Carl Schurz

“ Shall we squander the blood of our sons and the marrow of the land in destructive wars, for the profit of the enemies of free labor, while it is a peaceful development to which we owe our power in the world? Adopt the exclusive economic policy of the planting interest! Shall our mineral wealth sleep undeveloped in the soil? Shall our water-powers run idle, and the bustle of our factories cease? Shall the immense laboring force in our increasing population be deprived of the advantage of a harmonious development of all the branches of human labor? ”

“ There is no human heart that sympathizes with your cause, unless it sympathizes with the cause of despotism in every form. There is no human voice to cheer you on in your struggle; there is no human eye that has a tear for your reverses; no link of sympathy between the common cause of the great human brotherhood and you. You hear of emancipation in Russia and wish it to fail. You hear of Italy rising, and fear the spirit of liberty may become contagious. Where all mankind rejoices, you tremble. Where all mankind loves, you hate. Where all mankind curses, you sympathize. ”

“ American patriots, now is your time! Your duty calls you with trumpet tones. Let no true man to whom speech is given now be silent. Let none whose heart ever was fired by the divine breath of liberty, now stand idle. There are those who are still wavering between right and wrong. Not a moment let there be lost. Speak to them the language of great principles; assault their understanding with irrefutable arguments; storm their hearts with solemn appeals. The greatest victory ever achieved is within our grasp. It rests with us to make it the final one. ”

“ Ah, sir, is there a man in Massachusetts, except he be a servant of the slave-power, who cannot hear me advocate the equal rights of man, without feeling serious pangs of conscience? Is there a son of this glorious old Commonwealth who cannot hear me draw logical conclusions from the Declaration of Independence—who cannot hear me speak of the natural right of man to the exercise of self-government, without feeling a blush fluttering upon his cheeks? ”

“ Who of you can tell me what wild antics that money may play with the fortunes of all of us, if those who clamor for inflation now should obtain control of the National Government a year hence? And now, feeling as we do with every step, instead of firm ground, a treacherous quicksand under our feet, is there still anybody who asks why confidence does not revive, why capital timidly shrinks back, why the mass of money idly accumulated in the banks does not trust itself into the hands of enterprise, why prosperity does not return, and why the horizon is still without a visible ray of hope? ”

“ Look over the history of the world, from the time when infant mankind felt in its heart the first throbbings of aspiring dignity, down to our days, when the rights of man have at last found a bold and powerful champion in a great and mighty Republic; where is the page that is not blotted with blood and tears shed in that all-absorbing struggle; where a chapter which does not tell a tale of jubilant triumph or heart-breaking distress, as the scales of freedom or slavery went up or down? ”

“ At last the emancipation proclamation came. A shout of triumph went up from every liberty-loving heart. Once more the friends of freedom in each hemisphere joined in a common sympathy. Once more the cause of the American people became the cause of liberty the world over. Once more our struggle was identified with the noblest aspirations of the human race. Once more our reverses found a response of sorrow in the great heart of mankind, and our victories aroused a jubilant acclaim which rolled around the globe. ”

“ Indeed, the first view of the bay of New York was a great surprise. The water was alive with innumerable boats and ships of all kinds, crossing hither and thither in gay confusion; on the shore we saw the luxuriance of nature and the splendor of wealth; before our eyes was the mighty city bedecked with flags, and above us the brilliant American sky.
New York is as bustling as the most animated parts of London, yet it is very different. Life is much more cheerful, is free from the English monotony of physiognomy and morose taciturnity in the business transactions. ”

“ Ah, what a lesson is this for the American people,—a lesson learned so often, and, alas! forgotten almost as often as it is learned! Is it well to discourage, to proscribe in your public men that independent spirit which will boldly assert a conscientious sense of duty, even against the behests of power or party? Is it well to teach them that they must serve the command and interest of party, even at the price of conscience, or they must be crushed under its heel, whatever their past service, whatever their ability, whatever their character may be? ”

“ Nowhere on the face of the earth has military rule been devoted to such a glorious cause as this—to wipe out that most pernicious of atrocities, that, in the name of liberty, one man should claim the right to deprive of his rights another; to clear the track for the government of the people, for the people, and by the people, on every inch of ground on which the American flag throws its shadow. ”

“ To think of galvanizing into new life the hideous carcass whose vitality is being extinguished by the hand of fate! To attempt to fasten anew and artificially upon the Nation a curse of which for a century she longed in vain to be rid, and which at last is being wiped out by the great process of providential retribution! To resuscitate and nurse to new power of mischief the traitress that fell in an attempt to assassinate the Republic! Revive slavery in the midst of the nineteenth century! ”

“ Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened and, at no distant day, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too-novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
Thus did Washington view the first providential favor bestowed upon this people, and also our duty to spread this blessing among the nations, not by the force of arms, but by the moral power of example. ”

“ Surrender to Aguinaldo? Will not the world ridicule and despise us for such a confession of our incompetency to deal with so feeble a foe? What will become of our prestige?” No, we shall not surrender to Aguinaldo. In giving up a criminal aggression, we shall surrender only to our own consciences, to our own sense of right and justice, to our own understanding of our own true interests and to the vital principles of our own Republic. Nobody will laugh at us whose good opinion we have reason to cherish. ”

