Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/158

132 himself entitled to aid from you when rushing up to Congress with an outrage story. The colored people began to think that you were bound to aid them in whatever they might do, instead of depending upon a prudent and honest use of their own political rights to establish their own position. The Federal officeholders in the South became more than ever the center of partisan intrigue and trickery. The Caseys and Packards carried off State senators in United States revenue-cutters, and held Republican conventions in United States customhouses, guarded by United States soldiers to prevent other Republican factions from interfering. Nay, more than that, the same Packard, during the last election campaign in Louisiana, being at the same time United States marshal and chairman of Kellogg's campaign committee, managed not only the political campaign but also the movements of the United States dragoons to enforce the laws and to keep his political opponents from “intimidating” his political friends. More than that, in one State after another in the South we saw enterprising politicians start rival legislatures and rival governments, much in the way of Mexican pronunciamientos, calculating on the aid to be obtained from the National Government; the Attorney-General of the United States called upon to make or unmake governors of States by the mere wave of his hand, and the Department of Justice almost appearing like the central bureau for the regulation of State elections. And still more than that, we saw a Federal judge in Louisiana, by a midnight order, universally recognized as a gross and most unjustifiable usurpation, virtually making a State government and legislature, and the National Executive with the Army sustaining that usurpation and Congress permitting it to be done.

And now the culminating glory to-day—I do not know whether it will be the culminating glory to-morrow: