Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/134

108 of political death upon every man who dares to have an independent opinion; which insolently threatens the first commercial city of the State with injurious legislation, if the people of that city, true to their honest and patriotic impulses, refuse to work into the hands of partisan rings; and which, if permitted to continue in power, bids fair to spread a network of organization over the State which will make the government, with its power and emoluments, the monopoly of a few ring-masters, and against which the people then will struggle in vain?

Is it not well and necessary that those who still speak of “ceaseless yearnings for revenge” should be emphatically informed by our votes that, in the opinion of the people of Missouri, the war is over; that the people want those who once were enemies to be friends again, that in such a spirit they mean to enforce peace, order and impartial justice, and that they look upon every one who now, by insidious appeals, attempts to revive the old passions and resentments of the civil conflict as a reckless disturber, as an enemy of society?

And here I wish to address a word directly to the late Confederates among us. There is not one of you who can say that I, or those who thought and acted as I did, have been controlled by any prejudice or motive of hostility to you. You will scarcely deny that we have shown a very different spirit, and we did it, exposing ourselves to ill-will and vituperation on the part of many of those who had been our friends, and at the risk of our political fortunes. You were reinstated in the full exercise of your political rights, not by your own exertions, for you were powerless; nor by the Democratic party, for the Democratic party alone was powerless. You were so reinstated because there were Union men, Republicans, enough in Missouri, who, with the earnest determination to be just to you, defied all the prejudices still existing and all the political