Carl Schurz

“ If the United States are to be a republic in the true sense of the word, they must be composed of none but truly republican parts. If the Republic of the United States is to be an harmonious whole, its central organ must have the power, as well as the duty, to guarantee to the people of the different States local governments republican not only in form, but republican in spirit, — in harmony with the principles underlying the whole political structure. ”

“ Is it not just possible, nay, even probable, that they will rather be satisfied with the reduced political power they are sure to wield themselves, than, by endeavoring to enlarge it, to put the whole at the mercy of the colored vote? Will not three votes in Congress controlled by the whites exclusively be far more satisfactory to the aristocracy of South Carolina and their followers, than five or six controlled either wholly or in part by their late slaves? ”

“ A great social revolution, like the abolition of slavery and the substitution for it of free-labor society, can be carried through only in two ways. Either the power which has originated it must keep entire control of its development until it is completed and firmly established in all its results, or the emancipated class must be endowed with political rights sufficient to enable it to protect itself. ”

“ It is this: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” What is a republican government? In answering this question upon its own merits, we should find it needless to consider what a republican government may have been understood to mean centuries ago; we should govern ourselves by the lights of to-day, and say that modern republicanism is democratic republicanism, — a government which, in all its ramifications, derives its powers from the suffrages of the people. ”

“ Why then not prohibit other things which would violate the principles of the government in no less flagrant a manner? Would the granting of titles of nobility, distinguishing a few persons, be more dangerous to the Republic than a restriction of the franchise, degrading and rendering politically helpless millions of citizens? ”

“ No man who understands the distinguishing features of our political system will deny that there are legitimate State rights which ought not to be infringed. No State ought to be restricted in the right to protect the liberties of its citizens. We might even go so far as to say, that if the general government should attempt to violate the natural rights of man, the machinery of local self-government in the State organization should furnish means of redress and a safe measure of protection. ”

“ In our political discussions we have fallen into the habit of speaking much of loyalty and disloyalty, as if disloyalty were a primitive and independent condition of a man's mind or heart. But it is only the symptom of a distemper, not the distemper itself. ”

“ As soon as the South, in obedience to recognized necessity, shall thus have fulfilled in her social and political organization all those conditions which form the basis of free-labor society, and as soon as the status of all classes of the Southern people shall be unalterably fixed in harmony with the ruling principles of our democratic system of government, we need no longer distress ourselves about their disloyalty. ”

“ Simply because the habits of life and modes of thinking connected with slavery have not yet completely yielded to the habits of life and modes of thinking characteristic of free-labor society; because the Southern people, deluded by false hopes, are still struggling to restore as much as possible of the old order of things, instead of devoting their energies to a prompt and vigorous development of the new one; in other words, because the revolution, in its constructive phase, is not yet fully accomplished. ”

“ Already we learn that the public whipping of negroes for paltry offences is carried on in North Carolina on a large scale, for the reason that by the laws of that State every man who has been publicly whipped is excluded from the right of voting; so that, if equal suffrage should be imposed upon that State by the Constitutional Amendment, or other legislation not sufficiently guarded, a large proportion of the colored population would find itself disfranchised by the mere infliction of a barbarous punishment. ”

“ The changes which the great Revolution has wrought in the organism of the Republic stand in so strong a contrast to the constitutional ideas generally accepted before this period that, as soon as the moment had arrived for drawing up the balance-sheet of the past and tracing a new channel for our future career, a corresponding modification of our fundamental laws was pointed out by the unerring instinct of the popular mind as an absolute necessity. The abolition of slavery was accordingly sanctioned by an amendment to the Constitution. ”

“ But no thinking man could fail to perceive that this mere negative step was far from completing the transformation of a community consisting of masters and bondmen into a community of citizens equal before the law. Measures of a more thorough-going character were felt to be necessary to prevent American society from relapsing into those antagonisms between the vital principles of democratic government and anomalous social and political institutions, which in our past history had wrought so much danger and disaster. ”

“ That our civil war was a great political and social revolution, and that the Republic of the United States has entered upon a new era in her development, are truths for the statement of which no man can at the present time claim any merit of originality. ”

“ Self-government making it the duty as well as the privilege of the citizen to take part in the administration of public affairs, and thus inducing him to give his attention to matters outside of the narrow circle of his domestic concerns, is an incitement to mental activity and the acquisition of knowledge, while popular instruction, in its turn, fits the people for an intelligent exercise of the functions of self-government. ”

“ Human reason can devise no argument to justify the exclusion of any human being from the benefits of education; and as to the right of voting, by which self-government is exercised, no restrictions should be imposed which cannot easily be overcome by means placed within the reach of every man. ”

“ It demanded, in the name of self-government, that if a State, by its assumed authority, made local self-government a sham and a mockery, no national authority should have a right to prevent or correct the mischief. ”

“ In a government founded upon suffrage, this power can consist only in the right of voting; and it is obvious that the addition to the number of freemen and citizens brought about by emancipation must necessarily be accompanied with a corresponding enlargement of the democratic basis of our government. ”

“ The perplexities of our situation, which arise not only from the obstinate prejudices of the Southern people, but from the factious temper of the President, which baffles the sagacity of the psychologist, and the stagnant dulness of a Supreme Court whose reasonings might be considered a fit subject for the investigations of the antiquarian, may prolong themselves in a struggle of years, unless cut short by the most determined and vigorous action on the part of the representatives of the people. ”

“ But as soon as the wards of the nation are declared of age, as soon as, by the extension of the franchise and by provisions for their education, they are enabled to protect themselves, this duty will cease. The matter is then turned into the broad channel of self-government, where every wrong finds its remedy, and the States, at last organized upon a truly democratic basis, can and will be left to administer the affairs properly belonging to the sphere of local action without interference from above. ”

“ The danger of centralization, greatly to be apprehended while the present condition of things lasts, and growing as it continues, will then have passed away; and, by strictly acknowledging and faithfully performing their constitutional duties, the States will save their rights. ”

“ Nor can it be said that a constitutional provision demanding the establishment and maintenance of a system of common schools in all the States would put the government upon the course of consolidation. It demands only what most of the States have already done, and what all of them ought to have done. ”

“ The question whether Congress has, under the Constitution, the right to regulate the franchise in the several States, has been ably argued in favor of the proposition. But, whatever may be said, it is certain that the uniform practice of the government is an almost insuperable argument against the assumption. ”

“ THE difficulties attending the problem of reconstruction are so great, and the necessity of doing something is apparently so pressing, that many well-meaning people, in their eager anxiety to accomplish immediate results, are but too apt to forget the future which lies behind the next two or three Presidential elections. ”

“ Had they not found in their way a President who, with the maturest incapacity to understand the great tendencies of the times, unites an almost idiotic ambition to control them by autocratic action, and with the temper of a despot the profligate unscrupulousness of a demagogue, the Republicans would probably have acted upon their true instincts with boldness and consistency. ”

“ The objects to be immediately accomplished are many. Crime must be repressed, and security must be given to loyal men wherever they are in danger. A prompt removal of the Southern State governments instituted by the autocratic action of Andrew Johnson, and the substitution for them of new organizations upon a loyal basis, will go far towards accomplishing these ends. The same measure would undoubtedly also secure the ratification of any constitutional amendment judiciously proposed by the Congress of the United States. ”

“ Whatever the Republicans may attempt to do during this period of transition, which is naturally somewhat revolutionary in its character, they must, while in power, take into consideration the possibility of losing it, and prepare for turning over the matter to the regular operations of self-government. ”