Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/84

58 which, as he thought, should complete the record of his political life. One was his civil-rights bill, which had failed in the last Congress, and the other, a resolution providing that the names of the battles won over fellow-citizens in the war of the rebellion should be removed from the regimental colors of the army and from the army register. It was in substance only a repetition of a resolution which he had introduced ten years before, in 1862, during the war, when the first names of victories were put on American battle-flags. This resolution called forth a new storm against him. It was denounced as an insult to the heroic soldiers of the Union, and a degradation of their victories and well-earned laurels. It was condemned as an unpatriotic act.

Charles Sumner insult the soldiers who had spilled their blood in a war for human rights! Charles Sumner degrade victories and depreciate laurels won for the cause of universal freedom! How strange an imputation!

Let the dead man have a hearing. This was his thought: No civilized nation, from the republics of antiquity down to our days, ever thought it wise or patriotic to preserve in conspicuous and durable form the mementos of victories won over fellow-citizens in civil war. Why not? Because every citizen should feel himself with all others as the child of a common country, and not as a defeated foe. All civilized Governments of our days have instinctively followed the same dictate of wisdom and patriotism. The Irishman, when fighting for old England at Waterloo, was not to behold on the red cross floating above him the name of the Boyne. The Scotch Highlander, when standing in the trenches of Sebastopol, was not by the colors of his regiment to be reminded of Culloden. No French soldier at Austerlitz or Solferino had to read upon the tricolor any reminiscence of the Vendée. No Hungarian at Sadowa was taunted by any Austrian