Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/75

Rh the necessary means to provide for their own security, and that the progressive development of public sentiment would afford to them greater protection than could be given by National legislation of questionable constitutionality.

The pursuit of the other objects brought upon him experiences of a painful nature. I have to speak of his disagreement with the Administration of President Grant and with his party. Nothing could be farther from my desire than to reopen, on a solemn occasion like this, those bitter conflicts which are still so fresh in our minds, and to assail any living man in the name of the dead. Were it my purpose to attack, I should do so in my own name and choose the place where I can be answered,—not this. But I have a duty to perform; it is to set forth in the light of truth the motives of the dead before the living. I knew Charles Sumner's motives well. We stood together shoulder to shoulder in many a hard contest. We were friends, and between us passed those confidences which only intimate friendship knows. Therefore I can truly say that I knew his motives well.

The civil war had greatly changed the country, and left many problems behind it, requiring again that building, organizing, constructive kind of statesmanship which I described as presiding over the Republic in its earlier history. For a solution of many of those problems Mr. Sumner's mind was little fitted, and he naturally turned to those which appealed to his moral nature. No great civil war has ever passed over any country, especially a republic, without producing wide-spread and dangerous demoralization and corruption, not only in the Government, but among the people. In such times the sordid instincts of human nature develop themselves to unusual recklessness under the guise of patriotism. The ascendancy of no political party in a republic has ever been long