Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/429

Rh opposition. The common dread of negro domination, which held it together in spite of internal differences of opinion on other points, will have vanished. These differences will make themselves felt more strongly and widely. Independent movements will multiply. Most of these will probably at first not turn on National politics, but on home questions. Instead of driving the negro away from the ballot-box, each Democratic faction will try to strengthen itself by getting as much as possible of the colored vote. The negro will thus be virtually dragged to the polls again by Democratic hands. In stances of this on a small scale, in local contests, have already been witnessed. When different candidates or factions of the Democratic party, or two different parties, outbid one another for the colored vote, the negro's rights will, of course, find the most efficient protection in that very competition for their political favor, and the effect will also be gradually to soften the harshness of civil discrimination in the way above indicated. Thus the original object for which negro suffrage was instituted, the protection of the freedman's rights, will, indeed, have been accomplished by it. Of course, as soon as the colored vote breaks up, it will cease to be a political force on the side of the Republican party. Republican politicians complain already that the introduction of negro suffrage has served only to give the Southern States a larger proportion of votes in Congress and in the Electoral College than they otherwise would have had, and that this increase tells almost wholly in favor of the Democrats. It has, indeed, had that effect with regard to the relative strength of parties; but there is nothing surprising in this. When the matter of negro suffrage was under discussion there were far-seeing men enough who predicted that, as is usually the case with a population at the same time ignorant and poor and dependent, the vote of the negro