Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/174

148 at the polls. That is my honest conviction, and if common report speaks truly—and I may mention that common report without transgressing parliamentary rules—the members of the Congressional committee who were sent down to Louisiana to make investigation, as they are honorable and truthful men—a majority of them Republicans but no abject tools of party dictation—will tell Congress and the country, perhaps this very day, as the result of their conscientious investigation, that the conservatives of Louisiana did fairly carry that election; that the returning board did defraud them of its result; and that the will of the people of Louisiana lawfully expressed has been crushed out under the heel of a lawless military invasion. That, gentlemen, the country will hear, and that the American people will believe as the honest truth told by honest men.

No, Senators, do not deceive yourselves; no man will be permitted to obscure the great Constitutional question before us with flimsy side issues; for from whatever point of view you may contemplate it, every consideration of law, of moral right, of justice, of public policy, of the common welfare, puts the deed done in Louisiana only into a stronger light as a lawless transgression of arbitrary power pregnant with wrong and disaster. We must face that question, and as we are men with the responsibility of guardians of the Constitution and laws upon us, we must face it boldly. This, it seems to me, if ever, is the time when the patriot should rise above the partisan.

I have heard it whispered that some of the eminent lawyers of this body will still endeavor to find some technical plea by which to show that the intrusion of the soldier in organizing the legislative body of Louisiana was in some way justifiable under the Constitution and laws of this Republic. If it be so, then I appeal to them to consider well what they are attempting to do. Surely I