Carl Schurz

“ If it could be so, then every one of your great battles would be nothing but a mass-murder of the first degree; the war with its ruin and desolation would have been nothing but an act of wanton barbarism. Then be silent of your glorious exploits, you soldiers in the field; conceal your scars and mangled limbs, you wounded heroes; you mothers and wives and sisters, who wear your mourning with pride, hide your heads in shame—for the triumphant rebel sits upon the graves of our dead victories, whip in hand, and with a mocking grin laughs at the dastardly self-degradation of his conquerors. ”

“ Who agitated it by the Nebraska Bill, but those who wanted to break down the last barrier to slavery? Who agitated it by the Dred Scott decision, but those who wanted to make slavery the rule, and liberty the exception? Who agitated it by the Lecompton question, but those who wanted to sacrifice the last safeguards of self-government to slavery? [Cheers.] And all those who did so were but obeying the logic of things. For slavery cannot live, unless it rules, and it can never keep peace, unless it dies. ”

“ Is anybody in arms against the Union but who desires to perpetuate slavery? What else is this rebellion but a new and logical form of the old struggle of the slave interest against the fundamental principles of our political system? Do not indulge in the delusion that you can put an end to this struggle by a mere victory in the field. By it you may quench the physical power of the slave interest, but you cannot stifle its aspirations. The slave interest was disloyal as long as it threatened the dissolution of the Union; it will be disloyal as long as it desires it. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And, indeed, the blood of American freemen spilt on the prairies of Kansas, the smouldering ruins of the pioneer's cabin—fired, not by the savage hand of the Indian, but by the hands of people that claim to be civilized—the most flagrant violations of the ballot-box, the most shameless frauds, the most atrocious usurpations of power, ever known in the history of elective governments, and a struggle in Congress fiercer than ever—these are strange fruits of a measure which was to bring peace and liberty and prosperity to mankind. ”

“ An unfinished, trembling edifice, that may some day tumble down over their heads, because its foundations were not firmly laid, or a house resting upon the firm rock of a truly free government, in which untold millions may quietly and harmoniously dwell? We do not mean to disregard the obligations we owe you, neither Constitutional obligations, nor those which spring from your claims to our gratitude. We do not mean that you shall suffer in rights or fortune, nor to tear you forcibly from your ways and habits of life. But let us reason together. Do you think that slavery will live always? ”

“ Who are they that suddenly stand up so fiercely in vindication of free press and free speech? Look at them and remember their histories. They are just the same men who, but four or five short years ago, insisted that every anti-slavery speaker should be dragged from the platform, and that every anti-slavery press should be burned to ashes. They are the old advocates of a system of society which cannot breathe the same air with a free press and free speech. Are they not? Look at them man for man! Let them be judged by their own acts. ”

“ I invite those of our opponents whose heads and hearts are not irretrievably wrapt in self-deception, to mount with me for a moment a higher watch-tower than that of party. Look once more up and down the broad avenues of your history. Show me your men in the first great days of the Republic whose names shine with untarnished lustre, the men whom you parade in the foremost ranks when you boast before the world abroad of your nation’s greatness; there is not one of them who did not rack his brain to find a way in which the Republic could he delivered of the incubus of slavery. ”

“ I am warranted in saying that, if ever a gigantic, unscrupulous, shameless fraud was attempted upon a free people, it is this “great principle”—if history ever furnished an example of unblushing, scandalous, revolting hypocrisy, it is this “true championship of freedom.” To fasten slavery irremovably upon the Territories, and call it “leaving the people perfectly free to regulate their own domestic institutions!”—to strip the people of every right to regulate their own affairs, and to call it popular sovereignty! ”

“ Must I entreat you to sacrifice the small whim of a personal preference to the greatest cause of this age? No, no! it cannot be. No man in whose soul glows a spark of sympathy with struggling humanity, can now stand idle. No heart that ever was fired by the divine breath of liberty, can now remain cold. [Great applause.]
Let Wisconsin stretch her hand across the great lakes and grasp that of New York. Let it be known that New York and Wisconsin, who stood together to the last for Seward in the Convention, will be the first and foremost in the battle for Lincoln and Liberty! ”

