Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/380

370 your leaders try to convince you that a change of administration and of policy is necessary, were it not for one charge they bring against the Government, and upon which they harp with the most vociferous persistency. It is that the Government has during this war disregarded and violated the rights and liberties of the citizen. I am not the man to equivocate about such matters; I never shrink from discussing the merits or demerits of my own party, and I never deny what I believe to be a fact. Yes, the Government has, in some cases, arrested and punished individuals for treasonable talk and suspended newspapers for treasonable publications, especially when such talk or publications tended to impede recruiting or to induce soldiers to desert their colors. If I stood here as a mere advocate of the Government, I might examine case after case, and say this or that in justification of those in authority. But I will abstain. I will even go so far as to admit that, in some instances, the Government would have acted with more wisdom and justice if it had abstained from such interference. I will go still further, and say that I am, on principle, opposed to such acts, and that, in most cases, the evil done is greater than the evil redressed. I have a right to speak so, for I have always spoken so; at an early period of this war I warned the people of the dangers arising from such encroachments, and from the condition of things that produces them.

But where are the facts that would justify the wild denunciations hurled against the government by your Democratic leaders? Where are the “atrocities” which would bear out the assertion “that in this country free speech and free press have ceased to exist? that this Government is the worst despotism the world ever saw?” I ask you in all candor, did you ever attend a Democratic meeting during this election-campaign? If you have, then