Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/176

150 for the aid of the former. It may be the lawyer's ambition successfully to defend even the most obvious guilt of his client, but it is the lawyer's highest glory to stand fearlessly before the frowns of power, defending the sanctity of the law and the rights and liberties of his countrymen; and of such are the names that are handed down with imperishable honor from generation to generation. I trust, therefore, we shall have in this debate only the purest and loftiest spirit of that jurisprudence which is nursed among a people proud of their liberties.

Let us above all things be spared such miserable subterfuges as these: That because the speaker of the legislature invited an officer of the Army to persuade a disorderly crowd in the lobby to remain quiet, he had thereby given him the right or recognized his right to drag from their seats men seated as members in that legislature; or that, as the insurgents of September had not surrendered all the guns belonging to the State, the insurrection continued, and with it the right of the Federal Army to organize the legislature of Louisiana! Let not so pitiable a plea be heard when the fundamental principles of constitutional government are in jeopardy. If there be an argument in its defense, let it at least be one on a level with the dignity of the cause.

I have moved that the Judiciary Committee be instructed to report a bill to secure to the people of Louisiana their right of self-government under the Constitution. I hope that motion will prevail. I hope also it will not result in the production of a bill providing for a new election there with General Sheridan, who, with all the brilliancy of his military valor, is so conspicuously unsuited for the delicate task of a conciliatory mission, as supreme ruler of that State; with a Packard as manager at the same time of the political campaign and of the United States dragoons to arrest opponents, and with that