Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/74

48 ing as a barbarous practice, and he even went so far as to designate the system of prize-money as inconsistent with our enlightened civilization. In some respects, his principles were in advance of our time; but surely the day will come when this Republic, marching in the front of progress, will adopt them as her own, and remember their champion with pride.

I now approach the last period of his life, which brought to him new and bitter struggles.

The work of reconstruction completed, he felt that three objects still demanded new efforts. One was, that the colored race should be protected by National legislation against degrading discrimination, in the enjoyment of facilities of education, travel and pleasure, such as stand under the control of law; and this object he embodied in his civil-rights bill, of which he was the mover and especial champion. The second was, that generous reconciliation should wipe out the lingering animosities of past conflicts and reunite in new bonds of brotherhood all those who had been divided. And the third was, that the Government should be restored to the purity and high tone of its earlier days, and that from its new birth the Republic should issue with a new lustre of moral greatness, to lead its children to a higher perfection of manhood, and to be a shining example and beacon-light to all the nations of the earth.

This accomplished, he often said to his friends he would be content to lie down and die; but death overtook him before he was thus content, and before death came he was destined to taste more of the bitterness of life.

His civil-rights bill he pressed with unflagging perseverance, against an opposition which stood upon the ground that the objects his measure contemplated, belonged, under the Constitution, to the jurisdiction of the States; that the colored people, armed with the ballot, possessed