Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/191

Rh &emsp; On the 16th of this month you did me the honor of addressing to me personally an editorial article in your journal on the subject of homicide in the Southern States. You do not deny, as I understand you, that the discussion of the subject in the Evening Post and the Nation may have been prompted by motives friendly to the Southern people. You can scarcely think otherwise when you remember—as certainly many Southern men remember—that I was one of the first among Republicans in Missouri that championed, at the expense of their party standing, the reënfranchisement of those disfranchised on account of their participation in the rebellion; one of the first among Republicans in the Senate who advocated a general amnesty, who never ceased to denounce the abuses of the so-called carpet-bag governments and who zealously opposed every policy or measure calculated to withhold from the Southern people their rights and privileges as citizens. And what I did in the Senate those who are associated with me in the Evening Post did with equal zeal in the press. We therefore may say that we befriended the Southern people when they most needed friends, and that the same spirit animates us now and gives us a right to speak. Neither can you, as an intelligent and well-informed man, give your countenance to the silly insinuations which you mention in your article, that this discussion has on our part been conducted with a desire to divert immigration from the South and to direct it to some other part of the country. For you must be well aware that for many years before the beginning of this discussion the South has attracted but very few immigrants, and that there are at present no signs of migration turning that way. What you have not can not be taken