“ Are you really in earnest when you speak of perpetuating slavery? Shall it never cease? Never? Stop and consider where you are, and in what day you live.
This is the nineteenth century. Never, since mankind has a recollection of times gone by, has the human mind disclosed such wonderful powers. The hidden forces of nature we have torn from their mysterious concealment, and yoked them into the harness of usefulness; they carry our thoughts over slender wires to distant nations; they draw our wagons over the highways of trade; they pull the gigantic oars of our ships ”

“ Roman citizenship was founded upon monopoly, not upon the claims of human nature. What the citizen of Rome claimed for himself, he did not respect in others; his own greatness was his only object; his own liberty, as he regarded it, gave him the privilege to oppress his fellow-beings. His democracy, instead of elevating man kind to his own level, trampled the rights of man into the dust. The security of the Roman Republic, therefore, consisted in the power of the sword; the security of the American Republic rests in the equality of human rights! ”

“ 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 to 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! ”

“ And it is in this way that a great nation is to decide of its future! In this gulf of deception and duplicity you would sink the fortunes of your country? From my inmost heart, from the very depth of my profoundest convictions, I warn you. Out of this, nothing can grow but a peace that can not last, or a war that will not end; a peace without honor and solidity, or a war without faith, without nerve, without success, without decision. ”

“ Is it necessary that in the heart of New England I should spend my voice in illustrating the idea that the freedom of speech is the great agency of human progress? A year ago, on a November day, I went from Albany by Worcester to Providence. Nature was stripped of its autumnal beauty, and the frosty breath of winter had clad your hills and valleys in monotonous grey. And yet the landscape was far from leaving a dreary and melancholy impression upon the mind. For wherever the eye turned, there were the cheerful evidences of human ingenuity, of successful labor, of thoughtful enterprise. ”

“ And I have seen other thousands sacrifice all they had, and fight and suffer and die, in order to bequeath to the people the right to express their true convictions and their free-will at the ballot-box, and for no other cause has humanity struggled more, and for no other has more of the noblest blood of mankind been shed. To see the efforts of a liberty-loving nation crushed down by brute violence is a spectacle that fills our soul with sadness, but we do reverence to those who perish in their noble attempts. ”

“ Slavery, drooping in most of the States, became suddenly profitable, and the sordid greediness of gain crushed down in a great many hearts the love of principle. Slavery, instead of being an evil, a scourge, and a disgrace, became suddenly a great, economical, moral, and political blessing. New theories of government sprang out of this economical revolution, and the same system of social organization, which, but a short time before, had been the foulest blot on the American name, was suddenly discovered to be the corner-stone of democratic institutions. ”

“ Let him say to the youth of the American Republic: “This is Douglas. Look at him. For every wound the South inflicted upon him, he has struck a blow at the liberties of his countrymen. Let him serve as a warning example, that a man may be a traitor to liberty, and not become a favorite of the slave power. Mark him! By false popular sovereignty he tried to elevate himself; and true popular sovereignty strikes him down.” ”

“ Is not our financial condition embarrassed enough, that they want to stop those resources which open themselves for us abroad? Have we so many friends in the world, that they want to ruin us in the opinion of mankind? What! are they not satiated yet with ruin and desolation? 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! ”

“ The scepter of royalty is flung back across the ocean; the prerogatives of nobility are trodden into the dust; every man a king, every man a baron; in seven of the original colonies the shackles of the black men struck off; almost everywhere the way prepared for gradual emancipation. “No recognition of the right of property in man!” says Madison. “Let slavery be abolished by law!” says Washington. 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! ”

“ If they know their own interests, the people of the South themselves will have to put it down. Will they submit? Not to Northern dictation; but will they not submit to their own good sense? They have considered us their enemies as long as they ruled us; they will find out that we are their friends as soon as we cease to be their subjects. They have dreamed so long of the blessings of slavery; they will open their eyes again to the blessings of liberty. They will discover that they are not conquered, but liberated. Will slavery die out? As surely as freedom will not die out. ”