Carl Schurz

“ This faith lives not only in the head of the man of though and far-seeing speculation; it hovers over the plough of the farmer, over the anvil of the mechanic, over the desk of the merchant; it is the very milk with which the American mother nourishes her baby. This faith has put our armies into the field and set our navy afloat: as in France, every soldier is said to carry the marshal’s batôn in his knapsack, so in America the smallest cabin-lad of the fleet, the meanest drummer-boy in the field, carries in his soul the great ideal of his country’s destiny. ”

“ And now, if the American people should be so lost to all sense of shame and decency as to indorse this declaration at a national election, with what face will you stand up before England and France, and ask them not to recognize the Confederacy? If this war is indeed what you affirm—a failure, and hopeless, unjust, inhumane, and ruinous—would it not be an act of mercy, of justice, of humanity, to step in and stop it? ”

“ We are engaged in a war for the restoration of the Union. The Union is not yet restored, but we hear the cry of Peace. The desire of peace is not peculiar to any social division or political party—it is cherished by all. But the question, What is peace, and how is it to be restored? this is the question to be solved by a vote of the people in November. Upon this question the mind of every conscientious citizen ought to be made up, whatever events to-day or to-morrow may bring. This question once irrevocably answered by the voice of the people, the future of the country is decided for ever. ”

“ With what face can we demand its generous support, if we confess a failure and throw doubt upon the justice and humanity of our own cause? You have heard of the people of Germany pouring their gold lavishly into the treasury of the United States. (Applause.) You have heard of a loan of a thousand millions having been offered, and being now in progress of negotiation. Would those people who are standing by us so generously in our embarrassments, would they have done so, if they did not trust in our ability and determination to carry through the war? ”

“ In the place of the great aspiration of slavery, which is dominion, you will place the great aspiration of free labor, which is equality; for the equality of the citizens is nothing but the recognized dignity of free labor. (Great applause.) The yoke once lifted, the Southern people once emancipated, they will not let a broken-down aristocracy think for them, but they will think for themselves, like freemen; they will have the aspirations of freemen, centered in truly free institutions, which are to be found in the Union. ”

“ We will transmit to them an untarnished national honor; we will transmit to them a power under whose shield the oppressed of the world will feel secure, and whose flag no king or combination of kings will dare to touch. These blessings we will transmit to them in the frame of a Federal Constitution, the rational form of self-government, elastic enough for ever so many hundred millions of citizens, leaving every individual and every community free to work out their own progressive development in their acknowledged spheres, while binding all together in a bond of strength. ”

“ It is the principle, that, when the will of the majority upon a question constitutionally subject to be decided by the majority, is once expressed and proclaimed in a constitutional form, the minority is absolutely and unconditionally bound to submit. (Applause.) There is no cavilling about this principle. It is the very foundation of all republican government; without it the whole republican edifice would at once tumble down as a chaotic, shapeless mass. It is the balance-wheel of the whole machinery. The observance of this principle is the fundamental obligation of the citizen. ”

“ Are you not the same men who pledged yourselves in the Chicago platform to stop the war, because it was a failure—to stop it on the score of justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare, merely with a view to a thing which, as you well know, will never happen, unless the rebels be forced to it—and now cry War! war that is a failure, war that is against justice and what all? ”

“ I solemnly declare my belief, the people have already decided in their hearts. This nation will not be false to her great destiny. You try in vain to stop her march by throwing yourselves under her feet. Come with her if you will, or she will march over you if she must. (Long-continued and tremendous applause.) In every pulsation of the popular heart, in every breeze, there is victory; and in the midst of the din and confusion of the conflict there stands the National Will, undisturbed, in monumental repose, and gives his quiet command: For the Great Empire of Liberty, Forward! ”

“ No, this faith knows no failure; for it, no sacrifice is too great, before its onset impossibility yields its stubbornness. The rebellion itself could not shake it; no, by the rebellion it has gained in intensity. The rebellion has suddenly lifted this nation from her childhood. Having gone through struggles, the tremendous shocks of which not many states would have been able to endure, this nation now stands there with the inspiring consciousness of mature strength. ”

