Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/185

Rh respectable, and at the same time aspiring? But if by making the laborer intelligent, respectable, and aspiring, you attempt to force industrial enterprise, in a large measure, upon the slave States, do you not see that your system of slave labor must yield? To foster commerce and industry in the slave States, for the purpose of protecting slavery! Would it not be like letting the sunlight into a room which you want to keep dark? Hence, the slave States can never become commercially and industrially independent as long as they remain slave States. They will always be obliged to buy from others, and others will do their carrying-trade. At present they do their business with friends, who are united with them by the bonds of the Union. They speak of dissolving that Union; then, as now, they will be obliged to transact the same business with us, their nearest neighbors; for if they could do otherwise, they would have done so long ago. Would they prefer by the dissolution of the Union to make enemies of those on whom they will always be commercially and industrially dependent?

Thus, you see, the dissolution of the Union would in all points of dispute defeat the very objects for which the South might feel inclined to attempt it. It would effect just the contrary of what it was intended for, and, indeed, if there is a party that can logically and consistently advocate the dissolution of the Union, it is the party of extreme abolitionists who desire to extinguish slavery and to punish the South by a sudden and violent crisis. But as to the slave States, as long as they have sense enough to understand their interests and to appreciate their situation, they may thank their good fortune if they are suffered to stay in the Union with confederates who are, indeed, not willing to sacrifice their own principles and interests to slavery, but by the radiating influence of their own growth and energy will at least draw the