Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/357

Rh own rights; and that when their exercise of the suffrage brought forth in some States foolish extravagances and corrupt government it was again principally owing to the leadership of white men, who worked themselves into their confidence and, for their own profit, led them astray.

The only plausible reason given for that curtailment of their rights is that it is not in the interest of the Southern whites to permit the blacks to vote. I will not discuss here the moral aspect of the question, whether “A” may deprive “B” of his rights if “A” thinks it in his own interest to do so, and the further question, whether the general admission of such a principle would not banish justice from the earth and eventually carry human society back into barbarism. I will rather discuss the question whether under existing circumstances it would really be the true interest of the Southern whites generally to disfranchise the colored people.

Here I encounter the objection that this is not a question for me, or any other Northern man, to discuss; that the Southern whites understand their own interests best, and that, more especially, they know best how to deal with the negro. I cannot accept this without serious qualification. Undoubtedly there are in the South men who understand their own and their neighbors interests best; but there are others who do not understand those interests at all, and whose opinions in several important historic instances have overruled the opinions of those who did. I remember cases in which a large and controlling majority of the Southern whites made grievous mistakes as to the true interests of the South—cases in which they would have acted most wisely had they accepted the advice of well-meaning outsiders, whom, in the excitement of the moment, they repelled as impudently intrusive critics, and whom they even put down as their enemies. I have seen the time when it was the belief of an apparently