Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/119

Rh situation as freemen was surrounded with extraordinary difficulties and dangers from the beginning. They were confronted by an inveterate prejudice and by that spirit of reckless violence which is doing so much harm to the Southern people. Their false friends in the South, using them for selfish and iniquitous ends, have succeeded in increasing again the difficulties which the influence of time and habit was calculated to diminish. It would be a dangerous venture, dangerous to the colored people, if their social position were made the objective point of new strife, under circumstances so unfavorable. Now that they have the political rights of citizenship it is much wiser and safer for them to trust to the means they already possess to make themselves respected, and to leave all else to the gradual progress of public opinion, which has already outgrown many a prejudice that a few years ago still seemed invincible. As their sincere friend, I should certainly not consider it a favor to them to precipitate them headlong into numberless and endless personal conflicts, in which they inevitably would be the sufferers.

But the National Government and the dominating party can do something far better for the colored man than pass laws of doubtful Constitutionality or send troops for their protection. Let them openly and severely discountenance those corrupt partisans in the South who have misled the colored people into an organized support of robbery and misgovernment, and done all they could to make them believe that in the matured opinion of white men the science of politics consists in stealing as much of the public money as you can lay your hands on. Let them punish, at least with removal, those officeholders who have prostituted the authority of the Republic by using their official power to work into the hands of the plunderers. Let in their places be put men of wisdom, conscience and honor, who will set them an example of