Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/97

Rh many negroes were joining the Democrats, since the election of 1884 had shown them that a Democrat in the Presidency did not endanger their freedom. But I was driven to the conclusion that the trouble will continue to exist—do what you will—wherever and so long as the Southern white sees reason to fear the return of negro rule; and he will fear it so long and wherever politics are run on the color line, the great mass of the blacks on one side, the great mass of the whites on the other.

No candid mind can fail to see that the remedy lies in the distribution of the white and of the colored vote among the different parties, thus wiping out the political color line. Each party will then seek and hope to obtain its share of the colored vote, and thus become the natural protector of the colored voter. This process is necessarily slow, but it is perceptibly going forward. New interests have sprung up in the South, and new public questions. The ruling party, in many States overstrong, more and more breaks into rings and factions. Independent movements are the order of the day. See what is happening this moment in South Carolina. Whites and blacks everywhere are gradually changing sides. Slow as this process is, it will be quickened by the rising prosperity of the South and by the fading away of the old dread of negro rule.

Only let no disturbing hand touch it, and, after all the confusion and agony the South has passed through, the consummation which every American citizen should devoutly wish will gradually work itself out.

Now the election bill steps in. It is useless to say that this bill refers only to the Congressional elections and not to the local governments. Not its provisions in detail, but its general effects, are the thing of real importance. And what will they be? Let Southern Republicans speak.