“ Every period of great effort and excitement in the life of a nation is followed by one of apathy and indifference. It is then that bad precedents ripen into vicious habits of thought, into tame acquiescence in wrong, into indolent submission to the arrogance of power—in one word, into those dangers to which not seldom free institutions succumb. Such periods test the spirit of a free people, and through such a period we have just been passing. The civil war, with its gigantic efforts and terrible commotions, had put the energies of the people to an enormous strain. ”

“ Ask yourselves, was not the vote given to the colored man in the South that he might render us all a great service at the ballot-box of the South? What is he voting for? He votes that the whip which tortured him while in slavery may remain away from his back. He votes, therefore, that free labor be permanently established and successfully developed; that the equality of the rights of all before the law be maintained; that the restoration of aristocratic class government in the South, and of similar things at war with true democratic government, be prevented. ”

“ Let the National will rise up from the ballot-boxes of November with a strength which laughs at resistance, and with a clearness of utterance which admits of no doubt, and the reaction which now surges against you like a sea of angry waves will play around your feet like the harmless rivulet set running by an April shower. Even Andrew Johnson's damaged intellect will quickly perceive that, although he may succeed in buying up a few forlorn wretches, it is a hopeless enterprise to debauch the great heart of the American people. ”

“ Ask yourselves, Americans, how this Republic will stand in the esteem of mankind, and how its influence will be upheld by the confidence of nations if the American people by a solemn vote proclaim to the world that official honor is to them a thing of indifference, and that they select their President from among those who have traded on high official trust to make money.
And in the face of all this still the cry of “Party!” Woe to the republic whose citizens think of party and nothing but party, when the honor of their country and the vitality of their Government are at stake! ”

“ Exhaust all the devices which the inventive genius of despotism may suggest, and yet how can you resist? In every little village schoolhouse, the little children who learn to read and write are plotting against you; in every laboratory of science, in every machine shop, the human mind is working the destruction of your idol. You cannot make an attempt to keep pace with the general progress of mankind, without plotting against yourselves. Every steam whistle, every puffing locomotive, is sounding the shriek of liberty into your ears. ”

“ We can crush corruption in our public concerns; we can give the Republic a pure and honest Government; we can revive the authority of the laws; we can restore to full value the Constitutional safeguard of our liberties; we can infuse a higher moral spirit into our political life; we can reanimate in the hearts of the whole people in every section of the land a fraternal and proud National feeling. We can do all this, but we can do it only by throwing behind us the selfish spirit of political trade. We obey the purest and loftiest inspirations of the popular uprising which sent us here. ”

“ In vain you jeopardize the life of the Nation for what is dead! The doom of your cause is written in the stars. If you love yourselves, and want to secure the respect of your children, then, I beseech you, leave the scandalous and hopeless task to the ignorant and brainless, who may show as an excuse for the mad attempt, the weakness of their minds; and to those hardened villains who have become as insensible to the secret lash of conscience as to the open contempt of mankind. ”

“ First and foremost, to that perfect freedom of inquiry, which acknowledges no rules but those of logic, no limits but those that bound the faculties of the human mind. Its magic consists in its universality. To it we owe the harmony of our progressive movement in all its endless ramifications. No single science, no single practical pursuit exists in our day independently of all other sciences, all other practical pursuits. This is the age of the solidarity of progress. Set a limit to the freedom of inquiry in one direction and you destroy the harmony of its propelling action. ”

“ Not only the supremacy of old England is to be shaken off, but a new organization of society is to be built up on the basis of liberty and equality. That is the Declaration of Independence! That is the American Revolution! All men free and equal! Not even the broad desert of the Atlantic ocean stops the triumphant shout. Behold, the nations of the old world are rushing to arms. ”

“ Surrender the national territories to slavery! Do we not owe our growth and prosperity to the successful labor of our neighbors just as well as our own? Shall we consent to be surrounded and hemmed in with thriftless communities, whose institutions retard their growth and thereby retard our own? Abandon all laws like the homestead bill, tending to establish free labor on our national domain! Shall we thus give up the rights of labor, and destroy the inheritance of our children? Give up our opposition to the extension of slavery by the conquest of foreign countries! ”

“ The temptation of victory had hardly presented itself when the war of liberation and humanity was turned into a greedy land-grabbing game and when “criminal aggression” was resorted to in its bloodiest form. Who will after this cynical breach of faith believe any profession of virtuous purpose on our part again? Our detractors the world over point their fingers at us and say with a smile of triumph: “We told you so.” Our moral credit with the world is thoroughly ruined; and that is the kind of great world-power imperialism has made of the proud American Republic. Where is our self-respect? ”

“ One of those eternal laws which govern the development of human affairs asserted itself,—the law that a great wrong, which has been maintained in defiance of the moral sense of mankind, must finally, by the very means and measures necessary for its sustenance, render itself so insupportable as to insure its downfall and destruction.
So it was with slavery. I candidly acquit the American slave-power of wilful and wanton aggression upon the liberties and general interests of the American people. If slavery was to be kept alive at all, its supporters could not act otherwise than they did. ”

“ Under this banner, all the languages of civilized mankind are spoken, every creed is protected, every right is sacred. There stands every element of Western society, with enthusiasm for a great cause, with confidence in each other, with honor to themselves. This is the banner floating over the glorious valley which stretches from the western slope of the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains—that Valley of Jehoshaphat where the nations of the world assemble to celebrate the resurrection of human freedom. ”