Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/21

Rh When in a democratic community there is a powerful individual, or an association or class of men, whose claims and pretensions are in conflict with the natural rights of man in general, or with the legitimate claims of other individuals, and who deem their own particular interests above all other considerations, we may well say that the liberties of the people are in danger. When such individuals, or classes of men, find that their claims and pretensions cannot stand before a free criticism, they will spare no effort to impose silence upon the organs of public opinion; they will use force, if argument is of no avail. They will endeavor to concentrate all political power in their hands, and use it as a machinery for the promotion of their own selfish ends, and as a safeguard of their own particular interests. They will resort to usurpation, when, by constitutional means, they can exercise no absolute control.

In States which are ruled by absolute monarchs, the public press is manacled for no other reason than that absolutism and its excrescences cannot stand before the free criticism of public opinion, and that, if press and speech were let free to-day, there would be a death-struggle between public opinion and the absolute power to-morrow, which would result either in the complete overthrow of the latter, or complete re-enslavement of the former. But it is not essential that this powerful and dangerous interest should have monarchical aspirations; if it be an aristocracy, or an association of great merchants or planters, or, in general, a class of persons who have common interests which are inconsistent with the natural rights of man, and who deem them superior to all other considerations, and are determined to defend them, the tendency and the ultimate result will be the same. To such an interest the people will have to submit, or against such an interest the people will have to