Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/222

188 separates democratic government from the attributes of arbitrary despotism. The incidents of the war, so unfavorable to our arms, could not fail to give weight and color to these representations.

It seems as if people of the North had set up pretensions, which they had neither the courage nor the power to sustain; and the failure of our first military operations was attributed by many to a lack of moral force in our cause. It cannot be denied that many, who earnestly sympathized with us at the beginning, were gradually led to doubt the possibility of subduing a people who are fighting for an independent national existence and whose all is staked upon the issue of the struggle.

And if opinions like these could gain ground among our natural friends, what have we to expect of those who secretly desire a permanent disruption of the Union? I do not know what assurances may have been given to the Government, but whatever they may be I am sanguine enough to suppose, that those Powers, which would find a vindication of their principles in the destruction of the American Republic, or whose commercial and manufacturing interests would be saved from incalculable embarrassments by a speedy termination of hostilities, will always adhere to their policy of neutrality, if the chances of the war should much longer appear doubtful. They may hesitate awhile, but it is in the very nature of things that they will soon think of acting as their interests command them to act.

Nor will they be at a loss to find arguments plausible enough to justify them in the eyes of the public. They will say, that the Confederate States have, on principle, a right to a separate national existence; that undeniable events have demonstrated the impossibility of reducing the South by force of arms; that it is their duty as Governments to protect the commercial and manufacturing