only dyke that we can really erect to keep out this inundation of barbarian and fanatical force. I entirely concur with them if that is their view, which I cannot certainly determine. I entirely concur with them that it is the duty of this country to see a good Government erected in that country, 5 a Government upon which we can rely, and which shall have power to stem the forces which the Mahdi has set in motion. But they speak of a Government as if it was a Christmas present that you can give a country and then go away. England, it seems, possesses a great many good Governments 10 in store to give away; she can always give one to a nation when it requires it; or rather, like the ostrich's egg, they can leave it in the sand to hatch itself. But a good Government, like any other organized being, must pass through the stages of infancy to maturity. There must be a long stage 15 of infancy during which this Government is unable to defend itself; and if it is to exist for any useful purposes, it requires, during that period, protection and security, which it can only derive from the action of an external Power. It is that protection and security that England must give. She must not 20 desert her task in the Soudan until there is that Government which can protect Egypt, in which her interests are vital.

I do not say whether it should be done by the Nile or from Suakin. I think I see a noble Lord, one of the greatest ornaments of this House, who has conducted an Expedition, 25 not over two hundred and fifty miles from Suakin to Berber, but over four hundred miles, and that with success, over the same burning country, and his opinion, as given last year, is that the Suakin and Berber route is the route by which the Soudan should be held. In that opinion I do not say that I 30 concur that would be impertinent; but it is an opinion to which I can humbly subscribe. Whether it is to be done by a railway or not is another matter; but I fully believe that by using the Suakin and Berber route, we may maintain a hold over that portion of the Soudan which may enable us to 35 perform that which is our primary duty — namely, to repress

these forces of barbarism and fanaticism, to protect Egypt from further incursion, to nourish the civilization which they protected and secured, and which would find such abundant root in that fertile country; and, above all, to quench, and 5 check, and ultimately to destroy, the Slave Trade, which has been the curse of Africa. All those advantages can be readily obtained if England will lay down a determined policy, and will adhere to it. But consistency of policy is absolutely necessary. You cannot envelop your policy in obscurIo ity, trusting to chance and taking this or that side, according

as Parliamentary exigencies require. You cannot do that without fatally damaging the prestige of your power and the chance of your success. We have to assure our friends that we shall stand by them; we have to assure our enemies that 15 we are permanently to be feared; and it is only on the conditions on which our enemies dread us and our friends trust us that we can be successful in dealing with our enemies. My Lords, we must not conceal from ourselves that the blunders of the last three years have placed us in presence 20 of terrible problems and difficulties, which will require all our manhood to overcome. We have great sacrifices, too, to make. I earnestly trust that this railway, of which I hear so much, may be made. It will be an enormous benefit to Africa. But do not conceal from yourselves that the task is 25 one of no slight magnitude. To throw forward a railway into a country which is not in our possession has never been done before. When you have thrown it forward you will have to guard it against a population who know the country thoroughly, who are very difficult to reach, and who are 30 singularly hostile to any Christian or civilized effort. If you carry this railway forward, you will not only have to smash the Mahdi, but you will have to smash Osman Digna as well, and to smash him so completely that he will not only not be able to resist at the moment, but that he shall be unable to 35 turn back and take up the railway when it is made. All those things involve great sacrifices. They involve the ex

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penditure not only of much money, but more of that English blood of which the noblest has already been poured forth. They involve the creation of blood feuds that you will have great difficulty in dealing with, and we are not so strong as we were. At first all nations sympathized with us; now they look upon us coldly, and even with hostility. Those who were our friends became indifferent; those who were indifferent have become our adversaries; and if our misfortunes and disasters go on much longer, we shall have Europe interfering, and saying that they cannot trust us - 10 we are too weak — that our prestige is too broken to justify us in undertaking the task.

