Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/126

100 sincerity of that declaration; but I think I have proved that sincerity by maintaining ever since an attitude of absolute independence, acting on the field of National politics upon the same motives and principles which determined my course in the State of Missouri. And I am gratified to know that a large majority of those with whom I stood in 1870 have been governed by the same spirit.

It is my duty to say that the purposes for which the movement of 1870 was undertaken, have met with some disappointment. I do not lay any stress on the fact that a certain class of the same men for whose political rights and privileges we rose up in 1870, and who then pressed our hands, called us their saviors and deliverers, and extolled to the skies the virtue of our moral courage for the right and our political independence, now, when we act upon the same principles, find no insinuation too mean and no abuse too gross to vilify us before the people in press and speech. Such obloquy, although intended to hurt, does but little if any injury to those against whom it is directed; but what may we think of the gentlemanly spirit of the men who descend to it? As for myself I cannot restrain a feeling of profound pity when beholding the spectacle of such conduct, and I turn with a sense of relief to the honorable men amongst them who have remained true to the nobler instincts of human nature.

But, while attaching little consequence to these personal matters, leaving everybody to be as much of a gentleman as he pleases—the welfare of the State is entitled to more serious consideration. We have a right to ask those of the Democratic party who for some years have controlled the government of Missouri, What have you done with that power which you derived from the unselfish and generous movement of 1870? How have you cultivated that fraternal feeling between the late enemies in war, now to be friends again; that feeling which prompted the