Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/88

62 the downtrodden and degraded; to stand up against the slave-power in Congress with a courage never surpassed; to attack the prejudice of birth and religion, and to plead fearlessly for the rights of the foreign-born citizen at a time when the Know-nothing movement was controlling his State and might have defeated his own reëlection to the Senate; to advocate emancipation when others trembled with fear; to march ahead of his followers, when they were afraid to follow; to rise up alone for what he thought right, when others would not rise with him. It was that brave spirit which does everything, defies everything, risks everything, sacrifices everything,—comfort, society, party, popular support, station of honor, prospects,—for sense of right and conviction of duty. That it is for which you honored him long, for which you reproached him yesterday, and for which you honor him again to-day, and will honor him forever.

Ah, what a lesson is this for the American people,—a lesson learned so often, and, alas! forgotten almost as often as it is learned! Is it well to discourage, to proscribe in your public men that independent spirit which will boldly assert a conscientious sense of duty, even against the behests of power or party? Is it well to teach them that they must serve the command and interest of party, even at the price of conscience, or they must be crushed under its heel, whatever their past service, whatever their ability, whatever their character may be? Is it well to make them believe that he who dares to be himself must be hunted as a political outlaw, who will find justice only when he is dead? That would have been the sad moral of his death, had Charles Sumner died a year ago.

Let the American people never forget that it has always been the independent spirit, the all-defying sense of duty, which broke the way for every great progressive move-