My Lords, those are great dangers we have to face. They can only be faced by a consistent policy, which can only be conducted by a Ministry that is capable of unity of counsel 15 and decision of purpose. I have shown you that from this Ministry you can expect no such results. They will only produce after their kind; they will only do what they have already done. You cannot look for unity of counsel from an Administration which is hopelessly divided; you cannot ex- 20 pect a resolute policy from those whose purpose is hopelessly halting. It is for this reason, my Lords, that I ask you to record your opinion that in a Ministry, in whom the first quality of all the quality of decision of purpose is wanting; from such a Ministry you can hope no good in this 25 crisis of your country's fate. If you continue to trust them; if you continue for any Party reason if Parliament contin

ues — to abandon to their care the affairs which they have hitherto so hopelessly mismanaged, you must expect to go on from bad to worse; you must expect to lose the little prestige 30 which you retain; you must expect to find in other portions of the world the results of the lower consideration which you occupy in the eyes of mankind. You must expect to be drawn on, year by year, step by step, under the cover of plausible excuses, under the cover of high philanthropic 35 sentiments - you must expect to be drawn on to irreparable

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disasters and disgrace, which it will be impossible to efface. Moved to resolve, "That this House, having taken into consideration the statements that have been made on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, is of opinion that

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1. The deplorable failure of the Soudan expedition to attain its object has been due to the undecided councils of the Government and to the culpable delay attending the commencement of operations;

2. That the policy of abandoning the whole of the Sou10 dan after the conclusion of military operations will be dangerous to Egypt and inconsistent with the interests of the Empire."

II.

CARL SCHURZ.

General Amnesty.1

United States Senate, January 30, 1872.

["The following speech was delivered on a bill for removing the political disabilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth 15 Amendment to the Constitution. This section provided that no person should be a senator, representative, or presidential elector, or hold any civil or military office under the United States or any State, who, as a Federal or State officer, had sworn to support the Constitution and had afterward engaged in the Rebellion; but provision was made that the 20 disability could be removed by a two-thirds vote of each House. The bill before Congress at this time did not, however, aim to secure general amnesty, for three classes of persons were excepted from the relief: members who withdrew from Congress and aided the Rebellion; officers, over twenty-one years of age, who left the Army and Navy and aided 25 the Rebellion; and members of State conventions who voted for ordinances of secession. The bill, failing to receive the necessary twothirds vote, was defeated." Modern American Oratory, R. C. Ringwalt, P. 93, H. Holt & Co.]

1 Reprinted, with the permission of Mr. Schurz, from the Congressional Globe.

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MR. PRESIDENT: When this debate commenced before the holidays, I refrained from taking part in it, and from expressing my opinions on some of the provisions of the bill now before us; hoping as I did that the measure could be passed without difficulty, and that a great many of those who now labor under political disabilities would be immediately relieved. This expectation was disappointed. An amendment to the bill was adopted. It will have to go back to the House of Representatives now unless by some parliamentary means we get rid of the amendment, and there being no inducement left 10 to waive what criticism we might feel inclined to bring forward, we may consider the whole question open.

I beg leave to say that I am in favor of general, or, as this word is considered more expressive, universal amnesty, believing, as I do, that the reasons which make it desirable that 15 there should be amnesty granted at all, make it also desirable that the amnesty should be universal. The senator from South Carolina [ Mr. Sawyer ] has already given notice that he will move to strike out the exceptions from the operation of this act of relief for which the bill provides. If he had not 20 declared his intention to that effect, I would do so. In any event, whenever he offers his amendment I shall most heartily support it.

In the course of this debate we have listened to some senators, as they conjured up before our eyes once more all 25 the horrors of the Rebellion, the wickedness of its conception, how terrible its incidents were, and how harrowing its consequences. Sir, I admit it all; I will not combat the correctness of the picture; and yet if I differ with the gentlemen who drew it, it is because, had the conception of the Rebellion 30 been still more wicked, had its incidents been still more terrible, its consequences still more harrowing, I could not permit myself to forget that in dealing with the question now before us we have to deal not alone with the past, but with the present and future interests of this republic.

What do we want to accomplish as good citizens and

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