“ But what they do, they do after thousands of noble men have stained the battlefields of their country with their precious blood; after the people have poured out their money like water to save the Republic; after our invincible navy has battered down the Southern forts, and is commanding the Southern waters; they do it when the hero of Vicksburgh is thundering at the gates of Richmond; when our victorious flag waves over the ramparts of Atlanta, and Victory is the cry! ”

“ And the men who thus attempt to create new complications, to increase the difficulties, and thus immensely to aggravate the calamities of war, these men dare to call themselves friends of peace? What! Have they not had bloodshed enough, that they want to make this war interminable? Is not the rebellion strong enough, that they want to add to its strength all the aid in money, arms, and material, that foreign friendship can give? Are not our enemies numerous enough, that they want to engage for them the aid of foreign governments? ”

“ It must be clear to every candid mind, that a settlement on the basis of disunion, far from securing a permanent peace, will be nothing but a mere temporary armistice, and must, after a short trial, produce the strengthened conviction in the minds of our people, that for the peace, liberty, and prosperity of the North-American continent, the restoration of the Union is an absolute necessity. ”

“ Will it take the sacrifice of new and countless hecatombs of men, the sacrifice of the fruits of another half-century of sweat and toil, to give them their fill? And these men have the brazen front to demand your votes, pretending that they will give you peace! You have heard of shore-pirates who set out false lights by night on the shore of the ocean when the weather is thick and stormy, to deceive and draw on the distressed mariner into the fatal breakers, and then to plunder the ship in pretending to save it. Take heed, Americans, and beware! Trust not this light of peace! ”

“ Do not indulge in the vain illusion that this first great abandonment of the fundamental obligation will remain an isolated fact. Such precedents are prolific. Let it be once known that the constitutional majority can and may be forced to concessions, and the idea will have an irresistible charm to reckless and restless minds. The composition of our people will no longer be what it was heretofore. The end of the war will throw a fearful number of adventurous spirits upon society, ready, at the call of an audacious leader, at any hour, to overleap the bounds of the accustomed order of things. ”

“ It is with her life that the nation would have to pay for the fatal error. (Loud applause.)
Not to the rebels will I appeal. The slave lords, fighting for institutions which are condemned by the unanimous voice of enlightened humanity, have set their hearts upon reviving what is dead, and the voice of reason and argument cannot pierce their fatal infatuation; and their retinue follows them like a flock of sheep. Let them fulfill the destiny they have made for themselves. Let the dead bury their dead. ”

“ As you, in times gone by—and I hope gone by for ever—were required to do for the slaveholder the dirty work he deemed below his dignity to do for himself—catch his runaways—so foreign powers would rather like you to perform for them a hardly cleaner work, which they themselves feel much delicacy about—recognize as an independent power a Confederacy founded upon the corner-stone of slavery. ”

“ We will transmit to them institutions free from the vices and encumbrances of which European nations vainly strive to deliver themselves; free from the necessity of large and dangerous standing armies; free from that pernicious centralization of power which springs from the dangers occasioned by the close proximity of powerful and hostile neighbors; free from the blight of an aristocracy, and free from the curse of slavery. ”

“ These new prospects, this future of independence, self-reliance, and self-respect, will make them forget the past, in which there was nothing but degradation. Nor is this all. The downfall of slavery will open the road to property to the poor laboring man. Slavery was a huge insatiable land-eater. Slavery abolished, the great landed estates, based upon and supported by slave-labor, will go to pieces, and the pieces will fall into the hands of the poor laboring man. ”

“ This settlement will secure order, for it fetters the spirit of rebellion by enforcing the fundamental obligation of the citizen; it will secure liberty, for it will cast out the demon which attempted its overthrow; it will secure prosperity and happiness, for it will throw open resources, hitherto untouched or wasted, to the unfettered genius of the American people, and extend the benefit of popular education into the darkest corner of the country. ”

“ In one word, we mean to build up a Republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful than any state history tells us of; a Republic having within itself all that can make a people great, good, and happy, and being so strong, that its pleasure will be consulted before any power on earth will undertake to disturb the peace of the world. ”

