Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/382

Rh pared with the enormity of the charges brought on their account. [Applause.]

And, pray, who are the men who bring these charges? Who are they that suddenly stand up so fiercely in vindication of free press and free speech? Look at them and remember their histories. They are just the same men who, but four or five short years ago, insisted that every anti-slavery speaker should be dragged from the platform, and that every anti-slavery press should be burned to ashes. They are the old advocates of a system of society which cannot breathe the same air with a free press and free speech. Are they not? Look at them man for man! Let them be judged by their own acts. Yes, the men who now are so clamorous about the inviolability of him who uses the liberties of speech and press for the benefit of slavery and treason and all that is villainous under the sun,—they are the same who trampled upon those liberties when they were used in behalf of the rights of men and the moral character of the nation. They who now complain so vociferously of isolated acts committed in times of war, are the same who, in times of peace, attempted to raise restrictions on the freedom of speech and press to the dignity of a system. Are they to be appointed the guardians of our rights and liberties? Let them show that they held the exercise of our rights and liberties sacred when they liked it not—or let them swallow their own denunciations in silence. Of all men, they are the last who have a right to complain! [Continued applause.]

You want the rights and liberties of the citizen protected! Then let us have the Union and peace restored upon the basis of equal justice to all men; let us have a country purged of those abnormities which shun the light of free discussion; let the natural rights of man be held sacred; let us have a Republic firmly established upon complete harmony between our social institutions and the funda-