Speeches of Carl Schurz

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I. | The Irrepressible Conflict. — Mechanics' Hall, Chicago, 28th of September, 1858 | 9

II. | Political Morals. — Albany-Hall, Milwaukee, 18th of November, 1858 | 38

Dedication

TO

The Union League of Philadelphia,

which, in the struggle for national existence, has stood foremost among the loyal associations of the country, in enlisting the energies of private citizens for the cause of

Preface

The decade which elapsed between the years 1854 and 1864 will stand in the history of this country as its second revolutionary period. It commenced with the passage of the Kansas Nebraska Bill, the re-opening of the slavery question by a pro-slavery measure; and it closed with the second election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, the solemn and emphatic declaration by a large majority of the loyal people, that the slavery question must be finally disposed of by the total abolition of slavery itself. The interval is filled with the fiercest struggles this country ever witnessed, in the domain of political discussion, as well as on the field of battle. The military campaigns of the great civil war will certainly live in history; but those who are in the habit of inquiring into the causes and results of historical events, will study with no less interest the rapid movement of ideas which marks this memorable period.

The moral merits of the slavery question have been discussed in this country almost since slavery was introduced here, and the conviction that slavery was a great wrong, was at several times almost universal among the people; the antagonism necessarily existing between the institution of slavery, and a democratic organization of society, has likewise been pointed out and urged upon the attention of the people long before the final struggle commenced. But although slavery was considered wrong, those who possessed no slaves soothed their consciences with the idea that the slaveholders alone were responsible for it; and although the theory of the antagonism between slavery and democratic institutions seemed incontrovertible in the abstract, it was thought that, in reality, slavery might without danger be permitted to continue along with the other institutions and interests of the country, if things were only managed with prudence and a conciliatory spirit. As it is usually the case where the masses have to act for themselves, it required the element of practical impulse to produce clear intellectual perceptions, and to develop these intellectual perceptions coupled with a moral principle, into a motive for immediate action. The practical relation between slavery and other political questions of general concern, had not sufficiently penetrated the popular mind. It had to make itself practically felt, in order to be clearly understood. The Kansas Nebraska Act, involving the whole of our national domain, and seriously threatening our future growth and prosperity, went far to supply the deficiency; but when the slave power baffled in its aspirations by the election of 1860, rose up in rebellion, and thus disclosed its thoroughly anti-national tendency, the whole truth revealed itself to the eyes of the people. Forthwith it became evident to every fair-minded man that the question of Union or Disunion, although brought forward under the guise of divergent Constitutional theories, was only a new form of the slavery question, but now a form which demanded an immediate, and, at the same time, final solution. All other political questions were at once found to be merged in this, and the people availed themselves of the first opportunity to decree a sweeping reform, destined to harmonize their social and political organization with the advanced state of their moral and intellectual enlightenment. It remains only for the representatives of the people to put this decree into a Constitutionally binding form, and for the General Government to enforce it with the strong arm of power. There are, it is true, influences which exert themselves to defeat this result even in the last stage of its final consummation; but their strength is growing less every day, and even the interposition of great accidents, such as are beyond the reach of human foresight, has become altogether improbable. According to all reasonable calculations, we may consider the great object of the revolutionary movement, the extinction of slavery throughout this Union, undivided and indivisible, as virtually insured.

I call it a revolutionary movement, not for the reason that the slave power rose in rebellion against the legitimate government of the Republic; for this was only a rebellion, while the true revolutionary movement was directed against the predominance of the slave power; nor for the reason that the rebellion produced contingencies unforeseen in the Constitution of the country; that the necessity of defending the integrity of the Republic against the people of a large number of States composing and constituting it, placed us, if I may use the expression, into an extra-constitutional condition; and that, in order to save the Republic, we had to fall back upon those general principles, according to which a government must inherently possess certain powers necessary for the defence of its own existence. The employment of extraordinary remedies, for the justification of which recourse was had to the resources of Constitutional construction, was, indeed, unavoidable. But it may be said, that in all the great measures that were adopted, due care was taken to conform, at least, to the spirit of our fundamental laws; and, moreover, that, in spite of the pressure of the most urgent public dangers, the government never attempted to raise its authority above the reach of popular control, but always remained virtually in the hands of the people. This is a fact, which, when describing the extraordinary circumstances under which we lived, the historian of this remarkable period aught well to remember. The correspondence between governmental action, and the current of the popular mind, was, indeed, so intimate, that Mr. Lincoln's government, if we compare its characteristic features with the characteristic traits, the peculiar ways of thinking and feeling, of the American people, may well be designated as the most representative government the world ever saw. It is to this circumstance, by the way, that Mr. Lincoln's personal success is mainly attributable.

