and then let them throw a stone at us. Yes, sir, a movement which accomplished the practical recognition of the principle of equal rights even to this extent, and by our opponents themselves, has so gloriously vindicated its Republican tendency by tangible results that no Republican who has his cause more at heart than mere party drill can fail to hail it as a most triumphant consummation.

But, I am asked: “How are those whom you have now enfranchised going to vote? Will they not vote the