Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/120

94 high official integrity and public spirit, and disabuse them of the idea that whatever they may do as partisans of those in power, the aid of the National Government will always stand behind them.

Still more can the colored people themselves do for their own protection; and here, I think, is the way to solve the most difficult part of the problem: They cannot too soon give up the delusion that they will be safe only as long as they remain together in the same political organization. Instead of exercising over one another a system of terrorism, in order to enforce party discipline, they should encourage among themselves individual independence. Not in union is their safety, but in division. They have before them the example of another body of men, who, although from the beginning far stronger in their social position and influence, were also, under certain circumstances, threatened with an invasion of their political rights; I mean the adopted citizens. As long as they, in an almost solid body, stood together on the side of one party, the other thought of taking their rights from them; but no sooner did they break their ranks, and divide, than both sides stood up for them with equal zeal. It is a lesson easily understood. As soon as the colored citizens in the South shake off the odium which arises from their having, as a solid, organized mass, been the main support of the worst kind of partisan rule, as soon as every one of them casts his vote on this side or the other, as his opinions or inclination may dictate, each party will make their protection a special object in order to attract a majority of those votes. And I am rejoiced to learn that the number of colored citizens who emancipate themselves from the serfdom of party discipline, and who counsel with their white neighbors on their political action in order to secure good government, is growing larger from year to year. When it will have grown so large that the colored