CARL SCHURZ
Is it not the part of wise men, sir, to acknowledge the failure of a policy like this in order to remedy it, especially since every candid mind must recognize that, by continuing the mistake, absolutely no practical good can be subserved?
You tell me that many of the late rebels do not deserve a full restoration of their rights. That may be so—I do not deny it; but yet, sir, if many of them do not deserve it, is it not a far more important consideration how much the welfare of the country will be promoted by it?
I am told that many of the late rebels, if we volunteer a pardon to them, would not appreciate it. I do not deny this—it may be so, for the race of fools, unfortunately, is not all dead yet; but if they do not appreciate it, shall we have no reason to appreciate the great good which by this measure of generosity will be conferred upon the whole land?
Look at the nations around us. In the Parliament of Germany how many men are there sitting who were once what you would call fugitives from justice, exiles on account of their revolutionary acts, now admitted to the great council of the nation in the fulness of their rights and privileges?—and mark you, without having been asked to abjure the opinions they formerly held, for at the present moment most of them still belong to the Liberal Opposition. Look at Austria, where Count Andrassy, a man who, in 1849, was condemned to the gallows as a rebel, at this moment stands at the head of the imperial ministry; and
39
