Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/161

Rh for the great boon of their common liberty. But do we not know, also, or have we despaired of it, that in a republic remedies for such evils can be found in entire consonance with the spirit and form of republican institutions and of constitutional government? Let nobody suspect me of favoring or excusing disorder or violent transgressions; nothing could be farther from me. But I have not despaired of the efficiency of our republican institutions. I insist that they do furnish effective remedies for existing evils.

But, sir, pusillanimous indeed and dangerous to republican institutions is that statesmanship which, to repress transgressions and secure the safety of some, can devise only such means as by violating constitutional principles will endanger the liberty of all. You say that it is one of the first duties of the Government to protect the lives, the property and the rights of the citizen, and so it is; but it is also the first duty of a constitutional government carefully to abstain from employing for that protection such means as will in the end place the lives and property and rights of the citizens at the mercy of arbitrary power. Let a policy forgetting this great obligation be adopted and followed, and free institutions will soon be on the downward road in this country, as they have been before to-day in so many others. Have we read the history of the downfall of republics in vain? It teaches us a most intelligible and a fearful lesson. It is this: usurpers or blunderers in power pretend that the safety and order of society cannot be maintained by measures within the form of constitution and law, and lawyers employ their wits to justify usurpation by quibbling on technicalities or by pleading the necessities of the case. What first appears as an isolated and comparatively harmless fact is by repetition developed into a system, and there is the end of constitutional government.