The revolutionary character of this period, then, pertains principally to the rapid movement of public opinion, and its action upon and through the Government. It finds its parallel in nearly every revolutionary event of modern times. A dominant power, the slaveholding aristocracy, long submitted to, attempts a glaring encroachment upon the rights of the most active and progressive element of society. The popular mind gradually rises to a clear perception and appreciation of the true nature of the conflict. After a time spent in animated discussion, the attempt at encroachment is frustrated by the Constitutional action of the people. The dominant power thus resisted and baffled by Constitutional means, resorts to a coup d'état; the popular mind advances at once to the logical conclusion, that the further existence of that dominant power is incompatible with free institutions, and decrees its annihilation. The final decision then rests with the arbitrament of arms. This is, in a few words, the history of the last ten years, and, with a change of names and technical terms, it would, in this form, be applicable to the most decisive periods in the history of other nations.

It is natural that the manner in which the popular mind proceeded from conclusion to conclusion, should have found its best illustration in the political discussions which accompanied and aided the progress of public opinion. The value of such discussions does not consist alone in their showing the modus operandi of individual minds. An argument addressed to the people may, indeed, in the first place, be presumed to represent the individual opinion of him who produces it; but it will never have an effect upon the people unless it serves to disclose and develop ideas which lie already, although perhaps in a crude and dormant state, in the minds of those who receive it. Principles are, indeed, eternal and in the abstract easily intelligible; but the manner of their practical application depends upon the drift of the times, and the intellectual range of those who have to apply them. There is, then, a continual action and reaction of mind upon mind in which we discover a current of thought common to them all, and this common current becomes the source of progressive improvement.

In studying the political discussions of the last ten years—of which the speeches contained in this volume form but a modest part,—and inquiring into the views which governed, the emotions which agitated, and the motives which impelled the people in their action, we may, therefore, gain a clearer insight into the rules of logic which shaped the events of our days; this insight will strengthen our conviction that, what has arrived, was unavoidable, and what has been accomplished, is good; and, finally, it will show us, how unwise and dangerous it would be, to stand still, before the results already obtained are carried to that measure of completion and perfection which they imperiously demand.

These results are, indeed, very great, but, as the primary results of all revolutionary movements, they are strictly speaking of a negative character. They consist in the removal of the great obstacle to harmonious progress. That accomplished, new fields of inquiry, knowledge, and improvement, will open themselves to the people, on which, by positive, creative action, they will have to build a solid substructure for a broader and higher development of American Civilization. C. S.

January, 1865.

I. The Irrepressible Conflict

SPEECH DELIVERED AT MECHANICS' HALL, CHICAGO, ON THE 28TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1858.

This speech was delivered in the memorable Senatorial campaign in Illinois, Mr. Lincoln being the candidate of the Republican, and Mr. Douglas the candidate of the Democratic party. The topics discussed may be presumed to be familiar to every American reader who is somewhat conversant with the politics of the day.

Mr. President and Gentlemen:— The remarks I am going to offer will not be of the exciting and enthusiastic kind. I will speak to your understanding, and call your attention to some of the simple broad principles which rule the development of human affairs.

The destinies of nations and countries are, indeed, not governed by majorities and governmental authority alone. You will sometimes see nations struggle with almost superhuman efforts against certain impending dangers; but an overruling fatality seems to frustrate all their exertions. This overruling fatality, which stands above the power of majorities and governments, I will call by a simple term—the logic of things and events. It is the close connection between cause and effect, between principle and fact—a connection which cannot be severed, and the clear knowledge of which is the only safe foundation for political wisdom.

I have been taught by history that a democratic system of government, although it may overcome local and temporary inconveniences, cannot bear a direct contradiction between political principles on the one and social institutions on the other side. Such inconsistencies will and must bring forth questions and conflicts involving the very foundations of popular liberty. They may appear in different shapes, but when they have once taken possession of the political arena, they will overshadow all other issues. Everything else will be subordinate to them; they will form the only legitimate line of distinction between parties, and all attempts to divert public attention from them, or to palliate them with compromises or secondary issues, will prove futile and abortive. Their final decision, one way or the other, will decide the practical existence of a people.

