Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/139

Rh spark of the humane philosophy of our age? One syllable in vindication of the outraged dignity of human nature? One word which might indicate a moral conviction that slavery is wrong? Not one!

But one thing he does tell you: “I do not care whether slavery be voted up or down.” There is then a human heart that does not care! Sir, look over this broad land, where the struggle has raged for years and years; and across the two oceans, around the globe, to the point where the far West meets the far East; over the teeming countries where the cradle of mankind stood; and over the workshops of civilization in Europe, and over those mysterious regions under the tropical sun, which have not emerged yet from the night of barbarism into the daylight of civilized life,—and then tell me how many hearts you find that do not tremble with mortal anguish or exultant joy as the scales of human freedom or human bondage go up or down? 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? But to-day, in the midst of the nineteenth century, in a Republic whose program was laid down in the Declaration of Independence, there comes a man to you, and tells you with cynical coolness that he does not care! And because he does not care, he claims the confidence of his countrymen and the highest honors of the Republic! Because he does not care, he pretends to be the representative statesman of the age!

Sir, I always thought that he can be no true statesman