Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/175

Rh desire no injustice to be done to any man, high or low. If there be a clear justification of such an act, which I have not seen—and I solemnly declare I am not able to see one—let it be brought forward. If there be one, then I shall deplore that the Constitution and laws of this Republic are so defective in their most essential aims as to sanction an exercise of arbitrary power which in no free country on the face of the globe would be admitted a single moment. If there be such a justification, then I shall think it high time to urge such a change of the laws that they may effectually protect the independence of legislatures and the liberty of the citizen, for otherwise neither will be safe. But, sir, if there be no such justification, clear as sunlight, and palpably springing from the sacred spirit of the law interpreted in the strictest accordance with the time-honored principles of constitutional government, then, gentlemen, let us not have one artfully made by the lawyers ingenuity of technical construction. What glory will it be to the American jurist to show the highest keenness of wit in defending such an act and in establishing it as a precedent which, through its disastrous consequences, may oblige the American people to shed as much blood and as many tears to restore their free institutions as it had cost to build them up.

I heard the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. ] exclaim the other day, that he was glad not to find in the history of this country any such case as this, and he hoped to see none in the future. Truly, I felt with him; but he will see another one, and more than one, if as a lawyer he tries and succeeds in making this generation believe that this can be rightfully done under the Constitution and the laws of the Republic. Ah, gentlemen, the lawyer's technical ingenuity has not seldom done more harm to free government than even the arbitrary spirit of the soldier, for the latter would frequently have been impotent but