Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/300

What then, are the means to stem this current? A change of the party in power, some will say. Well, let me tell you that the very acts of violence and outrage complained of will do more than anything else to prevent a change of party, aye, to render it impossible. No, there is but one means to neutralize the centralizing tendency, and that means is in the hands of the Southern people themselves. Yes, let the Southern people demonstrate that local self-government can be relied upon to afford that security of life and property and individual right which every American citizen, however humble, may claim, and the public mind will no longer countenance the interference of the Central Government in local affairs by the appliances of the monarchical police state. The honest men who insist upon the equal protection of all in every part of the Republic will no longer be dragged into the support of such unconstitutional stretches of power, and we can easily take care of the demagogues who would perpetuate such things merely for partisan advantage. That is the way, and the only certain way, to check the centralizing tendency in this direction. In one word, the Constitutional rights of States and the local self-government of the people will be best secured if the people everywhere see to it that the rights of every individual be secured in every community through local self-government. And how can this be accomplished? You have asked me, in your letter of invitation, to make you such admonitory suggestions as I might deem judicious and seasonable. I shall avail myself of this privilege with sincerity and frankness. In order to attain the great object I spoke of, one thing, in my opinion, is necessary. Let the good and honest men of the South, who are willing, sincerely, to accept and develop for the common good the new order of things, throw off the old animosities of party; let them combine to suppress lawless excesses and to extinguish