“ The nations of old Europe stand aghast and look with silent terror and amazement at the Titanic grapple, at this life-or-death struggle between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers of American, between the army of the future and the army of the past. ”

“ While we all agree that hatred and resentment ought to have no share in the final settlement of our differences, it is declared that the lawful authority of the Government must be vindicated in such a manner as to leave the fundamental obligations of the citizen toward it no longer in doubt. In other words, if you have a matter of principle or of policy to discuss, to defend, to carry, there are the means to discuss, to defend, to carry it. If you succeed, well and good. If you fail, you must try again by the same means or give up. ”

“ This country contains over thirty millions to-day, and by an estimate far below the ratio of increase established during the last seventy decades, it will contain one hundred million in fifty years, and five hundred million in a century—and elbow room for many more. And for the untold millions that are to inhabit it, we hold this country as a sacred trust; to them we have to transmit the foundations upon which they can build their peace, prosperity, civilization, and power. ”

“ This settlement will prepare this Republic for that power and greatness among the nations of the earth, to which a manifest destiny points its finger.
Lord John Russell once defined the American war as the South fighting for independence and the North fighting for empire. I accept the word. Aye, the South is fighting for independence; aye, we are fighting for empire, and for empire, too, on the very grandest of scales! ”

“ Why do the secessionists who are for peace offer no effective opposition to the rebel government? Because, though indeed sick of the war, they would like to have separation along with peace. Then it is evident they are not yet tired enough of the war. The remedy is simple. We must carry on the war with such terrible energy as to make all rebeldom tremble and shake. That will make them so tired of the war, that after a while they will only be too happy to make peace at any price. Is not that clear? (Applause.) Now for the Union men in the rebel States. ”

“ And presently the South will bloom like the bursting bud of a flower. The immense resources of the soil will, as by enchantment, spring to light under the magic touch of free labor, and her riches will be enjoyed by a free, happy, and—who doubts it?—loyal people. ”

“ There is a profound idealism in the soul of the American, which breaks forth in its full force only on great occasions. The American believes in the great destiny of his country, believes in it with that unconquerable, immovable, religious, fanatic faith, to which the greatness of the difficulties to be overcome appears as nothing compared with the greatness of the object to be achieved. ”

“ Woe to the statesman who now conceives a plan or cherishes a sympathy, that is not in accordance with this great development. Woe to the party, that now tries to lure the people from the glorious path. Woe to the people if at this solemn moment they mistake their duty to themselves and to future generations. ”

“ There is no man in this country who would be less inclined than I to listen to the promptings of vengeance and resentment. But while we are willing to act with a sincere desire to heal all wounds by generous accommodation, do you not see, that before we find a field for that magnanimity in offering terms to the conquered, the rebels must first be conquered and brought to terms? (Applause.) And do you not further see, that if we follow the Chicago policy, the chance is rather, the rebels will be masters of the situation and bring us to terms? ”

“ Well might the open allies of the rebellion among us, the Vallandighams, the Longs, the Woods, the Seymours, the Harrises, the Pendletons, cast their votes for such a resolution; for a virtual abandonment of the war without a condition sine qua non, only with a view to a thing which, as they must know, will never be effected in this way, what else can it lead to than a tacit recognition of Southern independence? I understand the satisfaction with which open rebel sympathizers look upon their work ”

“ Now insist upon being small when the country expects every one of her sons to rise to the height of her own destiny? Now, when the fate of the Republic stands upon the brink of the most fearful decision, a decision which will be irrevocable for ever? ”

“ A foreign power holding the mouth of the Mississippi! In the earlier stages of our history it was regarded as a self-evident truth that such power must be or become our natural enemy. But if at that time, when the great Mississippi Valley was a silently brooding wilderness, it was thought that we must have the mouth of the river, because the foreign hand that held it might choke our future development, what shall we say now when the Mississippi Valley has become the garden of America, the seat of empire? ”

“ You would inaugurate a system, which, by compromise and concession, pays and promises a premium to revolt? Is it not astonishing indeed that among men who have such a material stake in social order, as merchants and manufacturers, we should find so many advocates of that fatal policy? And this, they vainly imagine, would lead to peace. ”