Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/399

Rh Proclamation, signs another proclamation announcing to the people of this country, nay, to the nations of the earth, the restoration of the Union upon the basis of the liberty of all men. [Enthusiastic and long-continued cheering.] That day will fill the national heart with even more pride and exultation than the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; for, while on the Fourth of July we celebrate only the starting of the great democratic experiment, on the other anniversary we shall celebrate its final and unquestionable success. And wherever there is in this wide world a friend of liberty and the rights of man struggling against the power of his enemies, and, perhaps, also against doubts within himself, on that day his heart will expand with fresh confidence, and his eye will gleam with new hope, and he will point his finger at this great consummation, and say: Let him who does not believe in the faculty of man to govern himself, look at that grand, unanswerable argument!

Democrats, did you ever think of it, how you will feel on that day? [Bursts of applause.] When, on that day, every breeze is fraught with the congratulations of mankind; when every good citizen who helped the country on in the great struggle, feels himself as great as a king; when the majesty of the Republic sits on the forehead of every patriot, where will you then hide your faces? When, on that day, your children mix their little voices with the general rejoicing, and add to the din of the jubilee the little noise of their firecrackers, what will you have to say to them? You will call them in from the street, and say: Come away, my little ones, and be still, for I had no share in this; when Union and Liberty triumphed, I belonged to the defeated party; come away from the street, for you might meet a negro boy whose father fell at Petersburg, and he would look down upon