Such a contradiction is that between liberty, founded upon the natural rights of man, and slavery, founded upon usurpation; between democracy, which is the life-element of our Federal Constitution, and privilege, which is the life-element of the slaveholding system and of Southern society.

I do not intend to make an anti-slavery speech in the common understanding of the term, dwelling at length upon the sufferings of the bondman and the cruelty of the master and the sinfulness of sin in general. My purpose is to investigate, from a political stand-point, the conflicts which, as natural consequences, must spring from the mixture of the contradictory principles of slavery and democracy.

When in a democratic community there is a powerful individual, or an association or class of men, whose claims and pretensions are in conflict with the natural rights of man in general, or with the legitimate claims of other individuals, and who deem their own particular interests above all other considerations, we may well say that the liberties of the people are in danger. When such individuals, or classes of men, find that their claims and pretensions cannot stand before a free criticism, they will spare no effort to impose silence upon the organs of public opinion; they will use force, if argument is of no avail. They will endeavor to concentrate all political power in their hands, and use it as a machinery for the promotion of their own selfish ends, and as a safeguard of their own particular interests. They will resort to usurpation, when, by constitutional means, they can exercise no absolute control.

In States which are ruled by absolute monarchs, the public press is manacled for no other reason than that absolutism and its excrescences cannot stand before the free criticism of public opinion, and that, if press and speech were let free to-day, there would be a death-struggle between public opinion and the absolute power to-morrow, which would result either in the complete overthrow of the latter, or complete re-enslavement of the former. But it is not essential that this powerful and dangerous interest should have monarchical aspirations; if it be an aristocracy, or an association of great merchants or planters, or, in general, a class of persons who have common interests which are inconsistent with the natural rights of man, and who deem them superior to all other considerations, and are determined to defend them, the tendency and the ultimate result will be the same. To such an interest the people will have to submit, or against such an interest the people will have to fight. There will be a struggle, and there must be a victory. [Applause.] Is this applicable to slavery and the slaveholders? A rapid glance at the political development of this country will answer that question.

In the slaveholding States all political life is shaped by the ruling interest. While the people of the South profess the principle of equality, one class of citizens is accustomed to rule, and the other to obey (mark, I am speaking of the whites, not of the slaves), and the whole machinery of government, even to the smallest functions, is in the hands or under the control of the slaveholding aristocracy. While they profess the principle of political liberty, you dare neither speak nor write a word against the peculiar institution. While they claim to be freemen, they have fettered the hands of the people with the most odious police regulations, dictated by the instinctive fears common to all tyrants. While they claim to be an enlightened people, they do not suffer the great leading ideas of the age to be taught in their schools and colleges, for fear they might engender a thought against slavery. While they claim to be a religious and moral people, they address even their prayers to no other God than the black God of slavery. While they pretend to be a patriotic people, they have sacrificed to slavery the liberties of speech and of the press; sacrificed even the liberty of conscience; sacrificed the welfare of the non-slaveholding whites; sacrificed the prosperity and prospects of their own States; sacrificed the peace of the Republic. [Applause.] And they will tell you as often as you want to hear it, that they stand ready to sacrifice to the preservation of slavery the Union of these States, and the last remnant of their liberties and republican institutions. Nobody can deny it, in the South slavery overrules everything else; slavery rules in all. [Applause.]

And what about the North? Look at the party in power. It considered the Missouri Compromise a sacred compact as long as it served to augment the number of Slave States. It advocated the extension of the Missouri line to the Pacific Ocean, when, by that extension, a large territory might be acquired for slavery. It became suddenly convinced of the unconstitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and repealed it, when that compact was to augment the number of the Free States. It changed the face of popular sovereignty ten times, according to the pleasure of the slaveholders. It considered the population of Kansas numerically sufficient to form a Slave State, but sadly insufficient to form a Free State. It lavishes, with unheard of profligacy, the money of the people for the benefit of the slaveholding interest, and treats the commercial interests of the free North with contempt. It applauds the most flagrant violations of the ballot-box, the most daring usurpations of power, when they serve the interests of slavery. [Cheers.] And how are all these amazing things effected? Look at the interior organization of that party. No kingdom, no hierarchy is ruled by a more absolute despotism than that party is ruled by its leaders. As I have shown, their principles are shaped and remodelled according to the arbitrary pleasure of the South, and the masses have but to obey, and they do obey. They are watched and dogged like a flock of sheep, turned out to pasture to-day, in order to be fleeced to-morrow. Look at the executor of John C. Calhoun's last will in the White House, who, like an oriental despot, hurls his anathemas and political death-warrants where he cannot debauch the conscience of a man with a bribe. All his power and patronage he has transformed into a vast machine of corruption in the service of slavery. Cast your eye wherever you will, nothing but party despotism, nothing but the fiercest oppression of moral independence, nothing but corruption organized into a system, and all this in the service of slavery. Will you deny it? Even in the North slavery struggles to rule it all. [Great applause.]

