Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/419

Rh of having any ambitious designs involving the political action of the Southern people, he would instantly reveal himself as what he really is: a powerless old man who, having once led the Southern people into disaster and ruin, is now treated with the respect usually thought due to eminent misfortune, because it is believed by all that he will never try to do so again. The sentimental demonstrations in his favor, while they do sometimes touch a sore point at the North, are, therefore, beyond that, really of no practical consequence whatever.

More pertinent is the question why the Southern whites, with the revival of loyal sentiment, did not in large numbers join the Republican party, but remained in mass on the Democratic side. Men of standing and influence in the South would, in my opinion, indeed have rendered a valuable service to their people had they put themselves into friendlier communication with the dominant party immediately after the war, thus to gain more of the confidence of the freedmen who naturally looked to the Republican party for guidance. Many difficulties might thus have been avoided. But, unfortunately, it was just then that President Johnson's indiscreet conduct turned their thoughts in a different direction. And, moreover, the character and conduct of many of the Republicans in places of power in the South at that period did not invite such a movement. Some of the latter preferred to organize the negroes as a political force under their own absolute leadership. And thus the Republican party, in some of the Southern States at least, became that organization of ignorance led by rapacity, by which the Southern whites felt themselves virtually forced, in spite of the divergencies of political opinion among them, to rally under the Democratic banner. The bond which held them together was the common fear of negro domination. This fear