Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/223

Rh interests of their subjects from utter ruin by putting an end to the useless strife, either by way of diplomatic intercession or by aiding the party to which their interests are most closely attached, and that therefore the recommendation of the Southern Confederacy and the breaking up of our blockade, as a first step in that direction, have become an urgent necessity. They may even represent it as an act of humanity and kindness to the people of the United States, to contribute to the conclusion of a strife which they think as useless as it is destructive.

And what will the Federal Government have to oppose to this plausible reasoning? A rupture of relations, which undoubtedly would be more disagreeable to us than to them? Fleets and armies, which so far have been hardly able to close some Southern ports and to protect the President from capture in his capital? The resentment of the American people, which has ceased to be formidable? There are in my opinion but two ways in which the overwhelming perplexities can be averted which a rupture with foreign Powers, added to our troubles at home, would inevitably bring upon us. The one consists in great and decisive military successes speedily accomplished, and the other in such measures and manifestations on the part of the Government as will place the war against the rebellious slave States upon a higher moral basis and thereby give us the control of public opinion in Europe. Whether we have any reason to expect the first I am, at so great a distance, unable to see; but it would, if we may judge by the experience of the past, appear at least very doubtful. As to the second I consider its effect certain, and here my statements, the results of my observation, stand above the level of mere conjecture.

While in the same measure as the struggle in the United States appeared as a mere political war on the part of the