Where are we drifting? I will not dwell on our perverted commercial policy, nor on the question of internal improvements, and the like. I point out to you the general antagonism in which our political development is entangled.

I have often been told that the slaveholders are right in restricting the liberties of speech and of the press, etc., on the subject of slavery; for those liberties unrestrained would be a real danger to them. No doubt they would be a danger, but there is no more crushing argument against slavery than this, no more conclusive proof of its entire incompatibility with true democracy. When an institution in society cannot stand before the tribunal of free speech and free press, the question arises, shall we sacrifice our liberties to that institution, or that institution to our liberties. [Cheers.] I hold that no interest which is incompatible with a free expression of public opinion, can have a right to exist in a democratic organization of society. [Great applause.] And if it does exist, it will be like a chronic disease, or like an ulcer lying underneath the skin, which will leave no rest or comfort to the body politic, until it is finally extirpated and extinct. [Cheers.] It is vain to palliate the disease by artificial means. It will break forth again and again with increased fury, and will urge on and on to a final crisis. Aye, sir, your standard-bearer is right, in spite of Douglas's sophistries. “A house that is divided against itself cannot stand.” [Loud cheers.] It cannot stand! It must fall, unless it cease to be divided. [Continued applause.] By the inexorable, uncompromising logic of things, we must go either one way or the other; not as Mr. Douglas tries to make you believe, make all States slave or free by force of arms; but we must either abandon the principle of equal rights, even among white men, and adapt the whole development of our political organization to the paramount interests of a privileged class of slaveholders; put the liberties of speech and press at the mercy of the ruling power, and sacrifice our democratic system of government to the aristocratic and despotic tendencies of the slaveholding system throughout, or we must break the political power of slavery in our national concerns, and return to the original principles on which this Republic was founded. In one word, we must formally recognize slavery as the ruling interest in our national policy, or we must deny it the recognition of any national right, and confine it to a merely local existence under positive State legislation. [Cheers.] This is the alternative.

Now, quibble as you will; devise side issues and subterfuges; invent palliative remedies; delude others and delude yourselves with fictitious compromises: this alternative will again and again push away all your plausibilities and sophistries, and say to you with the stern voice of inexorable fate: “Here am I! You have not seen me, perhaps, but here I am.” [Cheers.]

And now, there comes a man, like Mr. Douglas, who ought to understand the signs of the times, and gives it as his opinion that slavery and democracy, having lived side by side these eighty years, may live on thus, and he does not see the incompatibility. Indeed! he does not see it! The same man, who once, in the name of the slaveholders, cried out to the champions of freedom in the Senate: “We will subdue you.” He does not see that somebody and something must be subdued! [Applause.] A blind man does not see the sun, and yet it shines. A deaf man does not hear the thunder of heaven, and yet he will feel the bolt of lightning when it strikes him down. [Repeated applause.] Aye, sir, slavery and democracy did live side by side these eighty years. But how did they live? Like two combatants that held each other by the throat, each watching his chance to strangle the other. [Cheers.]

Has Mr. Douglas seen or heard nothing of the din or clamor of that battle which has raged, with but short and apparent intermissions, since that time when the ruling parties of this Republic deviated from the original policy of the Revolutionary Fathers, to confine slavery within the narrowest limits, and to promote its gradual abolition by local legislation? Does he know nothing of the ridiculous failures of all the compromises that were called final settlements? May-be, he is not so blind; but what he sees, perhaps, does not suit him. [Cheers.] The conflict between slavery and democracy might have long ago been settled in the spirit of the Revolutionary times. But it was not; and it springs up in its true aspect, when Missouri claims admission as a Slave State. It is represented to be finally settled by the Missouri Compromise. And there it is again, lurking under the tariff question. It assumes threatening dimensions in the question of the annexation of Texas and the territories acquired from Mexico. It is again said to be finally settled by the compromise of 1850. But there it rises again, more terrible than ever, in the Nebraska Bill. Mr. Douglas then claims to have finally settled it by introducing his principle of squatter sovereignty. But streams of blood and smouldering ruins in Kansas give him the lie. [Cheers.] Then Mr. Buchanan's election was to settle it. But the poor old man has hardly set his foot in the White House, when the slavery question steps forth in unheard of turpitude from the hand of Judge Taney. There it is! It is like Banquo's ghost, which rises from the ground again and again, shakes its bloody locks, and sits down at the very head of the banquet table. [Great applause.]

And there are some simpletons crying “Peace, peace! stop agitation!” Who agitates it? Who agitated it in 1820, but those who wanted to extend slavery in the free West? Who agitated it when Texas was to be annexed, but those who wanted to give to slavery an unlimited domain in the South and South-west? 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. [Continued applause.] And still some simpletons are crying “Stop agitation!” Where will you begin? Where will you end? Stop agitation! The President of the United States makes not the most trifling appointment, or the slavery question is touched upon in the Cabinet. Congress hardly makes the most inconsiderate appropriation without considering matters from this point of view, and it is agitated! No legislative assembly in any of the States ever adjourns without discussing slavery in some way, and it is agitated. Aye, the smallest log-hamlet in the West hardly elects a constable without considering what the man's views on the subject of slavery are, and it is agitated. And now, stop agitation and cry peace, peace! There is, and there will be, war in the Cabinet of the President—war in both houses of Congress—war in every State Legislature—war in the smallest log-hamlet in the West; aye, war in every heart, until the all-absorbing conflict is settled. [Loud cheers.]

But now we stand before that awful, perplexing question: How is that conflict of contradictory principles to be appeased? How is the slavery question to be settled? There are, indeed, some persons, Democrats, affecting to be philosophers, who reason thus: “Let slavery spread wherever the slaveholders wish to carry it; let it conform the laws of the land to its principles, and adapt them to the sole purpose of its protection, nevertheless time, the natural process of development, and the spirit of the age, will do away with it.” Ah! time and the spirit of the age may do wonderful things. They have even laid the Atlantic Cable; but, by the by, it required Cyrus W. Field to start the movement, and keep it going, Mr. Everett to superintend the machinery, and Captain Hudson to steer the Niagara. Aye, sir, do those men who reason thus know what the spirit of the age and the natural process of development mean? I will tell you the word—it is action, action and action again! [Cheers.] I wonder whether those philosophers have ever looked into the history of the world. They would have learned there, how time, and the natural process of development, and the spirit of the age did away with the feudal system of society in Western Europe. What was that process of development, that spirit of the age, then? It is now commonly called the French Revolution. It was the sublimest phrenzy, and the bloodiest madness, of a people. It was the destruction of the Bastile. It was the decapitation of a king and of thousands of his adherents. It was the banishment of the whole nobility and the refractory priesthood. It was a sea of blood; it was twenty years of universal war; it was more terrible than an earthquake. [Cheers.] Have our philosophers a particular liking to that kind of natural process of development and spirit of the age? But as true as the sun will rise to-morrow, they will have the full benefit of it, if their policy, unfortunately for themselves, should prevail. [Repeated applause.]

There is but one way of avoiding forcible revolutions, and that is by beginning a course of progressive reforms in time. When that season of absolute necessity may arrive, is certainly difficult to determine, but reforms will rarely be commenced too soon, and it may very soon be too late. Are the advocates of slavery sure that this “too late” is still very far off? Let them beware! If the people of the United States follow their advice, I see that kind of “process of development” advancing towards us with the steady step of Fate. I see a time drawing near when those irreconcilable contradictions will break out in a crisis more violent than any we have seen yet, and will envelop slavery, and union, and progress, and prosperity, in the flames of a universal conflagration. [Cheers.]

But now, methinks, I see Mr. Douglas standing there, with a broad smile on his face, and I hear him say with that refinement of style with which that great man endeavors to maintain the dignity of a United States Senator: “These predictions are all gammon. Haven't we got my great principle?” [Loud laughter and cheers.] Popular sovereignty! Was not popular sovereignty, according to Mr. Douglas, to appease the conflict, to remove the fight from the halls of Congress, to localize the struggle, to quell the excitement, to settle the slavery question forever? But how did it happen that the very enactment of that popular sovereignty, as embodied in the Nebraska Bill, was the signal for a new and spontaneous outburst of hostilities? How was it possible that this very remedy should fan the lingering strife into a new flame? 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 civil- ized—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. [Cheers.] It will no longer do to say that all this disturbance was owing to the obstinacy of a few abolitionists. The cause of all this lies deeper. It is this: